National Post (National Edition)
TEWKSBURY FINALLY GETS SOME COMPANY
COLLINS 'A HUGE DEAL’
When retired Olympic swimmer Mark Tewksbury made the decision to come out to all of Canada during a nationallytelevised interview — “being gay shouldn’t be an issue, but it still is” — he thought major change would arrive within five years. Others would follow, he thought. That was 1998. “It took a decade longer than anticipated,” Tewksbury said.
He was in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Monday when he heard the news Jason Collins, an active NBA player, came out in a firstperson column in Sports Illus
trated. Collins followed the trail Tewksbury helped blaze 15 years ago, but he also became a forerunner — as the first athlete to come out in one of North America’s four major team sports.
“I got a little sappy, I got a little teary,” Tewksbury said. “I kind of thought, ‘ wow, this is really happening.’ ”
He said he was proud of Collins. “It’s a great feeling to know that, finally, it’s happened,” he said. “It’s something that I’ve talked about for so long. Sadly, I’m still the go-to guy on many of these issues.”
Tewksbury, 45, is a threetime medal-winner at the Olympics, including the memorable gold claimed in the 100-metre backstroke at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. He served as Canada’s chef de mission at the London Olympics last summer, and has been in the U.S. on business. (The Great Traits, a company he runs with former synchronized swimming coach debbie Muir, aims to help businesses motivate employees.)
The two major keys to changing the environment around sports — the kind of change he predicted would arrive much sooner — are finally both in place, Tewksbury said. Collins represents one key, he said, as “the brave first one” to come out.
Support from management, he said, is the second major development. you Can Play, the initiative spearheaded by Patrick Burke, son of long-time NHL executive Brian Burke, is working in partnership with the NHL, and has emerged as a strong voice for equality. And almost immediately on Monday many more voices, in sports and elsewhere, offered support.
“That’s what we thought would happen, but you never know until somebody actually takes that step,” Tewksbury said. “And it’s scary, you know?”
Tewksbury recognized elements in what Collins wrote.
“It’s not at all dissimilar to how I felt,” he said. “There’s a moment in time where it’s, you’re living by everybody else’s rules. you feel like a fraud, and you’re disrespecting yourself. And there’s a moment in time, I think, where the fear of losing all that other stuff disappears, because you can’t stand that lie anymore.”
Some day, he said, the hope is that having an athlete come out will not be newsworthy.
“Obviously, that day is not today,” Tewksbury said with a laugh. “But I’ve always said: Before something becomes a non-issue, it has to be an issue. So this is a huge deal. It will still be a big deal when the first hockey player comes out, or the first playing football player comes out.
“But it will become much less of an issue.”