Jeremy and Jason

When Athletes Transcend Sports

In the game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Los Angeles Lakers, Jason Collins played just a little over ten minutes, missed the only shot he took, and committed more fouls and turnovers than he scored points. He actually didn’t score any — at least none that you’ll see on the box score of the game.

While his team (the Nets) ended up securing a decent, albeit, expected, road win against the lowly, underachieving Lakers, this was no ordinary game.

And while his stats and career averages may suggest otherwise, Jason Collins is no ordinary player. On the court, analysts might well regard him as such, but he has since gained much more fanfare for what he represents off the court than for whatever he’s done on it, becoming the first active, openly gay NBA player the league, and really, the sport of basketball, has ever seen.

The game was significant for reasons that had little to do with the cast of aging, injury-riddled stars floundering on the same stage as the expendable, inexperienced role players featured. As a fan, I have little patience for watching games between teams that boast losing records and fail to feature any legitimate star power.

Frankly, you couldn’t pay me to watch a Brooklyn — Los Angeles matchup. But the historicity of this particular game isn’t lost on me, by any means. Certainly, the media wouldn’t have let me ignore it, even if I wanted to.

The irony, of course, is that Jason Collins, a 35-year-old veteran center, with career averages of 3.6 points per game and 3.8 rebounds, and the sole reason this game really meant anything to anyone watching, acknowledged, himself, how he didn’t have the time to focus on the history-making moment of his own doing.

The New York Times noted this in a pre-game news conference, wherein Jason admitted as much. “Right now, I’m focused on trying to learn the plays, the game plan assignment…I don’t have time to really think about history right now.”

I watched the recorded news conference hours later and from what I can tell, Jason Collins looked like a man who calmly, though slightly uncomfortably, addressed his newfound role as a cultural icon, without actually, literally, doing so. Because like any other person who wants his career to be taken seriously, he’d rather you give him credit for the work that he actually does. In his case, it’s for being a serviceable backup center for a high-profile team trying to make the NBA Playoffs.

But it’s his particular profile that the media will be hooked on from here on in. If anything, even after his 10 days are up (the contract he signed lasts only that long, though the Nets have the option of renewing it), his off-court legacy, in many respects, is already sealed.

Interestingly, ESPN turned to another once-upon-a-time media darling for some perspective — Jeremy Lin. Unlike Jason, however, Jeremy’s ascent to momentary stardom did actually result, in large part, to what he was able to achieve on the court. But his story off of it — as an Asian-American, un-drafted guard from an Ivy-League university — was what catapulted it to astronomical levels.

In the brief interview, he referenced his faith as being integral in handling the immediate responsibility of representing an entire community of people rooting for his success. “For me, if I didn’t have faith, in terms of my Christianity, I’m not sure how I would have been able to handle it or understand it or process it. For me, I try to think of it as living or stewarding God’s platform.”

To be honest, I was wondering why ESPN decided to go with Jeremy for a sound byte in the first place.

He’s in the midst of a rather ordinary season, averaging just under 13 points and 5 assists a game, playing backup point guard on a legitimate, title-contending Houston Rockets team, circumstances vastly different from the extraordinary ride he took us on two years ago on a terrible New York Knicks squad that miraculously eked its way into the Playoffs. “Linsanity” will go down in the annals of sports and pop cultural history as really the only phenomenon, ever, of it’s kind. It was historic in that it was so unprecedented, though perhaps, ignorantly so. But ask any Asian-American basketball fan (myself included) if they had ever expected a guy like Jeremy to come around in the NBA, and he or she would’ve said no. Unless you were a member of the Lin family.

I was trying to figure out what the connection was between the two. Yes, they are both highly-intelligent, well-spoken athletes. They both exude a kind of expected humility, considering the limitations of their actual on-court accomplishments (excluding “Linsanity”, in Jeremy’s case).

I suppose the article was anchored upon the idea that both Jason and Jeremy have quickly transcended what the sport itself has to offer either of them. Their stardom has far less to do with what they have achieved, and far more to do with what they represent.

They have both, inherently, become spokespeople for their respective communities — for Jeremy, Asian-American sports fans (and really, Asians around the world), and for Jason, the LGBT community at-large which has witnessed more and more celebrities step out, accept, and even endorse their identity and lifestyle as perfectly normal and good.

They both have had to brace themselves for the unexpected, and unlikely, rise to stardom so few celebrities or athletes are ever prepared for. But the reality is, who’s to say that either of them had really asked for it, at all? Perhaps part of their appeal is in their apparent reluctance for, yet acceptance of, the spotlight shone upon them. For all we know, neither Jason nor Jeremy might want the weight of what they symbolize completely absolve them of their professional commitment to improve their teams and play the sport they love, to the best of their ability.

