"“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center,” his essay begins. “I’m black. And I’m gay.” Those words made my stomach sink. “I’m a 20-year-old sportswriter, “ I thought to myself. “I’m gay, too. But I’m too scared to come out.” Up until that point, I thought I could separate my sexuality from my life passion. Collins' announcement shattered that myth."
"For most of my life, I've known two things about myself: I'm gay and I love sports. Growing up in the Boston suburbs during the mid-2000s, sports were easier to lean into. So that's what I did. Except, my obsession didn't lie with playing the games. I wanted to cover them. I launched my own Red Sox podcast as a precocious pre-teen and gained some notoriety."
"Nearly a decade later, I hadn't yet achieved my dream of getting paid to cover sports. But I was close. I attended journalism school in Boston and was mere months away from starting my first internship with my favorite talk radio show. Always bored in class, I spent most of my school days scouring the web for story ideas. That's when I saw Jason Collins' historic Sports Illustrated cover."
A gay sports-obsessed college sophomore focuses on covering sports rather than playing them, building a Red Sox podcast and gaining early attention. Despite progress toward a journalism career, he feels unsettled when he sees Jason Collins’ Sports Illustrated cover and reads the opening lines: “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center,” “I’m black,” and “I’m gay.” The words trigger fear and self-recognition, as he realizes he is gay too but has not come out. He previously believed sexuality could be separated from his sports passion, but Collins’ announcement breaks that belief and forces a new understanding of identity.
Read at Queerty
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