Few things hit harder than when someone dedicated to moving humanity toward the light dies too young. Someone like Jason Collins, whose personal quest for goodwill and free expression ended this week when he died at age 47.After four years as a basketball star at Stanford, playing alongside his twin brother, Jarron, Jason was a first-round selection (18th overall) in the 2001 NBA Draft. In his second season, the 7-footer was the starting center of a New Jersey Nets squad in the NBA Finals. His assignment: 30-year-old Shaquille O’Neal, the league’s most imposing player since Wilt Chamberlain two generations earlier.Collins neither flinched nor blinked. None of us could have known such fortitude would be a preview of his future.By the time Collins passed away 23 years later, he had established himself as a widely respected player and, moreover, one of the bravest athletes in American history. He took a path to a sea all others, fearful of drowning, had evaded and dived in.“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center,” Collins wrote in a first-person cover story in the May 6, 2013 issue of Sports Illustrated. “I’m black. And I’m...