Inspired by Collins, a High School Coach Comes Out

When the soccer player Robbie Rogers and the N.B.A. center Jason Collins recently came out as gay professional athletes, it was hailed by many as a historic time. Barriers had been broken. Attitudes in pro sports locker rooms were being changed.

One of the less obvious ramifications of the revelations, though, was a trickle-down effect that Rogers’s and Collins’s decisions had on gay sports figures at the lower levels. In the latest example, Anthony Nicodemo, the boys’ basketball coach at Saunders High School in Yonkers, said Tuesday that Collins’s choice to come out as gay ultimately helped him decide to discuss his own sexuality with his players and their families in a meeting this week.

“What Jason Collins did was allow a conversation to be opened,” Nicodemo said in an interview. “That day, I went into study hall, and we had a 45-minute conversation about it. ‘How would you feel if one of your teammates came out?’ It was really important stuff, and I was blown away by how they reacted.”

He added: “It was on the tip of my tongue to tell them right then. I almost did. But it just didn’t feel right. I wanted to let them process.”

Instead, Nicodemo waited until Monday, and his decision was highlighted in a feature on Outsports, a Web site that covers the intersection of gays and sports. Cyd Zeigler, a founder of the site, wrote the article on Nicodemo and he said that Nicodemo’s experience was not unusual; one of the most important aspects of more pro athletes coming out, Zeigler said, is the effect it has on athletes and coaches who are far from the spotlight.

“Look, there are maybe 6,000 athletes playing in professional sports leagues,” Zeigler said. “There are 7.5 million athletes playing high school sports. What’s going on in high schools and elementary schools is far more important and impactful than the battle with homophobia in pro sports. Jason Collins and Robbie Rogers — this aspect of what they did is absolutely critical.”

Donna Nolan, whose elder son played for Nicodemo previously and whose younger son is currently on the team, said she had no inkling what Nicodemo was going to say when she walked into the meeting. She said reaction from parents at the meeting was overwhelmingly supportive — as was the response from school administrators — and added that there was an immediate discussion about how to handle the situation if an opposing player or parent makes insensitive comments to Nicodemo next season.

“You’re always going to have people out there who are bigots; it’s inevitable,” Nolan said. “We’re from Yonkers; whenever we go anywhere, people are already looking at us funny because we’re from Yonkers. So we know there will be comments. And we told the kids that as hard as it is going to be, we’re going to be the bigger people. It’s part of life.”

Nolan also said that although she understood parents who might prefer that adults in position of authority not speak to children about their sexuality at all — gay or straight — she did not believe Nicodemo had crossed any lines.

“I see that, but it’s not like he’s sitting with them and talking about what he does in his private life,” she said. “He’s not having a conversation with them about what he does on a Friday night. He’s just telling them, this is who I am. And for someone who preaches honesty, that’s important.”

Nicodemo, 35, said he was torn about coming out for years. He told members of his family at different points, but he did not tell his players or anyone else connected with basketball, which has always been his passion.

As a child, Nicodemo said, he was a typical athlete growing up in Brewster, N.Y. He loved sports and, even as he battled confusion and conflicting feelings about his sexuality, he did his best to try to be part of the gang.

“I was a part of the locker room stuff,” he said. “I definitely used words that I shouldn’t have, but when you’re growing up and you’re in denial, you’ll do anything to try and fit in. I just didn’t want to be seen as different.”

Nicodemo began coaching as a volunteer shortly after he graduated high school and has spent the past 16 years on various sidelines at a variety of levels, including a stint as an assistant at Plymouth State, an N.C.A.A. Division III program in New Hampshire.

He arrived at Saunders in 2009 and reinvigorated the program there while also working as a social studies teacher in a neighboring school district. In his first two seasons, the team was 9-29 (which actually represented considerable progress); in each of the past two years, Saunders has had a winning record and played host to a playoff game.

 As a coach, Nicodemo was delighted; as a person, though, he was beginning to feel the strain of hiding a significant piece of his identity. He grew weary of worrying that he would be spotted a certain bar in New York or that someone would tag him in a picture on Facebook that would reveal he had lied about who he was spending his time with.

 When friends would try to set him up on dates with women, Nicodemo constantly begged out, blaming his commitment to coaching. Each night, he said, he watches at least one game film before bed. He has always been that way.

 “My line was always, ‘I’m married to basketball,’ ” he said. “And I guess that it’s partly true. But I wasn’t being honest.”

 When Collins came out, writing a first-person article in Sports Illustrated that appeared on the magazine’s Web site April 29, Nicodemo saw an opening. He said he was pleased with how his players reacted during the study-hall discussion on the topic, reinforcing the idea in his mind that they would be able to handle it if he opened up.

 Then, earlier this month, Nicodemo attended the Nike L.G.B.T. Sports Summit in Portland, Ore., where more than 100 people involved in sports came together to discuss relevant issues to sports and sexuality; Collins even made a surprise visit.

 Feeling inspired (if a bit overwhelmed), Nicodemo said he spent most of his red-eye flight home looking out the window and trying to decide how to take his own next step. That ultimately led him to come out to some friends, administrators and former players before finally addressing his team Monday.

 His players embraced him afterward, and Nolan said the most common reaction was, “O.K., so can we go practice now?” One player posted a message on Twitter later saying, in part, that “Saunders just became a stronger team.” Another posted that Saunders basketball “isn’t a team. It’s a family.”

 The response, Nicodemo acknowledged, was a relief. But because of the conversation about Collins, it was also not a surprise.

 “After that day, I came away feeling pretty good about how they would react,” he said. “Honestly, I didn’t even give them enough credit. It went about a thousand percent better than I could have imagined.”