Defining Moments with OZY: Jason Collins (Full Episode) • A Hulu Original Documentary

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♪ soft instrumental music playi♪
JASON COLLINS: "I wish I wasn't the kid in the classrom
"raising his hand and saying, 'I'm different.'
"If I had my way, someone else would have done this.
Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand."
- With Jason coming out, what would it mean for our fami?
How would it be received?
- Jason wanted to do it on his .
JASON: "Some people insist they've never met a gay person.
"But three degrees of Jason Collins dictates
that no NBA player can claim that anymore."
TERI JACKSON: Let's be honest. There's homoph.
It's alive and well.
PAUL COLLINS: We were worried about his safet.
His fans can be very tough.
JASON: "No one wants to live in fear.
"Some of us know and accept our sexuality right away,
"and some need more time to coo.
I should know. I baked for 33 y"
[crowd cheering]
CARLOS WATSON: The most extraordinary lives
follow undefined paths.
To find your voice, you may need to journey into th.
I'm Carlos Watson, editor of OZ,
and these are Defining Moments.
♪
[knocking]
- Hey, Jason. Carlos. - How's it going? Hey, Carlos.
- Nice to meet you. Pleasure. - Welcome, welcome.
- Thank you for having me at yo. - Yes. Come on in.
- Oh, man.
What is this here?
- This is, when my nieces and ns come over,
I'll play chess with them. Just trying to teach 'em strate.
- Huh. - And I'll show you...
uh, this picture here. The fami.
My parents, my brother, his wif.
CARLOS: How tall are your paren? - My dad is 6'4", and my mom is.
When we were in the third grade, we were 5'3".
We were taller than our third grade teacher.
We were 6'4" in the seventh gra.
We got our first recruiting let, uh, when we were in the eighth .
CARLOS: Who did you get the letters fro?
- The first recruiting letter wt was from Cal Berkeley.
Grew up here, Southern Californ. Los Angeles, San Fernando Valle.
1978, we were born. Twins. I was the first.
- They must have been about 13 or 14 months old,
and we were in San Francisco.
Jason had his binky in his mout.
And he pulled out one binky for,
and he pulled out the second bi, and went over
and threw it in Jarron's mouth.
I got a binky, you got a binky.
And that was basically how they reacted to each other.
TERI: Jason and Jarron, for all intents and purposes,
I felt they were my children.
Jason always exhibited a little bit more leadership.
As a child, Jason was the first to walk.
Jarron followed immediately aft.
PAUL COLLINS: I'd take the kids with me to our local gym.
Basketball was the one that they both enjoyed.
JARRON COLLINS: My brother and I grew up with t.
Those guys were all my idols.
And I just wanted to get out the and play with them.
Play against 'em.
PAUL: You could actually tell when they were like 13 or 14
that if they continued to improve and like that,
they'd have a great opportunity to play in the pros.
♪
JASON: We went to Harvard-Westlake, Southern Cali.
- It's one of the best academic institutions,
I'll say, in the United States.
PAUL: They became very popular with their classma.
- When we were growing up, my brother was probably
a little bit more introverted.
He was always a quiet guy.
Socially, I was probably a little bit more active.
JASON: I started realizing that I had different feelings
when my teammates would start tg about some of the girls in the ,
and that wasn't me.
Most young men will have crushes on some of their teachers.
Some of the cuter teachers. Female teachers.
I had a crush on our cute teach.
He just happened to be a guy.
Anytime, whether it was Jarron or one of my teammates
and the conversation about girl,
I would just try to either play,
and, like, laugh and smile,
or I would try to remove myself from the situation.
I grew up in the culture of spo,
and you're taught as a little b,
these are words that you can use to put people down,
and a lot of those words are homophobic words.
I don't want them to ever talk about me that way,
so let me see if I can try to b.
Maybe I'll find some girl who'sa make all these feelings go away.
Maybe there's still time for me to figure this out,
and end up being straight, kind.
CARLOS: Did you come out to any friends, or any family?
