Dar Alon wrote this story, which was reported by Melanie Erspamer, Leda Olia, Eric Lin, Brian Yoffe, Astha Agarwal, and Jack Hooker
A major sport athlete came out as gay for the first time last week, leaving students and faculty to wonder about the impact the event will have on South.
Jason Collins, a basketball player for the Washington Wizards, announced that he was gay in Sports Illustrated last week, becoming the first openly gay and active player in one of the four major sports.
Collins received widespread support from his teammates and the general population, a sentiment many at South echoed.
Various students claim that the widespread success of Collins’ coming out story will make it easier for other gay students to do the same.
“It’s probably not as bad as other schools,” junior volleyball player Devon Woods said. “It will…make it easier [for South athletes to come out] now that a big one’s come out.”
Some students believe that Collins revelation will inspire other athletes to come out as gay as well.
“Definitely more college and high school players will come out because they have a seen a professional athlete do it and they look up to them,” freshman Brad Weissel said. “Slowly, more professionals will start to come out and five or six years from now most gay athletes will come out.”
Other students believe that Collins’ coming out story will affect Newton South athletes, but only with the support of fellow students, whose reactions to the situation are important to students hoping to come out.
“If teammates [at south] are talking about [the situation] positively or negatively, with positive affirmation or feedback, it will have a big affect on others,” junior and Gay-Straight Alliance member Celina Siegel said. “Hopefully this will encourage other athletes to come out.”
Some members of the South community feel that the sexuality of the sports players is irrelevant.
“I think it makes him no different than the other basketball players. Things that are supposed to be private to you should remain private; not saying it is bad to announce it publicly,” coach Alan Rotatori said.
Others hope that Collins’ coming out story will spark conversations between other students.
“I hope that Jason Collins’ coming out encourages people, particularly on sports teams and athletics, to have more conversations about homophobia on the playing field and the locker room because that is one place that Newton South has struggled to have equal treatment of all people in the school,” Bob Parlin, Newton South’s Gay Straight Alliance advisor and an openly gay teacher, said.
In fact, gay students may cause more friction in athletics than in other areas, some said.
Woods, for example, said she did not think her volleyball team would be too accepting of a lesbian member of the team.
Geoffrey Gray, a sophomore on varsity basketball, agreed that the process could be difficult.
“It would definitely be harder for [gay players] because they would go into it knowing they would most likely get criticism for it,” he said. “Occasionally, there have been homophobic jokes made around the locker room and to be honest I don’t know why: it’s probably just because it’s unfortunately a popular thing to do.”
He also thinks, though, that it was a brave move on Collins’ part and said he himself would be accepting of any student’s choice.
However, Parlin doubts another coming out story will have a large impact on the Newton South community.
“I don’t know about seeing impact,” Parlin said. “I think there have been enough openly gay people in the world that students know that one more person isn’t going to have a dramatic impact.”
