It's finally happened. An active athlete has come out publicly as being gay. I can't even begin to imagine how Jason Collins must be feeling right now but I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. He is not the first gay athlete but he is the first in a major sport to come out before retirement.
Collins does not have a contract at present but it is just a matter of time before he does and then it's up to him, the NBA and whichever franchise picks him up to decide how to deal with the many issues that have been discussed when debating this subject.
I do not envy Collins. Sports arenas can be harsh environments. It's difficult enough going to a rival teams city, into their arena and taking on the local team. Generally, visiting teams don't get the best of welcomes and there will always be players that get more abuse than the rest. LeBron James experienced this after his much criticised move to the Miami Heat. Teams were selling out their arenas weeks and months in advance for the simple reason that people wanted to abuse LeBron.
Unfortunately, Collins has now joined that band of players were he will be singled out for more abuse than his team mates. It's not right and the vast majority of fans will encourage and support him but everywhere he plays there will be a minority who will single him out. Getting abused by fans is never nice but it will be even worse for Collins as the taunts will be about something that is so personal to him. I would hope that any fans engaging in such activity will be dealt with in an appropriate manner.
The league need to be careful in how they deal with this. Obviously it is a huge issue as nobody has done this before and the media interest will be huge. However, the NBA need to find the correct balance between showing support to the player but also playing it down as being not that big a deal as they don't want other players to be put off by the media circus that follows.
Ultimately, what needs to happen is this is handled correctly and when it happens again it is handled just as well but with less media coverage. Eventually, down the line it should become a non issue and people's private lives can remain private.
Collins deserves a lot of credit and respect as by making this announcement he has made the lives of many other athletes slightly easier. Gay athletes has been a taboo subject for a long time but now when another athlete decides to announce his sexuality to the world it isn't quite as big an issue because Collins has already became the first person to do it.
The entertainment world has already dealt with this and now there is barely an eyelid lifted when an actor, musician or television personality announces that they are gay. Sports is at least twenty years behind the times in dealing with this but at least it has finally happened and hopefully others can take courage and strength from Collins and feel that they no longer have to hide their true identities.
People also need to be educated better. My own experience is that I never knew or met anyone who was gay until I began working at seventeen years old. I remember going out for a night with work colleagues. One of those colleagues was gay and she just happened to be celebrating her birthday. As it was her birthday she was deciding where we would go. She decided that she would like to go to one of the gay bars and I don't mind saying that I and a few of my colleagues were against the idea.
Eventually after much protest we went to the bar and got ourselves some beers. We took the beers into a quiet corner and sat there afraid to move or speak to anyone. After a while the need for the toilet kicked in but we were all afraid to go on our own. Looking back now it's quite funny as whilst we were unquestionably fine looking young men we didn't have women throwing themselves at us so quite why we felt we couldn't go to the toilet without being attacked by a lust filled male is a mystery.
As the night went on we became more relaxed and finished the evening with a rousing rendition of New York, New York right in the middle of everyone. It was a great night out and we would become regulars at the bar, sometimes even without our colleague.
Sports needs to play it's part in educating the fans. Perhaps the NBA and the other leading sports bodies can front some sort of campaign. Sport has faced similar issues before with players being abused because of race, nationality and religion. Whilst those issues aren't 100% resolved in all corners of the world, there has been a lot of progress made.
The sooner society starts to look a bit deeper than someone's colour, religion or sexuality the better. As a sports fan I want to see the best athletes in the world playing to the best of their potential and I'm not sure an athlete can be at their best when hiding such a huge part of their lives.
When I'm watching my favourite sports stars I'm watching them because of the things they are doing on the field/court. It makes no difference to me whether the person they love and chose to spend their lives with is called John or Janet and the sooner this becomes the normal thought process the better things will be.
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