JASON: No. It was difficult
growing up in a very religious .
JARRON: Religion played an important part in our life.
It all goes back to our, our gr.
- Bacca was a force in and of h.
She was raised under Jim Crow l.
African-American culture has a l of pain and silence.
JASON: Every Sunday, you, you knew where to find her, in .
- So strict discipline in the h.
- Strict discipline. Very relig.
I was actually a Sunday school .
When I was in high school, I wod teach Sunday school to the litt.
But I reached a point where I got upset with religion.
My Uncle Mark here,
he is the first person in our family to come out as ga.
- When did he do that?
- He did that when I was around 16 years old.
Some of my dad's family members weren't as supportive.
I got upset with how people were using religion to separate,
and to point at a certain group,
and say, they're the bad guys.
And if you don't do things this,
then you are a bad person.
My mom, who I love dearly,
some of the stuff that she said.
She was one of those people who said things
that I'm sure she wishes she could take back.
CARLOS: Did that talk in any way, furth,
uh, your resistance to, to bein?
- I think it was more about me ,
trying to be the perfect son.
- Why'd you want to be a perfec?
- I saw how much my parents sacd
so that we could achieve our dr.
And I didn't want them to feel that their sacrifice...
wasn't appreciated,
and that I couldn't sacrifice something of myself.
So I sort of took a step back from religion, from my faith.
And, okay, was just, okay, just focus on other stuff.
Focus on basketball. Focus on my education.
Here's the diploma. CARLOS: Yeah.
- So people ask, they're like, "Did you graduate?" It's like, "
CARLOS: Now was Stanford always the dream, or did that--
JASON: No. It was getting a Division 1 scholarship, was t.
So we busted our butts. [laughs]
And we were able to pick and che which school we wanted to go to,
and Stanford was that school.
CARLOS: Did you think you were gonna make it to the N?
JASON: I always thought, like, if you keep working hard,
that you will make it.
If you're on this track, if you're at this level,
if you keep putting in the effo,
and try to do things the right ,
that you will make it to the NB.
♪ soft instrumental music playi♪
ARN TELLUM: I first caught wind of Jason
probably when he was in high scl playing at Harvard-Westlake.
They had won the state champion, I believe, two times.
Then when he went on to Stanfor,
as an agent, I paid a closer attention to hi.
Jason went solidly in the firstd as the 18th pick.
It was the beginning of his car.
[crowd cheering]
♪ upbeat music playing ♪
CARLOS: You come into the NBA
and you immediately go to a team
that starts competing for the championship.
- Yeah.
- Are you comfortable in the NBA out of the gate?
- I am, because when I was with the Nets in 2001,
it was in New Jersey, playing in the Meadowlands.
That first year, you're a rooki, and you're learning so much,
and you really don't know that t to the finals, that's not norma.
Usually it's a struggle, and to get out of the gate
and go to the finals the first ,
and have so much success, it was really cool.
CARLOS: While you were in the closet,
did you find yourself struggling either with depression,
or loneliness, or both?
JASON: All of the above.
I was hiding who I was.
I was afraid to be open,
and around, whether it's media, or my teammates.
I'd keep 'em close, but not too.
When we were on the road,
I would go to my room and just shut the door,
and just, "Okay, I'll see you at the team"
JARRON: When I was in the Western Confe,
I was in Utah, he was way out in New Jersey.
The way we'd communicate to another is, like,
"Hey, Jason, are you lonely?"
It just, and those words just never came out.
And we didn't, we didn't, we didn't have those type of in.
TERI: And I remember after a game,
when all the players came out and they were with their girlfr.
And he came out to see me,
and my heart broke.
'Cause he had no one in that fa.
I just said, "Oh, my God. He's "
And that was really painful to .
[crowd roaring]
CARLOS: Being an NBA player,
how did being in the closet affect your play on the court?
- I never wanted to be the lead.
Because I knew that that was a n that the media looked to the mo.
