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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;AMHERST, Mass. -- In arenas across the country, he has fixed his eyes on this photo. He\u2019s wrapped it in a towel, slid it into a special compartment in his backpack and carried it to Bowling Green, Kentucky. To Texas, Colorado and Florida. Or was it the photo that carried him? To Amherst, Massachusetts. To Ohio, New York and North Carolina. When he stared at the photo, he was no longer in the locker room. Trainers taping ankles, players exorcising pregame jitters with jokes, coaches making last-minute adjustments -- he separated from all of it to be together with his twin again.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the photo, they are close but do not touch. They barely resemble brothers, much less twins. Derrick Gordon is 6-feet-2 inches and is wearing Nike Frees, designer jeans and a fresh, close haircut. He smiles. His brother Darryl is barely 5-foot-5, wearing white sneakers, a state-issued khaki jumpsuit and dreadlocks. His teeth show but his expression seems short of a smile.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In those few moments before Derrick would let the noise back in, Darryl wasn\u2019t in prison. They were together, playing one-on-one tackle football in their small backyard in Plainfield, N.J. Or up late in the bedroom they shared, on their knees playing full-floor basketball with hoops from the dollar store and balled up socks because their parents had long ago confiscated the toy balls.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But tonight is different. And not just because Derrick Gordon is about to become the first openly gay man to play a D-I basketball game. He\u2019s been ready for that for a while. Tonight is different because he no longer needs to look at that photo.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*****\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You\u2019re going to leave this room under arrest. Stand up, put your hands in the air and spread your legs.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Officer Jesse McNeill was in his first week on the job. He grew up in Plainfield and knew that the high schools were rough \u2013 hell, even the middle schools were\u2014but when he signed up to be a resource officer at Emerson elementary, he didn\u2019t expect to catch an arrest so quickly. But then a boy had chased another home \u2013 all the way into his kitchen, after a scuffle at school. And the chased boy\u2019s mom had called to complain. So here McNeill was in the principal\u2019s office with the chaser, fifth-grader Derrick Gordon, putting his arms behind his back and clicking the cuffs around his wrists.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He led Derrick through the halls and out to the parking lot. &lt;em&gt;Watch your head.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Derrick had begun to feel different from his friends just before puberty. At first he thought it was his chestnut hair or how tall he was from having hit his growth spurts early. The first idea he hatched for fitting in was being a bully. He figured that bad went well with big and that he\u2019d start a few fights and friends would follow. Instead, what followed were suspensions from school, grounding from his parents and then this arrest. There in the back of the squad car, he felt the pressure of the cuffs against his wrists and the pressure of the barrier dividing him from the front of the car against his knees.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;McNeill led Derrick through the back door of the station so that he could see where adults are booked and the bars behind which they\u2019re held. He brought him into a windowless room and sat him down on a bench to wait for his parents to pick him up. McNeill remembers about 40 minutes passing. To Derrick, it felt like four hours. He\u2019d set out to fit in and arrived at the loneliest moment of his life. He never wanted to be locked up again.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When he saw his mother, Sandra, drenched in tears, he told her she would never have to come get him like this again. And she never has.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But they\u2019ve both spent plenty of time in prison since.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*****\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before high school, Derrick and Darryl were rarely apart for more than a few hours. They\u2019d been born into a sports family \u2013 Sandra ran track and played softball in high school, and their father, Mike Sr., played a year of Division III junior varsity basketball at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania \u2013 so no one was shocked when they spurned the trumpet and flute for T-ball and tackle football.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their brother, Mike Jr., was five years older, so their main competition was always with each other. They\u2019d play fullcourt one-on-one at the park, in the backyard and occasionally the kitchen. Mike Sr., who volunteered at the Plainfield Division of Recreation, brought home an electronic scoreboard so they could keep score. If Derrick lost, he\u2019d pester Darryl into a rematch. They\u2019d play video games too, and Darryl would get so mad that he\u2019d break the controllers. \u201CSometimes I\u2019d let him win just to save the system,\u201D Derrick says now.