Out of the Locker Room’s Closet

Jason Collins came out today as the first openly gay active player on an American professional sports team. In an interview earlier today, LZ Granderson asserted that this revelation “isn’t that shocking” and I agree. It’s not shocking that gay professional athletes exist. But as a free agent, Collins’ bravery to live authentically has the potential to rewrite the professional sports script from here on out.

After I got over my own shock at the hateful, venomous comments some readers left before the comment feature was disabled, what got me thinking was not what this moment means right now, but what it means for the future.

Professional athletes incite an element of hero-worship in fans. Little kids paper their rooms with images of their favorite players and vie for autographs before games. Adolescents discover that all that dreaded math in school helps them understand a player’s stats. Grownups watching the game forget about big-people problems for a while.  We all share in the collective euphoria of a great win and die a thousand little deaths after a loss. The psychology of it all boils down to this: when athletes talk, we listen. Not only do we listen, but we also emulate. We use their phrases (That’s a clown-question, bro.), we buy their shoes (Air Jordans), and we get duped into wearing yellow bracelets. In short, we so admire them that we want to be them. That’s powerful stuff.

Now imagine if that power was used for good. Real good. Not just paying lip service to a disease or a foundation or a cause, but changing the way people think and what they believe. As someone who gets to peek behind the curtain of professional sports, I see this power in action. Players sign a jersey and tell a kid to eat her vegetables, then she runs back to mom, waving the signed jersey and begging for broccoli. An athlete’s message can be tremendously influential and that message should be about equality, fairness and acceptance.

I’m hopeful that all professional athletes use the power of their words and actions as bravely as Jason Collins did today so that who and how an athlete loves no longer merits a huge headline because it really is all about how you play the game.