Jason Collins is now a name that every sports fan in America knows, and it's for good reason, as Collins came out as the first active athlete the four major sports after revealing he is gay in a Sports illustrated Cover story.
In that story, Collins revealed a number of things about himself, including when he selected his number 98 with the Celtics that it was no random number. According to SI.com, Collins wore number 34 when he played college ball at Stanford and he also wore it in the NBA in Memphis. He also wore number 35 with the Nets after someone else had it on his team, but once he made it to Boston he added number 98.
Collins explained in SI that the reasoning behind it, which was only known to him, was to honor Matthew Shepard, who was kidnapped, beaten and killed while a student at the University of Wyoming by a bunch of awful bigots. He was left on a fence out in the middle of nowhere for five days before he was found and Collins felt it was right to honor him.
According to Deadspin.com, Collins joked to the Washington Post about the number, saying it was used to bother the referees: "He joked that he wears No. 98 to give referees more problems when they have to use their fingers to submit his jersey number to scorekeepers after he commits a foul."
