Hero of The Day: Jason Collins

I know next to nothing about basketball. I mean, I know the rules for having played it a bit in high school, and I'm aware that in order to win, a team must score more points than its opponent, and that some baskets are worth 1 point, others 2, the trickiest farthest 3.

Like baseball, I stopped following the pros over a decade ago, so while I watched a lot of games involving Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and Larry Bird when I was younger, I haven't seen Kobe Bryant, or LeBron James or Dwayne Wade play.

I stopped caring when the Toronto Raptors came in, and when Shaquille O'Neal became a superstar. Not because of those events, but around the same time. I went from casual fan to not caring at all. So that's for context.

What changed? Not much. I likely won't watch a game any time soon, but my respect for its players has increased a tad now that Jason Collins has come out of the closet. For a while now, basketball players were up there with football players as athletes whose egos got so big they thought they were above the law: allegations of rape, selling drugs, gun violence, robberies, gang affiliations... the only ones who didn't get prison time settled out of court - not exactly a plea of ''not guilty''.

And yet, just when everybody was looking at the NFL for the first openly gay in the top-4 of North American pro team sports, in comes a basketball player to take a stand. We'll see where that gets him, though, because as of the end of the season, he'll be a free agent. His twin brother - Jarron Collins - became a free agent two seasons ago and never got hitched to a team; now teams would have an extra reason to exclude Jason if they had any inclination in that direction...

Speaking of Jarron, he was completely unaware of his brother's orientation. So much for twin telepathy!

Hopefully, this starts a chain reaction of coming out and acceptance, and we can get back to what really matters: the sports themselves. And when we focus on the athletes and try to figure out what type of person they are, we can assess how they treat those they get in bed with (i.e. 'not a rapist', 'doesn't cheat on his wife'), and not bother with their gender.

Come Out And Play

Two North American soccer players have come out of the closet in recent years, only to stop playing: the Montréal Impact's David Tiesto, and now 25-year old Robbie Rogers (Columbus Crew, Leeds United). That's right - he's retiring. From sports. At 25.

Why coward out and wait until your career's over, though? Especially athletes - they spend most of their lives being watched by crowds anyway, they should know how to handle pressure, know they have a shot at being role models. The more of them wait until it's over - and some even ending it prematurely - the more the message to people stepping into their footsteps is ''hide who you are 'cause it won't be accepted'', which in this day and age, is pretty dumb weak.

Some black soccer players still get taunted - some even get bananas thrown at them! - in Europe, and this type of situation just makes it seem like some ''irregular'' white guys are trying to make believe they'd get it as bad in this ''macho'' sports where players fake near-death injuries all the time - what's so macho about that?

Man up and be yourself, whether you prefer men or not, and don't waste your talent in its prime. As individuals, we all have something that's going to piss off others. Some are gay, others are black; some are flashy like P.K. Subban, others are opinionated and refuse to meet the President like Tim Thomas; some like rock, others like rap; some go to jail like Michael Vick, others become lawyers like Stu Grimson. Some even kill their fucking wives.

The Penn State Affair

In the football-and-pedophelia scandal I mentioned last week, like in most major cases nowadays, prosecutors went public with their evidence, in an obvious attempt to sway public opinioon - as if they even needed to.

Sports Illustrated gives us an inside look with an in-depth 3-page report on the matter that leaves chills in your spine. Well, mine anyway.

World Cup Endeth

Remember the Women's World Cup (soccer) I was telling you about?

It ended, with Japan defeating the Americans. And many Americans calling the ladies ''chokers''. Hy, silver may be the first loser, but it's also the second winner. Or something.

Michael Farber And The Vincent Lecavalier Rumours

Michael Farber, current ''hockey reference'' at Sports Illustrated and a few radio shows in dire need of guests, wrote a blog warning Vincent Lecavalier not to come play hockey in his hometown, for the Montréal Canadiens.

He notes a trade to the Habs would benefit both teams, but tells Lecavalier that the pressure might be too much to handle for a player of his calibre, what with the team being the most-followed team in the league, both by fans everywhere on the continent (and in Europe) and by the numerous (and bilingual) media outlets.

Farber, who was third-or-fourth-ranking hockey journalist when he worked for the Montreal Gazette, way behind Red Fisher, Pat Hickey, and that 'Monday Morning Quarterback' Todd guy, seems to think a top-5 player in the world, former 1st overall draft pick, Stanley Cup and Olympic Gold-winner, two-time captain of the same team, has the same limitations he does and can't perform under pressure.

Would Troy Aikman have rather played in Alaska, or win 2 Super Bowls in Dallas? Would Mark Messier have been on the David Letterman show had he won the Cup with the New York Islanders rather than the Rangers? Don't baseball players line up to play for the Yankees and Cubs and Red Sox?

Yes, hockey is a religion in Montréal. What Farber doesn't seem to understand, though, is that the players are the Gods. Do you think José Théodore ever paid for a meal at Mike's? Do you think fans threw punches at Ryan O'Byrne on the street after he scored in his own net? Of course not: they told him to keep his head up and forget about it, they encouraged him.

Players here are revered. Who wouldn't want to win a championship on the winningest team ever, in its 100th season, full of fans who will follow their every move on the ice as they move towards a 400th-straight sellout crowd (rather than an empty building in the middle of nowhere)? Apparently, Farber wouldn't, and he thinks Lecavalier is from the same mold.

Somehow, I doubt that.