Because then I didn't want those questions of,
"Why is he still single over 30" kind of thing.
I knew that I could be a different person on the court.
I sort of had that persona of the tough guy.
- He was the enforcer when we played basketball.
He was the guy who set the hard, set the hard foul.
JASON: Everything about being in the c,
all of that anger, stress,
when I stepped on the lines of a basketball court,
I got to take it out on somebod. [whistle blows]
ANNOUNCER: Ooh, hard foul by Jason Collins,
and Thomas hits the deck hard.
CARLOS: In an effort to mask his truth,
Jason assumed a different persoa on the court.
But off the court, Jason would e that only deepened his inner co.
JASON: So I started dating a, a girl from Stanford,
and kept telling myself that
this is the path that you're supposed to be on.
You're supposed to date women. You're supposed to get married.
PORTIA COLLINS: Jason met Carolyn Moos,
and all I could see was she was a lot of legs
and a lot of height and a very nice person.
JARRON: I knew that they, uh, were dati,
but, um, think I was just a little surprised,
'cause I didn't know that their relationship was progressg to that point,
that they were gonna be, um, together, um,
man and wife. [chuckles]
PAUL: We were happy for 'em, and exci,
and started doing some of the...
PORTIA: The planning. - ...you know, pre-planning and.
- I was looking forward to gran. [laughing]
CARLOS: Did you love her?
- Yes. I, I, I...
I respected her.
When you love someone, and you're a gay man loving a w,
you love someone up to a certai,
because you don't have those other feelings.
Thankfully, we were able to call off the wedding.
CARLOS: How did she respond to that?
JASON: It was a lot of tears. A lot of.
CARLOS: Did you tell her at the time wh?
- No. It was a different reason.
And she was right. Yes, there was something else g.
TERI: When he broke up with her,
I was calling him almost every . "We need to talk about this.
"There is a reason here.
Let's just put it on the table."
And I remember, he was kind of -
um, pulling back away from me, so then I just let it go.
JASON: After that experience,
I said to myself, I'm not doing that to anyone el.
Like, I'm not doing that to mys.
I'm not doing that to another w.
CARLOS: And you didn't even tell Jarron at the time
that that was why. - No. No one knew.
That ended in 2009,
and I didn't tell anyone that Iy
until 2011.
The lockout of 2011, when I didn't have basketball,
I didn't have that routine,
I didn't have the practice, the games, the travel. The...
That was all gone, so I had to , like, a different routine.
And I was telling people that I was going out on a date.
No. I was here with my dog.
This was the first time that I y held up a mirror to my life, an,
"I want more out of life."
So I made a friend who was a trr who was training me.
I saw that he did an It Gets Be.
- When you need it most, support will be there for you.
And, uh, acceptance. Encouragem.
And, uh, it does get better.
- So I knew that he was a, a member of the community.
I knew that he was gay.
So I knew that he would have an.
So I reached out to him through.
Uh, I did come out in the email.
Then about an hour later, I get a call from a friend of m,
who says that the lockout has b.
"Isn't it great? You're gonna go back to work?"
And I was like, that's great, but what the heck did I just do?
I just hit sent-- I sent out th, like, what is gonna happen?
Am I gonna see this email on SportsCenter?
CARLOS: So you send that email,
and an hour later, the lockout'. - Yeah.
- Do you think you would have stayed in the closet?
- Yeah. I, I would have just gone back to business as usual.
♪
I sent it on Saturday.
He didn't get back to me until Tuesday or Wednesday.
We ended up meeting in Brent wo.
I'm sitting there,
and that was the first time I ever said the words out loud,
"I am gay, and I don't know what I'm doing"
So he said that I need to start building a support system.
I reached out to my aunt the ne.
- Jason says, "Auntie, I have something to te"
I said, "What?" "I'm gay."
And I said, "I know."
And I said, "But how are the contracts goin"
And he said, "Did you hear what I said?
I said I'm gay, Auntie."
And I said, "Jason, I've known you've been .
And I'm proud and I'm happy that you're telling me."