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But as often as they were competitors, they were compatriots. When they broke a pane of glass in the cabinet in the kitchen, they worked for hours to try to Krazy glue it back into place. (It\u2019s still broken today.) And at Maxson middle school, their basketball teams lost one regular-season game in their last two years. They starred on the AAU circuit, playing for Team Jersey Elite. Together with their friend Ty Johnson, who now plays for South Carolina, they\u2019d break the team rules by ordering room service or pizza.&amp;nbsp;Darryl was more outgoing than Derrick, and he\u2019d spend a lot of time alone with Ty. But above all other allegiances, Derrick and Darryl remained loyal to one another.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;By eighth grade, Derrick was 6-foot-2 and had become committed to basketball. He would wake up at 4 a.m. to be at school by 5 to shoot with assistant coach Christopher Radecke. But Darryl began to question the value of hard work. He was still 5-foot-5, and he doubted a growth spurt would ever come. And he looked to his parents who worked hard \u2013 Mike Sr. sometimes logged 60 hours a week for a L\u2019Or\u00E9al distribution center and Sandra stocked for Wal-Mart at night \u2013 but didn\u2019t seem to have everything they wanted.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One weekend afternoon after basketball season had ended in the eighth grade, Darryl went to visit his cousin on the West end of Plainfield, in the projects. Together, the boys watched drug dealers collect what looked like a lot of cash. \u201CI could sell drugs for the rest of my life,\u201D Darryl thought, \u201Cand never have to work a single day.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That summer, Derrick decided that he wanted to attend St. Patrick High in Elizabeth, more than 30 minutes away, instead of Plainfield High. He thought he\u2019d get more attention from teachers there, and that he\u2019d stand out on a nationally ranked basketball team. His parents were worried about being able to afford it. His brothers were worried that he wouldn\u2019t get any playing time, because although St. Patrick only has 215 students, one of them was Kyrie Irving, the future No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. But there was no stopping Derrick. \u201CHe\u2019s always been that way,\u201D Mike Sr. says now. \u201CWhen he has his mind set on something, it doesn\u2019t matter much what anyone else says.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the spring of ninth grade, Darryl and his cousin sold drugs for the first time. He made $150 in three hours. He went back the next night and made just as much money. After a week, he was dealing every day. He never used drugs other than weed, but the money, the lifestyle \u2013 he became addicted to it almost instantly. Because his parents worked opposite schedules, he could make explain his absences by saying that basketball practice had run late or he was staying over at a friend\u2019s house.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Derrick didn\u2019t make varsity as a freshman. And people from Plainfield were telling him that he should come back home because his brother was falling in with the wrong crowd, and Plainfield High needed a good guard. He and Sandra went to the school to put in for a transfer, but they walked into the administration office to discover the system was down. Mike Sr. and Sandra told Derrick it was a sign, and that he needed to stay at St. Patrick. He did. \u201COn one hand, it was good that I never transferred,\u201D Derrick says now. \u201CI could have fallen into the same stuff as Darryl. But I also feel guilty because I know if I\u2019d been around more, he wouldn\u2019t have done what he did.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the fall of 10th grade, Mike Sr. made Darryl see a counselor at Hubbard Middle School. She suggested that Darryl go away for a couple weeks to a program she knew about for troubled youths. He heard her say the word \u201Coptional,\u201D and decided against it immediately. Two weeks later, Darryl was on the steps of a building dealing when someone told him a friend was out front to see him. He walked up to the car and saw Antwan \u201CChet\u201D Johnson, one of Mike Sr.\u2019s friends from the rec center who had made it out of the Plainfield projects. Chet told Darryl to get in, and drove him home. On the couch in the Gordons\u2019 living room, he told Darryl that there were only two outcomes for what he was doing: He\u2019d end up in jail or dead. \u201CI left that day thinking I\u2019d made an impact,\u201D Chet says now. \u201CBut sometimes kids that age have to learn the hard way.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThere was nothing that anyone could have said. My parents tried everything they could think of to help me. But I wasn\u2019t listening to anyone.\u201D Darryl says. \u201CNo one other than me could have stopped what happened.