I first met Jason Collins in June 2014, in Portland, over a dinner set up by Nike when they hosted the LGBT Sports Summit.
Jason had made history the year before by coming out while playing in the NBA. By the time I met him, he had been publicly “out” for over a year already, had marshaled numerous Gay Pride parades and received countless awards from basically every LGBT organization you could think of.
He had achieved a level of fame, especially within the LGBT community, where I naturally assumed he would be self-important and standoffish given how much attention he was receiving everywhere he went.
I was wrong.
The man I discovered was one of the most down-to-earth people I have ever met. Over dinner, I found out that we both grew up in Southern California around the same time and that he was a high school classmate of my first boyfriend from college.
We also shared a passion for tennis, as he had just joined the local LGBT tennis league and loved watching and playing the sport.
I told him about the photo project I had been working on for over a decade, photographing “out” LGBT student athletes from the U.S. and Canada, and he was genuinely interested in my artwork, activism, and what I was doing for inclusion in sports.
Jason Collins joined LGBTQ sports advocates Chris Mosier, Jeff Sheng, Kirk Walker, an LGBTQ advocate and Billy Bean at the LGBTQ Sports Summit and Portland Pride Parade. Photo courtesy of Jeff Sheng | Photo courtesy of Jeff Sheng
Unlike so many other “gay famous” celebrities, he didn’t let any of it get to his head, and I saw how he not only treated me with this level of humility and mutual respect, but also everyone else with whom he interacted.
We stayed in touch, and in late 2014 I asked Jason if he would be willing to write the afterword to my photography book, “Fearless: Portraits of LGBT Student Athletes,” which was about to be published the following year.
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He said yes. To my joy and surprise.
Not only would he write it, but he also went back to his high school library to find photos of himself, from when he was a student-athlete, that I could include with his text. He then asked if there was anything I wanted him to say, and I just said write something from your heart.
His words celebrating these athletes still moves me, over 10 years later:
“There is nothing more beautiful than a person living their authentic life… Coming out is one of the bravest actions that a person can take. The fact that these individuals are so young, still in high school and college, makes their decision to step forward even more remarkable. It gives us hope and makes us proud to see the next generation boldly embracing their true selves at such a young age.”
Instead of using the afterword to write about himself, about how he had been able to come out in the NBA, he shined the attention on the bravery of these young people.
The afterword he chose to write was not about his actions, but it celebrated others who had also “come out” in sports, though at a younger age and at a time in one’s life – high school and college – where the risk of being LGBT was just as severe or worse.
In 2016, the summer after “Fearless” was released, Jason and I both happened to be in Washington, D.C., at the same time during the Citi Open tennis tournament.
To congratulate me on finishing the book, he surprised me and got me a ticket to join him at the tournament one night, because he knew how much I loved watching tennis.
I never paid him anything to write the afterword, nor did he ever ask. And instead of me thanking him with tickets to a pro tennis tournament, he gifted me tickets instead to celebrate my accomplishments with getting the book done, even though he had a major part in its success by writing such a powerful afterword.
Jason’s selflessness and ability to lift others up is something I will always cherish about him as a person, and his legacy and impact on LGBT inclusion in sports have truly changed things in ways that are impossible to measure.
I cannot imagine someone who is a better role model for those in our community, whose life impacted everyone around him so much, and I will miss him dearly.
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