Jason Collins, the first openly gay NBA player, is battling a new crisis in his life. The retired NBA center is undergoing treatment for a brain tumor, according to a statement by the NBA. Collins married his partner, Brunson Green, less than four months ago, with some of his teammates in attendance. For what it’s worth, this brain tumor won’t define his life. Collins will always be known as an inspiration since he came out in 2013.

Amid his health crisis, the interest in his personal life is at its peak. Fans especially want to know where Jason Collins is from.

Where is Jason Collins from, and what is Jason Collins’s Nationality?

Jason Collins and his twin brother, Jarron, were born on December 8, 1978 (Jason is older by eight minutes) in Northridge, California. They’re American, born and raised in California. They attended Harvard-Westlake. How I Met Your Mother star Jason Segel was on the basketball team with them. He and Jarron won two California Interscholastic Federation state titles during their four-year careers with a combined record of 123–10.

As a teen, Collins held the California record in rebounding with 1.500 rebounds. But it was Jason Segel who was arguably the more famous basketball player back then.

Segel, though, didn’t come in the way of Collins’ basketball career, which started at Stanford. Alongside Jarron, he led the Cardinals to the PAC-10. He finished his college career with Stanford’s all-time records in field goal percentage and blocks, All-Pac-10 first team, and the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) voted him to their third-team All-American team.

What is Jason Collins’s ethnicity?

Jason and Jarron are the sons of Portia and Paul Collins. They’re of African-American descent and an average American family. Their aunt, Aunt Teri Jackson, is a San Francisco Superior Court judge. She’s the first person Jason came out to. On April 29, 2013, Collins publicly came out through a Sports Illustrated feature that began with the words: “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center, I’m black. And I’m gay.” The family shared that it took a while after Jason came out for it to sink in, but they’ve been supportive of him throughout his journey.

The Collinses didn’t grow up in the most diverse neighborhood. When they attended Harvard-Westlake in the late ’90s, only 1 in 20 students were African-American. But Paul and Portia raised their sons not as future NBA stars, but as two young men who did their best. Their high school life was about excelling academically as much as athletically.

“We’re not raising NBA stars,” Portia said when her sons were 18. “My kids know their roots, and they’re proud of their heritage, whether it be at Harvard-Westlake or in South-Central Los Angeles. But I should have the same right as other parents to make my own choices.”

Their parents attended support groups to learn how to raise twins with distinct personalities. And distinct they were. Jason and Jarron weren’t enmeshed but were each other’s first teammates since they were six years old up until the 2001 NBA draft. The Rockets picked Jason 18th and traded him to the Nets. Jarron went 52nd to Utah.

Together with Richard Jefferson, Jason led the Nets to their first-ever finals berth. He’d return to the rebranded Brooklyn Nets, where he’d end his NBA career in 2014. His friendship with RJ would remain strong, and he even attended Collins’ wedding between the NBA playoffs.

Is Jason Collins Christian? What religion is the athlete?

In the same SI feature he penned in 2013, Jason Collins emphasized a very aspect of his life – his Christian upbringing and relying on his faith. He said in his own words, “I’m from a close-knit family. My parents instilled Christian values in me. They taught Sunday school, and I enjoyed lending a hand. I take the teachings of Jesus seriously, particularly the ones that touch on tolerance and understanding. On family trips, my parents made a point to expose us to new things, religious and cultural. In Utah, we visited the Mormon Salt Lake Temple. In Atlanta, the house of Martin Luther King Jr. That early exposure to otherness made me the guy who accepts everyone unconditionally.”

Jason continued to rely on his faith throughout. He continues to do so as he fights a brain tumor. And right by his side through everything is his partner, Brunson Green.