But there’s another angle here that especially hits home for me, and I have no empirical proof that ESPN had this in mind in looking to Jeremy Lin, of all people, to comment on Jason Collins, of all people.

If I were to look at what these two players represent, outside of actually being athletes, I’d have to admit two things that immediately come to mind — in Jeremy, I see an Asian-American devout Christian, much like myself, and in Jason, I see an African-American openly gay man, very much unlike myself.

Now, in the off-chance that the proper, publicly Christian guy can offer up an unwelcoming remark about the openly-gay man…well, this would of course, constitute ‘news’…

And this is what we do, isn’t it? The privilege in being sports fans, or cult-like followers of any celebrity, is in our ability to project upon athletes or celebrities whatever dreams, aspirations, and even convictions, we hold onto, ourselves. Often times, we are guilty of both elevating these pop-culture figures to an idolatrous status, while expecting that they still reflect that which we find most relatable, and subsequently, most human. It’s a lot of pressure, and an unfair pressure at that, to place upon any other person, famous or not, who themselves, likely grew up having their own unique, imperfect heroes to follow, just like the rest of us.

Ultimately, there isn’t anything concrete to suggest the underlying motives behind why Jeremy Lin was one of the first sought-after players to comment on Jason Collins’ return to the game. From a basketball standpoint, I can’t even remember a single significant minute they actually shared together on the court that would warrant this sort of connection.

But that’s precisely it — everything about what links these two athletes together has little to do what they’ve ever done, as athletes. And for us, the sports fan, the media pundit, the sensationalist blogger — we want to see if they understand what they actually mean to us, and to one another. Perhaps rather deviously, we might even want to see if they will fall for the same sort of traps that have doomed athletes in the past who weren’t nearly as self-aware, or culturally-sensitive, or politically-savvy with their words.

The reality is, besides both coming from elite academic institutions (Harvard and Stanford, respectively), Jeremy and Jason don’t appear to have very much in common. After all, Jeremy’s career is far from being over, while Jason’s looks to be getting a last-second chance. But to us, they’ve each left an enduring mark on sports history that, oddly enough, makes it a little less strange to mention the two of them in the same sentence.

In an interview conducted after his team’s morning shoot around, Jeremy offered this about Jason Collins’ openness and career revival: “I think it’s definitely a big step. The game is evolving. you see a lot of different people breaking barriers in a lot of different ways. This is just another one of those.”

I didn’t see Jeremy say these words, but I can’t imagine him having spoken them in any other way than what we basketball fans have come to expect of him — nonchalant, humble, and earnest. I am thankful he elected to respond in this particular way.

As an Asian-American, Christian man who, admittedly, relates far more easily to him than to Jason Collins, I felt proud of his public support, and equally, relieved, at his reticence. I am also impressed at his utter lack of self-referentiality, despite how easily he, himself, is testament to the kind of “barrier-breaking” he mentions.

Jason, too, exudes this sort of quiet mindfulness — hinting only ever so subtly that he knows what he means for his community. In fairness to the media members present at the news conference, many of them actually asked Jason about his actual job — that is, returning to being a basketball player. But on his part, despite his desire to keep talk about his return relevant to what he actually does on the court, there’s no shying away from who he is. He had this to offer about the message he brings: “My message is just to be your true authentic self.”

It’s hard not to root for that. And as far as Jeremy and Jason go, there isn’t anything either of them can change about who they are, nor does it look like they would ever want to.

For as much as Jeremy Lin continues to embody the dreams of hundreds of Asian kids playing pick-up basketball across the country, he might as well just be grateful he’s even playing at all. It is well-documented by now, the hoops (no pun intended) he’s had to jump through, and the miraculous breaks that have come his way, that helped him get to where he is today.

And as far as Jason Collins’ career — I’ll say this. I have watched Jason play his entire career prior to this second stint with the Nets, and his reputation as a hard-nosed, bruiser in the paint is true and well-deserved. Each and every one of his teammates (and certainly his coach) can attest to that. He may not have enough time to turn his basketball career into anything more than what it’s already been, but having this second chance at it anyway, and under these new, and more accepting social circumstances, could be just the rejuvenating experience his old body (for NBA standards) needs.

I’m sure Jason Collins feels much the same way about playing professional basketball as Jeremy Lin does — sincerely grateful. And perhaps, even for that alone, the two have enough in common, after all.