NBA's 1st Openly Gay Player, Jason Collins Retires

 

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Jason Collins, was the first openly gay athlete in game of basketball played for the NBA's Brooklyn Nets last season, announced Wednesday his retirement from the league. The 35-year-old Collins made the announcement in a first-person story for Sports Illustrated. It's the same forum he used in April 2013 to publicly reveal his sexuality.  He announced his retirement after 13 years in the NBA.  

''It's time and I'm very much looking forward to the next steps,'' Collins said during a press conference Wednesday before the Brooklyn Nets played the Milwaukee Bucks.

He elected to officially announce his retirement Wednesday because he was in New York City for a Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative event, and it was Bucks head coach Jason Kidd's first game back in Brooklyn. "It just made perfect sense," he said. "The past 18-19 months have been incredible. I've grown so much as a human being." Kidd was Brooklyn's coach last season, and Collins singled him out for the "courage" he showed in bringing him on board. "It had been argued that no team would want to take on a player who was likely to attract a media circus from the outset and whose sexuality would be a distraction," Collins wrote. "I'm happy to have helped put those canards to rest."
Collins wore No. 98 during his final seasons in the league; 1998 was the year that Matthew Shepard, a gay college student in Wyoming, was killed. Collins said his most poignant moment came during his third game back last season, when he met Shepard's family in Denver. Following Collins' revelation, Missouri defensive end Michael Sam came out in February and was drafted by the NFL's St. Louis Rams. He was later cut by the Rams and was released from the Dallas Cowboys practice squad last month