Former Celtics center Jason Collins (left) fouling Lakers center Dwight Howrd (right). (Courtesy of Businessinider.com)
Last week, NBA player Jason Collins admitted to being gay in an article published by Sports Illustrated, becoming the first active professional athlete to come out in the history of the four major sports in America.
Collins will certainly be heralded and scrutinized from both sides of the argument as he attempts to not only join a roster in the NBA, but will also look to carry on a normal life.
The trouble with Collins has nothing to do with his admittance of homosexuality, but rather his sudden rise to fame using his lifestyle as a means to convey it.
I am in no means trying to say Jason Collins is lying about being gay or that his intent was to gain a greater reputation simply by going to Sports Illustrated with the note.
What I am saying is now that Collins has made himself a figure head for equality in both society and sports, he has now put the pressure on the NBA to sign the 34 year old to a team that may not actually use him, just in order to showcase its progressiveness.
As a 14-year veteran, Collins has been a part of six out of 30 teams in the association, averaging a very pedestrian 3.6 points and 3.8 rebounds per game over that time frame.
Collins’ best years are definitely behind him, and few rosters need an aging center who’s production spiked almost a decade ago and have steadily gone down ever since. But the worst thing that a team could do would be signing him just for the spectacle.
The NBA is a league with very few profitable teams, but if it thinks for a second that parading Jason Collins through its stadiums will suddenly boost attendance in Memphis or Toronto, it may need to think for a while on what kind of message it’s trying to convey.
Many leagues try different ways to push its agenda for controversial issues. In Europe, many top-flight soccer leagues have taken such a strong anti-racism stance that they have been given permission by FIFA to cancel matches outright if any racist chants aimed at a player begin to erupt.
This raises the other issue involved with Collins: how the less educated and unruly fans of professional basketball will treat him if he is signed by another team.
I have no doubts that most of the world is intelligent enough in 2013 to not care about how a man or woman chooses to live their life, but sports fanatics are a different monster altogether.
On the fortunate side other stories, such as some networks daily beat down of Tim Tebow’s release from the New York Jets or the Los Angeles Lakers demise, have taken a backseat to this story. I believe we can all be grateful towards Collins for that.
This was definitely a necessary event to help the gay community move further along in hopes of total equality, but my wish is that a younger player with more to offer the league could’ve been the one.
Sometime in the near future, more players in all leagues will come out and no realistic fan of those teams will actually care about their sexual preferences, but until then we will squarely rely on Jason Collins.
