The dimly lit ballroom was silent as the hulking presence of a 7-foot tall man passed the audience on the way to the podium. Jason Collins took a moment, adjusting the microphone to his colossal height, and then began his Martin Luther King Jr. Days of Dialogue (MLK DOD) keynote address.
Collins, a former NBA center and the first openly gay male athlete to play in any of the four major sports, spoke as the main feature of MLK DOD on Thursday to an audience of UW students, faculty and Laramie community members. His address encompassed a broad swath of his life, covering everything from his playing days to the process that surrounded his coming out.
Collins began with a discussion of his upbringing and close family ties, which he said were the foundation that allowed him to achieve athletic success and eventually come out as gay.
“You’ve got to have a strong support system around you. Going back to my experience, I first came out to a friend in Los Angeles and then my aunt when I was playing for the Atlanta Hawks,” Collins said. “It was so empowering to have that support system.”
Eventually Collins’ support system extended all the way to Laramie, a town that he tied himself to when selecting his jersey number, 98, to commemorate the year Matthew Shepard died, as well as the founding of the Trevor Project, a group that aims to prevent suicide in the LGBTQ community.
“In the summer of 2012, I signed with the Boston Celtics. For the majority of my career, I always had either jersey number 34 or 35, but Paul Pierce had 34, and 35 was retired,” Collins said. “I thought about, historically, are there any numbers that are important to the LGBT community?”
While playing for the Brooklyn Nets in 2014, Collins met Shepard’s parents, Judy and Dennis Shepard, following a game against the Denver Nuggets. The Shepard family quickly joined Collins’s circle. During the meeting he was trying to cope with hateful comments he received on Twitter. Judy Shepard offered guidance that stuck.
“Judy gave me the best advice,” Collins said with a laugh. “She just said, ‘Let the haters hate.’”
Collins said that selecting 98 was part of an effort to start taking pride in his identity as a gay man. These efforts eventually made Collins what he is today, a figurehead for LGBTQ rights in the sporting world.
Nicholas Jesse, an openly gay UW senior majoring in communications, believes that personifying gay athletes is an important step for the advancement of the LGBTQ society. “It is people like Jason Collins whom put a face to gay athletes,” Jesse said. “There are athletes here at UW I am sure that are scared to come out because of the discrimination they might face from their teammates or because of the homophobic language used in their locker rooms.”
Collins said that he hopes his story can serve as a discussion starter for people that might not normally contemplate LGBTQ rights.
“My story I think is a great jumping off point for people to have a conversation,” Collins said. “It’s not easy for two straight guys to have a conversation about LGBT issues. I get that, but it is very easy for two straight guys to have a conversation about sports.”
Collins believes that this kind of dialogue is how people’s minds eventually change. For Jesse, Thursday night’s dialogue was a way to relate.
“I could relate to the majority of his speech,” Jesse said. “I recall being an athlete in high school and being 100 percent uncomfortable just walking into a locker room. I was openly gay in high school, and I was always so nervous that I was going to be the target of derogatory slurs.”
Jesse also related to Collins’ description of the coming out process as one that never truly ends.
“Gay people are constantly coming out. We are never done,” Jesse said. “I definitely related to his fear of coming out to my family and also related to the fact that my family, like his, was very receptive of who I am as a person.”
Collins’ family was not the only ones that were receptive to his coming out. Celebrities, fellow athletes and even President Obama were quick to laud Collins emergence as a trailblazer for the LGBTQ community.
“The response was overwhelming,” he said.
Even though Collins is now established as an activist, he still lights up when conversation turns to his one true love: basketball. He is quick to discuss everything from his favorite NBA teammate, Jason Kidd, to the 2002 NBA Finals when he tried to defend a seemingly unstoppable Shaquille O’Neal.
“When Shaq was in his prime, his athleticism, his strength. It was like trying to move a wall, and every so often the wall would push back,” Collins said while shaking his head and laughing wistfully.
Collins remains a fan of the game today. His brother is an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors, so he follows the team avidly. He remains close to the game professionally as well, working for the NBA as an NBA Cares ambassador. This not Collins only prestigious position; he is also a member of President Obama’s Council on Fitness.
Much of Collins’ keynote address on Thursday night focused people in his life that served as a foundation from which he could achieve. In the end, what came across was how much of a foundation he himself laid for the LGBTQ community and human rights as a whole.
“If something is wrong,” Collins said at the conclusion of his speech, “it’s vital that we stand together and speak out.”
