Watch: Jason Collins Becomes First Openly-Gay Athlete To Play In NBA

var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};Jason Collins, the 35-year old pro-basketball center who announced last year he is gay, signed with the Brooklyn Nets and Sunday evening became the first openly-gay athlete to play in the NBA. Collins stepped on the court to cheers and even a standing applause from some in the audience.

Jim Buzinski of Outsports notes that although Collins tonight “just made history,” he “was greeted by polite applause and some fans standing, but it was, in the word of a New York Times reporter friend of mine, ‘rather ho-hum.'” Buzinski adds:

Good. Let’s hope ho-hum becomes the default response on this issue in a few years.

Collins played against the L.A. Lakers, becoming the first professional U.S. major traditional sports league openly-gay player.

The New York Times observes that the “very act of Collins’s suiting up and stepping onto the court…represented a milestone in the effort to change a sports culture that some feel has lagged far behind society at large in acceptance of gay people.”

Collins said he had little time to process it all. He awoke Sunday morning to text messages from his agent and Nets Coach Jason Kidd alerting him to the move, and hours later he was signing his contract. A few hours after that, he was taking his physical and preparing to play his first game since April 17.

“Right now, I’m focused on trying to learn the plays, the game plan assignment,” Collins, sitting at a lectern, said less than an hour before the game Sunday night. “I don’t have time to really think about history right now.”

Watch the moment Collins stepped into the game:

//www.youtube.com/embed/aY9y-qFqZCQ

Image, top: Screenshot via YouTube