JASON: My Uncle Mark was one of the pee
that I told over the summer, as.
They were the only two people w,
uh, for the 2011-2012 season.
That was when I was playing for the Atlanta Hawks.
- I said, you know, "You need to tell your parents."
And he said, "When I'm ready."
Portia and I are extremely clos.
So it was very hard for me not to say anything to Portia.
But I also was in this protecti,
okay, Jason, I'm going to let you tell them
when you think you're ready to .
- You still don't know, are you going to be accepted.
You still don't know what the reaction is gonna be,
and are they gonna look at you differently.
Are they gonna treat you differ.
'Cause you want things to be, you know, normal.
When I did come out to my mom, or to my parents,
we discussed that we needed to go to therapy together.
'Cause there was a lot of stuff that has happened
that we needed to talk about.
PORTIA: As his mother,
I wanted to know why wasn't I that first person.
What did I do to not create that safe place?
That it wouldn't be acceptable.
JASON: It did hurt her
that her son didn't feel comfortable enough to come to h.
I can remember 10 years ago, um,
being at family functions
and feeling like I wasn't able to be myself.
It was weird to be surrounded by your friends and family but..
not feel comfortable enough to..
say this is who I am, kind of thing, and...
Just think, 10 years ago,
I'm 31 years old. [laughs]
I would have never dreamed that something like this would..
would happen, like when we do these family events together.
To her credit, she has grown a t as a human being.
PORTIA: I would think Jason would probably say that
I have evolved to where I am now of being loving. Accepting.
JASON: I know that I'm very fortunate,
because I know when a lot of
LGBTQ people do come out,
there isn't that support for th.
Part of the reason why I chose jersey number 98
when I played for the Boston Ces
was because of this year,
because of the year that Matthew Shepard was taken from .
1998. I was a, a sophomore in c.
I just remember thinking Matthew was college age
when this happened to him.
Just thinking what two people co when they have hate in their he,
and how they can inflict pain and violence, and, and,
and they murdered him just for .
It was sort of hiding in plain ,
and just being one with the LGBTQ community,
and honoring Matthew.
I had a really cool system, um, and structure,
um, keeping me in, in a good mi.
I got traded from the Boston Ces
to the Washington Wizards, and then it became,
okay, you're going to a new cit. A new job.
When you go to a new city, a ne,
"Hey, what's-- Hi, I'm Jason."
"Oh, do you have a wife and kid"
"Are you married?" "Do you have a girlfriend?"
I just got tired of telling tha.
CARLOS: Jason finally took steps
towards living life on his own .
But as a professional athlete in the public eye,
Jason knew that as long as he remained closeted,
he would never be at ease.
ARN: First week of March, in 2013,
he breaks the news to me that h.
And I said, "Look, I'm here to u and support you any way I can."
And he said, well, he needed to- he wanted to think about
how he goes about telling peopl.
So Jason's question to me was, should he do it now?
And I, and I said, "I don't know if you should do .
"I gotta think about this.
"This is an awful lot to digest in one call.
"I need some time to think abou.
I'll come back to you quickly wh I think-- what's the right path"
♪
JASON: Arn said, "Let me think about t.
Let me come up with a plan, and I'll get back to you."
He thought about it, and he sai.
"Um, I think we should wait until after the season is over,
if you want to play next year," which is what I wanted to do
'cause I knew I was still, you , playing well enough to play in .
ARN: This was one of the last frontiers of macho soc.
If you want to be the first acty player playing in professional ,
the fear is, how would you be ad in the locker room by your team?
I wanted this to be totally in Jason's words.
I wanted no one else to filter . I wanted this to be Jason.
And I realized that to me was the most important thing.
This was his moment. He was gonna express it.
Then I started thinking about a.
And I had a very close friend,
uh, Franz Lidz, who I grew up wh in Philadelphia,
who was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated.
So much of my relationship withn was trusting me
to deliver something for him that would guarantee
his voice could be reflected and tell his story,
and I believed Franz could do t.
