Amidst Fanfare, NBA Player Announces He’s Gay

'I'm Gay': NBA Player Jason Collins Breaks Barrier (ABC News)

Last summer, NBA veteran Jason Collins considered joining an old Stanford college roommate, U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, at Boston's gay pride parade.

Collins eventually decided he shouldn't, because he wanted to keep his secret safe: For more than a decade as a professional athlete, he had remained silent about his sexuality, worried about what teammates, opponents, fans — the world, really — might think.

Then came the Boston Marathon bombings two weeks ago, which Collins says "reinforced the notion that I shouldn't wait for the circumstances of my coming out to be perfect. Things can change in an instant, so why not live truthfully?"

So after having, he explains, "endured years of misery and gone to enormous lengths to live a lie," Collins became the first active player in one of the four major U.S. pro sports leagues to come out as gay. He wrote a first-person article posted Monday on Sports Illustrated's website that begins: "I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay."