First NBA player to come out-aWizard!

[Anonymous]

Jason Collins announces that he is gay in a really nicely written piece in SI today.
This makes me so happy- a brave man.

[jsteele]

Here is the article. It's worth a read:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/news/20130429/jason-collins-gay-nba-player/

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, he's a free agent. I hope he gets picked up by a team.

On a side note, I wish i had gone to Stanford and roomed with a Kennedy and been best buddies with Chelsea.

[Anonymous]

Great article. Impressive guy. I hope the Wizards keep him.

[Anonymous]

Finally the Wizards get first at something

But truthfully, this is great. Jason Collins is a bigger man, and has more courage than most. Good for him for being open about who he is - just one part of him of course, but open nonetheless.

[Anonymous]

I think what collins did was good, but what Martina did 32 years ago was more courageous given the era and her age. I hope the news this weeks brings a renewed appreciation for what she did.

She was 24, couple of slams under her belt but was going through a tough time on the court(getting dominated by the tennis princess who was beautiful, rich, straight, american...i.e. the poster child of everything 'right'...chris evert).....and then she came out....got dropped by the few sponsors she had...but i feel that let her be free mentally and express herself and I genuinely think if she never came out then, she would've never been as dominant as she became.

after she came out, she put together one of the most dominant careers ever in a sport....was spectacular.

I know comparing a white woman in an individual sport to a black dude in a team sport is different but in some ways it might be tougher because in a sport like tennis there is a lot less of a support network for you...not to mention coming out before the peak of your career.

I do think an 'all-star' calibre male will come out in the next 2-3 years in one of the major team sports and that will be really groundshaking because it'll be interesting to see how sponsors and teams deal with that and if sports is the truly one of the few egalitarian areas of our society that i think it is...i.e. if you produce it doesn't matter what your color, religion, politics, orientation, thoughts are.