And he could also help Jason write a beautiful story
that would be heartfelt, and also capture who Jason was.
JASON: After the season was over,
playing for the Washington Wiza, that's the room right there,
where we had the, uh, conversat,
and it was around a three-hour, 45-minute interview.
ARN: I realized that if there ws anyone that was gonna do this,
and be the first, there's probably no better pers.
no better person than Jason to .
TERI: I know he wanted to go out on h.
He wanted to play as an openly y NBA player.
- Who did you not tell,
because you knew if you told thm it would get out?
JASON: Some of my teammates.
I didn't tell my teammates untiw the story was gonna go public.
"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center.
"I'm black, and I'm gay.
"I didn't set out to be the firt openly gay athlete
"playing in a major American te.
But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversa"
CARLOS: And what was the immediate reacn
once the Sports Illustrated arte came in?
- There were those haters out t.
There were some people even sent me death threats.
But support from the league was overwhelmingly positive.
ARN: There was a lot player reaction.
Kobe Bryant, who I'd signed out of high scho,
who came out and supported Jason Collins in a very strong ,
championing be who you are,
and not to be ashamed. Have the courage to do that,
and we should support Jason.
I was very proud of Kobe for do.
- I got back-to-back calls from Oprah and Obama.
President Obama gets on the pho,
he says, what you've done today will have a positive impact
on someone that you might not ever meet in your lifetime,
and that as Americans, that's what we all should striv.
And I just was, like, whoa. Tha.
CARLOS: How much were you thinking about social ?
- I don't know if I was necessay thinking about social impact.
I was thinking about, I really want to go on a date.
CARLOS: So, the first time you kissed a?
- The Sports Illustrated article came out on a Monday.
That Friday.
CARLOS: You literally had never kissed a boy before t?
- No. So the article came out M. That Friday.
Here's, uh, my boyfriend Brunso.
- Oh. How long have you guys, uh, been together?
- We celebrated six years in Oc.
CARLOS: Congratulations. JASON: Thank you.
BRUNSON GREEN: How is my [kisses] sourdough st?
- Yeah. Let's go see how your sourdough starter is doing.
[laughing]
Oh, that smells--
- Does it smell? It's supposed to smell bad. Tha.
- It's-- yeah, okay. It smells.
- Cool. - Mm.
BRUNSON GREEN: It's rough. JASON: Sourdough starter.
We're gonna do a birthday dinner for Valentina...
- Oh. - And me.
- Okay. - And you!
[laughing] - Yay. When?
- Uh, um, Monday.
CARLOS: You were not playing
at the time you came out. JASON: No.
No, I was a free agent.
- Did you know you were gonna get another gig?
- No. I didn't know that I was going to get another gig.
ARN: It wasn't easy after that annout
getting him a job.
It took us all the summer, and into the season.
But I have to say that
David Stern, for example, it wasn't just talk.
He was calling teams, was encouraging teams.
- My brother was done living in the closet. He was ov.
He'd been living in a glass houe
where all of us knew, and he just wanted the world to.
Was there any apprehension about getting another opportunity
to play in the NBA? Yes.
ARN: There was starting to be a little bit of interest.
Teams were calling about him,
and I started to feel that, uh,- that something could happen.
- I only got one opportunity. O.
The night before that Saturday,
Arn Tellum reached out to me, u,
saying that the Nets are gonna . They're on the road.
They're playing the Lakers toni. You're gonna be in the game.
♪
- Apropos, he started with the New Jersey Nets,
he finished his career with the Brooklyn Nets.
CARLOS: Were you ready to go?
- At that point in my career, I guess I'm kind of,
I like being thrown in the deep, kind of thing.
One thing that really helped me settle down...
was, um...
a conversation that I had with Kevin Garnett.
I was teammates with Kevin the year before in Boston.
He can get into the NBA Hall ofe
on trash-talking alone, let alone his playing ability.
But some of the words that he used were, uh, homophob.
