This was more than 10 years ago, just as the Nets were evolving into the team that would play in back-to-back NBA Finals, just as they were blossoming into a squad that was as fun to be around — and, presumably, to play on — as they were to watch.
Jason Collins had a big night — which, for him, a rookie on a team going places, meant maybe 10 points, maybe five or six rebounds, maybe playing some strong defense and occupying space in the paint. A bunch of us were around him at his stall inside the home locker room at the Meadowlands.
And his teammates, quite naturally, were giving him a hard time.
“Shoot his best side,” one of them said to the men with the cameras.
“Have you seen him? He doesn’t have a good side,” said another, to loud laughter.
And a third brought the house down, uproarious laughter from everyone — Collins included — by making a joke you might not technically call a gay slur, but one I certainly can’t reprint here. You’ll have to trust me on this: It wasn’t a hateful comment, wasn’t even especially blue.
It’s just not the kind of thing you’d likely say if you happened to know the person at whom you were directing it was a homosexual.
And this was the scene I kept remembering yesterday, after Sports Illustrated released its cover story, a first-person article by Collins, now a free agent after spending the season with the Celtics and Wizards, in which he became the first active American athlete in the four major sports to identify himself as gay.
“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay,” Collins writes in this week’s SI. “I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn’t the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, ‘I’m different.’ If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I’m raising my hand.”
For many of us, this echoed dozens of conversations we’ve had in our lifetimes in saloons, in restaurants, in living rooms, when a friend, sibling, roommate, cousin or co-worker thought enough of our friendship, our relationship, to tell us of their sexual orientation as a way of presenting a fuller picture of who they are.
These are usually awkward talks, mostly because the implied reason for having them is the friend/sibling/roommate/cousin fears even if they know you as well as they do, you might look differently at them. And some do. Maybe not as many in 2013 as when the talks occurred in 1973, but enough.
What Collins has done — and what those who will follow him will do — is challenge a clubhouse culture in which there has long been a presumption, however misguided, that they live in a strictly hetero world. And as much as we want to believe we are an evolved society — and much of it is — there is still a prevailing assumption of macho in locker rooms.
Much was made of the comment Dolphins receiver Mike Wallace made yesterday on Twitter. As with the joke in the Nets’ locker room those years ago, it was more simple-minded than offensive — “All these beautiful women in the world and guys wanna mess with other guys SMH” — but it absolutely captures the alpha-dog personality of locker rooms from junior high to the NFL to your local golf club.
Even if athletes will, over time, be hushed into keeping those opinions to themselves, it is a mindset that has been in place for an eternity and will stubbornly prevail for a while, even wordlessly. Collins’ revelation chips away at a few bricks. But it will take time. Probably more time than it should.
Still, there are signs. In recent years, two prominent sportswriter friends of mine — Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald, Chuck Culpepper of SportsOnEarth.com — have come out in columns they have written and the reaction generally has been warm and supportive, which is encouraging. They spend many of their working hours in locker rooms. Athletes have been encouraging. Colleagues, too. They may work along sports’ periphery, but they scraped away the first few pebbles.
Collins takes a chisel to the wall, and whoever comes next will have hammers. It’s still a long trip from off-hand jokes to full acceptance. Patience always comes before tolerance. Here’s hoping we have enough of both.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com