A thank-you letter to Jason Collins, the first ope...
Key takeaways
- Thank you, Jason Collins, for being large -- large of spirit, large of import, but also large of physical stature.
- Thank you for making life that much more breathable for people like myself.
- By the time of your heartbreaking death at 47 on Tuesday, five months after a diagnosis of a brain cancer, 50 weeks since marrying your longtime other half, you had fashioned a philosophy for coping with the brickbats.
Why this matters: a sports story that could shift standings, legacies, or fan conversations.
Thank you, Jason Collins, for being large -- large of spirit, large of import, but also large of physical stature. That itself helped. It helped reinforce that gay people, an immutable portion of nature, breathe and thrive most everywhere, even in the merciless zones beneath NBA baskets among bruising collisions and untoward elbows and immovable giants.
Thank you for much more, of course. Thank you for making life that much more breathable for people like myself. Thank you for a coming-out in 2013 bold enough that it approached "Heated Rivalry" level and earnest enough to epitomize dignity. Thank you for returning to the NBA for a while after that, for navigating the fearsome blast of noise in a country whose foremost knacks include loudness. And then, thank you for taking all the barbs you heard or saw or felt across the ensuing 13 years, for your genuine goodness in gliding above them (a feat even at 7 feet), for your steadfast awareness that the alleluias outnumbered them.
By the time of your heartbreaking death at 47 on Tuesday, five months after a diagnosis of a brain cancer, 50 weeks since marrying your longtime other half, you had fashioned a philosophy for coping with the brickbats. I know because you explained it to me the only time we met, for an interview in April 2025 at a West Los Angeles golf course where the 405 whirred below and Jim Brown used to frequent like some topographical formation. You said, "I got some great advice from Judy Shepard, Matthew Shepard's mom. And she said, 'You just keep living your life, you keep thriving, and that will be the way to sort of' [surmount] -- I think you're always going to have that component, I guess we'll call them the 'haters.' Another friend of mine gave me some advice: 'Don't feel like you need to address every single hater.'" It could end up, you said, like "Whac-a-Mole."