Today, the New Jersey Nets signed forward Jason Collins to a 10-day contract. This marks the first ever openly-gay National Basketball Association (NBA) player.
Collins came out as a gay athlete a little under a year ago in May of 2013. He said this to Sports Illustrated: “I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay. I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, "I'm different." If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand,” according to Sports Illustrated.
When Collins made the news, he was a free agent, and remained a free agent until today as he becomes the first ever active gay athlete in major professional sports history, notes Yahoo Sports.
A huge key to this puzzle is Nets Head Coach Jason Kidd. The first year coach put together a hall of fame career as a player and played many seasons with Collins in New Jersey. Kidd knows what kind of veteran leadership Collins can bring to a locker room.
Collins has played parts of seven seasons with the Nets, so he is not walking in to a foreign world. Or is he? While his surroundings will be different in Brooklyn, (as opposed to New Jersey where the Nets used to reside) he will have a friend in Jason Kidd, and veteran leadership through Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.
The former Net comes home. It will be different for the 35 year old Collins this time around though as the media cannot get enough of this story (see NFL prospect Michael Sam). While Collins will just be a bench player who might see a couple minutes a game (at most), everything will be different.