A Quick Word About Jason Collins

The big news today is NBA player Jason Collins becoming the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. I covered Collins when he was a star basketball player at Harvard-Westlake school in Studio City.

He and his twin brother, Jarron, led their team to the CIF title the year I covered them and eventually went to Stanford. What I remember about Jason Collins was that he was polite and very. very quiet. This line from his article in Sports Illustrated today struck a chord with me.

“I’ve always been scared of saying the wrong thing,” Collins said.

I think he probably felt that way in high school too. One time he came to visit our offices to take a picture and I remember how he asked later if he could have a copy of the photo mailed to him.

It was a rare moment when he let his guard down and revealed a little bit of his personality. I was grateful he did. Now that he has come out, I hope he feels free to always speak his mind without reservation.

39 thoughts on “A Quick Word About Jason Collins

        • Thanks to the Collins Twins infamous dinner at Montys, the last championship basketball coach at fucla was fired, giving SC two decades to dominate Pac 12 hoops.

    • Looks like Jason might be a new recruit for the tree house club(cadre). Bucket got a woody when he heard this news

    • All in all, this comment thread stayed pretty mild, and most of the griping was from a couple of guys. I’m pleasantly surprised.

      • WEB, i counted seven homophobes, and if i didn’t make the “here it comes” comment it wouldda been worse!!

        you have pretty low standards for trOXans, and they failed even that test!!!!

        i do think they speak for most trOXans, so at least they keep it real!!!

        i wonder if the Pious Passer is ok with gay players given his religious fervor???

        • U now have jason to look up to. Time for charles bucket to come out of the closet too.

        • I do have pretty low expectations for the posts here, but I do not think that the regulars on these threads are a representative sample of actual USC students/alums. Most of my close friends went to SC, and I’m the only one who frequents this sleazy blog, let alone posts comments here.

          Homophobic remarks from a guy calling himself “Ben Doverz” need no further comment, but I do wonder whether anyone else notices Nobs’ sly anti-Semitic posts about bagels, etc. Why anyone would think of UCLA as somehow “more Jewish” than modern-day USC is a mystery to me. Similarly, the comments about UCLA fans being more liberal are also peculiar; almost everyone I know from my USC days is a Democrat.

          • well sounds like you hung around with the smart people at Southern Cal (i know some). although the Dummies on this blog would probably be considered intellectual dumbbells by Raider Nation, i do think most are actual trOXans, sorry to say.

            as i have said before not Republicans are bigots, but almost all bigots are Republican.

            anyone wanna bet who “turboweenie” (below) voted for president and why??

  1. The one time Wolf actually offers inside perspective and knowledgeable information, I’d actually like to give him credit.

  2. we should care because (1) this is a local kid, (2) we played against him, (3) it took some guts to come out and, most importantly, we should think about how supportive the Trojan Family, and this board, will be when one of our own comes out of the closet. I hope we will be more honorable than some of the comments we have have been seeing.

    • Amen Mark! Jason has a lot of courage to come out and I admire him for being willing to do so. While he of course went to Stanford, with this level of courage, he is an honorary Trojan. Fight On, Jason!

    • It took guts to say what the media have been clamouring for? ESPN has been begging for this for months. It takles guts to say that the personal life of a scrub NBA player at the end of a disappointing career is of no interest in the world of sports. This is narcissism at its worst.

  3. When are the jucla trolls coming out so we can tell them what heros they are too. This is not even news, bfd if he is gay, nobody really cares.

  4. A very good post, Scott. I give credit when it’s due. This showed insight, heart, and perspective.

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