Why the Clippers’ Pride Night Matters

Being an openly gay athlete is one of the hardest things to do in sports.

There is already a tremendous amount of fear a gay individual feels when coming out about their sexuality, and that fear is only magnified in sports. No athlete wants their sexuality to be the reason why their teammates are uncomfortable playing with them. The locker room could suddenly turn from a place of camaraderie, to a place of ostracization. That reason alone is why the first openly gay athlete to play in any of four major North American pro sports leagues, Jason Collins, didn’t come out until 2013. To put that into perspective, Collins waited until he was 34 years old before revealing that he was gay; he had…