When Kevin and I were sitting across from each other,
he tapped me on the arm and he ,
"Jason, I'm glad you're back in.
"I'm glad you're my teammate,
and this is gonna be huge for our country. For our sport."
It really did make me feel like I could breathe.
ANNOUNCER: Stepping into your Nets
for the very first time,
please welcome number 98,
Jason Collins.
JASON: That whole myth of,
it's gonna be a distraction. It's gonna like--
If anything, it brought the tea.
They felt like I was one of the brothers that they had to p.
CARLOS: How'd you feel when you would come out of a ga,
and you'd see your partner waiting for you in the family a?
JASON: That was the coolest thing.
Brunson being there, having your significant other
standing alongside everybody el,
that moment of not having to hi, it just...
You know, this is, you know, wh,
and we, we're just like everybo.
- When he came into the family , it was just a different Jason.
And I knew he was not going to be lonely anymore.
BRUNSON: I remember when I first met you,
you had just come out.
You looked like a deer in headls walking into this--
this housewarming party.
- Well, there, yeah. There was , a hundred gay people.
[laughs] - Right.
And you knew, like, a total of two gay people
in your life. - Yeah. It was, yeah.
- And then, it's just kind of fy that four months later,
we run into each other again, a-
and you were, like, so much more comfortable in you,
your size 17 shoes.
[laughing]
[kisses]
JASON: As a professional athlete, you ,
you tell yourself to play throu.
To keep, keep pushing, keep for.
I was 34, 35 at the time,
and playing, and I had a great .
I was, you know, 13 years in th.
But my body was telling me, "We.
Now it's time for me to like, s"
I went to an executive in the league office
and talked about what I thought I could bring to the table,
to the NBA, and there actually s a position that was created,
and so ever since then, I've been an "NBA Cares" ambass.
♪
I don't want anyone else to go through what I went throu,
as far as waiting 33 years to c.
A lot of the folks here have already come out,
whether in their private life o, and just celebrating that.
For me, it was different. I didt come out till I was 33 years ol.
[laughing] Don't look at me like that!
He gonna look at me like... yea.
From everyone at the NBA, WNBA,
from our family to yours,
we feel really connected to thi, uh, center,
and thank you so much for what . Thank you for having us here to.
PORTIA: When you came up to meet my mot,
she absolutely adored you.
JASON: Oh, I think that, yeah, you,
you learning to play bid whist-- [laughs]
- By the way, I'm 21 years in, and I won't even do it.
[laughing] I'm, like, sorry, no.
PORTIA: That, that was the... All the real...
That, that sealed the deal. JASON: Yeah.
PAUL: I'm happy that they're together.
They get to share their lives.
I can see how happy they are.
- I also feel as though
we are able to communicate a lot better to him.
I just want my children, I know I still do,
you know, to be accepted by eve, and loved.
- Jason has transformed by bein.
More confident about his life.
And that he can tell people and he has nothing to be ashame.
JASON: My brother and I, we do a baske,
I'll wear, um, either really br,
pride-themed shoes,
or just something that can signl to a kid that I'm accepting.
That there's someone else in th,
that if that child is looking f.
Am I the only one here? And it', oh, wait. I might not be the on.
"Pro-basketball is a family.
"And pretty much every family Iw
"has a brother, sister, or cousin who's gay.
"In the brotherhood of the NBA,
I just happen to be the one who"
- My brother moved the needle i,
and because I guarantee my brother's not the only
African-American gay athlete.
My brother showed them that it',
and that he made it easier for the next generation.
TERI: He's here to normalize,
not just sports, but society.
You're not gonna be judged by the color of your skin,
nor should you be judged by the person you love.
And that's what I think Jason's basic goal is.
MAN: Can you sign? WOMAN: Jason!
MAN: Jason! WOMAN: Please!
MAN: Jarron! [crowd yelling]
JASON: And I hope there are other peope
coming from that place of accep,
and inclusion.
This is who we are.
♪ soft piano music playing ♪