Jason Collins, American basketball player
Jason Paul Collins (born December 2, 1978) is an American former professional basketball player who was a center for 13 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Stanford Cardinal, where he was an All-American in 2000–01. Collins was selected by the Houston Rockets as the 18th overall pick in the 2001 NBA draft. He went on to play for the New Jersey Nets, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets.
After the 2012–13 NBA season concluded, Collins publicly came out as gay. He became a free agent and did not play again until February 2014, when he signed with the Nets and became the second openly gay athlete to play in any of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada following Robbie Rogers who did so in 2013 with the LA Galaxy. In April 2014, Collins was featured on the cover of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World".
1978Dec, 2
Jason Collins
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Events on 1978
- 11Feb
Aristotle
Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. - 27Apr
Watergate scandal
Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes. - 25Jul
In vitro fertilisation
Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF. - 22Oct
Pope John Paul II
Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II. - 18Nov
Jim Jones
In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.