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.