Jason Collins has faced several matchups throughout his basketball career that felt insurmountable, and he isn't going to let cancer be any different.
The first out gay player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) revealed in an essay published by ESPN on Thursday that he's been diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma, which is "one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer." He said that without treatment, the cancer would spread quickly enough to kill him within six weeks to three months, but that he's "going to fight it."
"When I was making my decision to come out publicly, I remembered a scene in the movie Moneyball where Red Sox owner John Henry (Arliss Howard) says to Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) that the first person through the wall always gets bloodied," Collins wrote. "I feel like I'm right back in that position now, where I might be the first person through this wall. We aren't going to sit back and let this cancer kill me without giving it a hell of a fight."
Collins came out publicly in 2013, becoming not just the first NBA player to come out, but also the first active athlete in one of North America's four major sports leagues to come out. He played for the Nets, Grizzlies, Timberwolves, Hawks, Celtics, and Wizards before retiring in 2014.
Collins has been in a relationship with film producer Brunson Green since 2014. The two married in May, just a few months before he began experiencing complications from the cancer. His loved ones revealed the diagnosis in a September statement that was left purposely vague, as Collins revealed in his essay that the symptoms had incapacitated him and left him "unable to speak for myself." Now that he's recovered enough, he said he wants to continue being open and honest.
"When I came out publicly as the first active gay basketball player in 2013, I told a lot of the people closest to me before I did so," he continued. "I wasn't worried it would leak before the story came out, because I trusted the people I told. And guess what? Nothing leaked. I got to tell my own story, the way I wanted to. And now I can honestly say, the past 12 years since have been the best of my life. Your life is so much better when you just show up as your true self, unafraid to be your true self, in public or private. This is me. This is what I'm dealing with."
Collins said that he will continue to undergo treatment, which includes some of the "most promising frontier of cancer treatment for this type of cancer" such as targeted chemotherapy and personalized immunotherapy. While the average prognosis is 11 to 14 months, Collins said, "If that's all the time I have left, I'd rather spend it trying a course of treatment that might one day be a new standard of care for everyone."
"I'm fortunate to be in a financial position to go wherever in the world I need to go to get treatment. So if what I'm doing doesn't save me, I feel good thinking that it might help someone else who gets a diagnosis like this one day," Collins wrote. "After I came out, someone I really respect told me that my choice to live openly could help someone who I might never meet. I've held onto that for years. And if I can do that again now, then that matters."
