It was Monday, April 29, 2013, my brother’s birthday, and I was in the early days of one of the biggest assignments of my career in public relations.
I was tense and stressed. Then, I was distracted by a breaking news alert on my computer screen. I was in PR, so I got notifications from the media constantly, but this one was different.
Jason Collins, a center for the Washington Wizards finishing out the 2012–13 NBA season, had just become the first active male athlete in any of the four major North American professional sports leagues to publicly come out as gay.
He did it in a first-person cover story in Sports Illustrated, co-written with journalist Franz Lidz. I sat there and read every word with my mouth agape.
I’m a sports fanatic. I grew up in Pittsburgh, a city without an NBA team, but I found my way to basketball anyway, following the league more seriously after moving to New York City over 30 years ago. And, for many years, I worked out at the same gym and at the same time every morning with Knicks legend Walt Frazier. He’s a prince of a man.
I’ve probably seen every major documentary about basketball’s giants: Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West, Kobe Bryant, Bill Russell. So I immediately understood what Collins had done that spring Monday, how seismic it was, and how much courage it took.
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Collins wasn’t a Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain. Over 13 seasons with seven franchises, the Nets, Memphis, Minnesota, Atlanta, Boston, Washington and eventually Brooklyn, he averaged 3.6 points and 3.7 rebounds a game.
He was a 7-foot center valued for defense, toughness, and the kind of intangibles that never show up in a box score. After he came out, he wore No. 98 in honor of Matthew Shepard, whose death galvanized the fight for LGBTQ equality.
He was, in the most literal sense, a man who knew exactly what he was doing.
I thought about that later when I spoke with Rick Welts, who in 2011 became the first prominent openly gay executive in major American professional sports. Welts told me he traveled to Seattle to ask Bill Russell to speak to The New York Times on his behalf when his own coming-out story ran.
Russell, famously wary of interviews, didn’t hesitate. He was proud to stand by his friend. That story stuck with me because it was what I imagined Collins did too: moving forward with calm, clarity and the knowledge that you are doing something bigger than yourself.
Collins had that composure in abundance. A Stanford graduate, he was thoughtful, measured, unflappable. When his Sports Illustrated story ran, he wasn’t announcing a scandal. He was simply being honest.
“I’m 34 years old,” he wrote. “And I’m black. And I’m gay.”
After coming out, Collins spent the 2013–14 offseason unsigned. I remember being furious. It felt obvious that he wasn’t being signed because he was gay. I remember losing faith in the NBA.
Then, in February 2014, the Brooklyn Nets gave him a tryout and signed him to a 10-day contract. On Feb. 23, 2014, Collins took the court at Staples Center against the Lakers and made history again as the first openly gay active player to appear in a game in any of the four major men’s North American leagues.
He retired later that year after 13 seasons.
I followed his post-playing career and I watched the 2018 documentary “Alone in the Game,” which profiled Collins and other LGBTQ athletes. To me, he deserved that spotlight just as much as the all-time greats.
Leaving a void
Collins also left a void. There have been precious few who followed.
After Collins, it wasn’t until 2021 that another active player in a major American sports league publicly came out: Carl Nassib of the Las Vegas Raiders.
I spoke with Nassib too, and what struck me was the same thing that struck me about Collins: the deliberateness of it. These were not impulsive acts. These were men who understood exactly what they were stepping into and chose to step in anyway because they believed the world needed to see it.
Nassib retired in 2023. That leaves him, now that Jason Collins is gone, as the only openly gay athlete in any of America’s four major professional sports leagues to have come out while still an active player.
We have been graced by others who came out after retirement: baseball’s tragic Glenn Burke; the iconic Dave Kopay, who became the first professional athlete from a major team sport to come out in 1975. I spoke to him last year on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his coming out.
And there was the late Billy Bean, who gave so much to baseball and the LGBTQ sports community.
These men matter deeply. But Collins stood apart because he did it while the games were still being played.
On May 12, 2026, Jason Collins died of Stage 4 glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. He was 47 years old. He had just married his longtime partner, Brunson Green, in May 2025. Just last week, too ill to attend, he was honored with the inaugural Bill Walton Global Champion Award at the Green Sports Alliance Summit.
His twin brother, former NBA player Jarron Collins, accepted it for him, and summed up his sibling perfectly: “He’s the bravest, strongest man I’ve ever known,” Jarron said.
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