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*****\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Darryl saw the squad car as he passed Plainfield High School. It was November 2008. He asked his cousin if the car they\u2019re driving was good. Darryl had no license. His cousin said the car wouldn\u2019t cause them any problems. He had rented it from a woman in the projects in exchange for drugs \u2013 something they\u2019d done many times while dealing. Darryl made a left to move away from the campus, and the cop switched on his siren. Darryl kept driving but didn\u2019t speed. Another cop car emerged. Then another. He pulled into a parking lot and the cops yelled for them to get out of the car. It had been reported stolen.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They threw him and his cousin into a paddy wagon. And only then did Darryl panic. He had a dozen bags filled with various drugs hidden behind the zipper of his pants. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he pulled his pants around until his zipper was over his right thigh, emptied the bags and used his feet to crush the pills and slide the powder into the cracks and crevices of the car.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the station, he called his parents to come get him. They refused. They thought a short stint behind bars might scare him into changing, as it had Derrick. He was sent to a youth house for two weeks for his trial. He missed Thanksgiving. At his hearing, he was convicted of receiving stolen property, sentenced to probation and released.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;His first day back at school, he took a bathroom pass and never went back. \u201CThose two weeks didn\u2019t learn me,\u201D he says.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One night in May, Darryl was playing dice on the steps where he sold. This is how he remembers what happened that night. (A request for records was denied by Plainfield police because Darryl was a minor when he was arrested.)\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;An older man called him to an adjacent building to settle a bet about an NBA game. Darryl gave his answer, but the man rejected it, saying, \u201Cyou don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about.\u201D Darryl decided to walk away, but the man followed. \u201CIf he puts his hands on me,\u201D Darryl remembers thinking, \u201Cit\u2019s over.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The man put his hand on Darryl\u2019s face and knocked off his blue fitted cap. Then he walked back and leaned on his car. Darryl returned to confront him. Then, as the man was walking away, Darryl\u2019s cousin jumped him. The man threw off Darryl\u2019s cousin and lifted his shirt to show he was carrying a knife. Darryl saw it shine in a spotlight from one of the buildings and thought it was about four inches. He reached into his pants, found his pistol and fired. One shot. Two shots. Three.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The next thing he remembers, he was running along train tracks, getting rid of the gun and his clothes and listening for sirens. A month later, he was arrested for attempted murder when he reported for probation stemming from his earlier arrest. His victim needed open-heart surgery but survived. The prosecution offered to drop one of the drug charges if he pled guilty to aggravated assault, which he did. And he would serve five years, one month and six days in jail.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The addiction to that lifestyle still had a hold over him, though. He convinced his father to bail him after the shooting. Two weeks later, he was arrested on a drug charge. He called his mother that time, and she bailed him out. A week after that, he was arrested on another drug charge. He couldn\u2019t control himself: In his bedroom, in a classroom, behind bars, he only thought of being back out on the streets. After that fourth arrest, he called his father. Mike Sr. was finished feeling like he could fix his 17-year-old son. \u201CThis time you\u2019re staying,\u201D he told Darryl.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*****\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Derrick remembers Darryl\u2019s first trial. Before he even saw his twin brother, he could hear the shackles behind the door. He knew that his twin was getting into trouble, but he didn\u2019t know&amp;nbsp;how much. When Mike Jr. left for college, Derrick and Darryl got their own room. After Derrick decided to attend St. Pat\u2019s, they\u2019d see each other only in passing. Derrick was focused on school and basketball.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Basketball, after all, was where he felt normal. As far back as middle school he remembers feeling attracted to men, but he thought it was a phase. He couldn\u2019t stop those thoughts from bouncing around in his head, but he could control how many hours he spent in the gym, how often he allowed he allowed his mind to wander. As a junior, Gordon played alongside Kyrie Irving, averaging 8.4 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.5 assists a game. \u201CIf I was playing or in school,\u201D Derrick says, \u201CI could go a few seconds without thinking of [Darryl].\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the summer, Darryl\u2019s first in prison, Derrick got a tattoo over his heart, \u201CMBK.\u201D My brother\u2019s keeper. But he also began to think about men more intensely. He knew now that what he was going through wasn\u2019t just a phase. Before the season began, he lost 20 pounds. He kept eating, but the stress kept the weight off him. When he noticed his heart racing at random moments, he told his parents he needed to see a doctor. The doctor discovered that he\u2019d developed acid reflux. He suggested Derrick take Tums and also gave him a prescription for Zoloft, an anti-anxiety medication. Two secrets was one too many.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When he learned that HBO would be making a documentary about St. Patrick during his senior season, he decided to tell them about Darryl. \u201CI had to open up,\u201D he says. \u201CI was lying about everything else in my life. I couldn\u2019t lie about my brother too.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One burden lifted was enough: He and Michael Gilchrist (who would later change his surname to Kidd-Gilchrist to honor his late uncle) led St. Pat\u2019s to a No. 1 national ranking for much of the season. On March 9, 2011, the day of the de facto national championship game against No. 2 St. Anthony High of Jersey City in the North Jersey Non-Public B championship, the New Jersey Star-Ledger published an article about Derrick and Darryl. Derrick hadn\u2019t known that Darryl kept newspaper clippings on the wall of his cell. He cried as he read the story. That night, as St. Anthony focused on stopping Gilchrist, Derrick led the Celtics with 26 points in his final high school game. But it wasn\u2019t enough. The Celtics lost 62-45.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Over the summer, he\u2019d visit Darryl as often as he could at Albert C. Wagner \u2013 and they\u2019d trade letters and talk on the phone in between. Before he left for Western Kentucky in June, he and Mike Jr. drove down to Bordentown to see Darryl in Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility. Darryl had recently moved from a youth house and now was in prison with men up to the age of 28.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They talked about basketball, mostly. Derrick wished that Darryl could have gone to college with him. Darryl did too. As they were getting ready to leave, they saw a man in the corner with a camera. They paid him a couple bucks and Derrick and Darryl posed together. Click. A few weeks later, Darryl received the photo in the mail and forwarded it to their mother. She took it to Walgreens down the road and had it enlarged to 8.5-x-11\" and framed. The day Derrick left for the airport, she gave it to him as a gift.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Derrick flew out of New Jersey that day, but he didn\u2019t leave without Darryl.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*****\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Darryl\u2019s first couple of years in prison were like detox.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before he was sentenced, he would wonder how many years he would get \u2013 how many years before he was back out on the streets. He would wake up at 7 a.m. on days when he liked what was for breakfast. Otherwise, he\u2019d sleep till school started at 8. He\u2019d attend classes until 2:30 p.m. then go back to his room and back to bed to sleep until dinner. At night, he\u2019d have trouble sleeping, so he\u2019d daydream about dealing again. \u201CI\u2019d think of ways to do it smarter,\u201D he says.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He thought that he\u2019d have to fight every day in prison, but the youth house was peaceful for the most part. When he was told he\u2019d be transferring to Wagner, another inmate told him it was like \u201CGladiator\u201D in there, but that turned out to be a lie. He\u2019d sleep during the days to pass the time, but that only left him awake at night. He tried a couple books, &lt;em&gt;The Audacity of Hope&lt;/em&gt; by Barack Obama and biographies about Malcolm X, but reading didn\u2019t distract him enough. Only imagining his old life would bring him out beyond the walls for a few moments \u2013 but he knew that obsessing about dealing would put him back on the streets when he got out, and being back on the streets when he got out would put him back in prison again.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;His final transfer was to South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton, N.J., more than two hours away from Plainfield. At Bordentown, Darryl had seen at least one member of his family almost every Saturday. But they couldn\u2019t travel to South Woods every weekend, so visits dried up to once every month or two. Still, most every Saturday, Darryl would shower and get ready just in case they came.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One night he was watching TV in his bunk with the volume on low so that he didn\u2019t wake his roommate. He started thinking about his family \u2013 he was missing them more than ever. He thought back to playing in the backyard with Derrick, to collecting leaves with his father in fall and to eating dinner in the kitchen with his mother. He thought about all the weight Derrick had lost. He thought about how his brother Mike could only visit once a year because it was too painful. &lt;em&gt;Why had I put my family though this?&lt;/em&gt; he thought. &lt;em&gt;Why did I put myself through this?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI\u2019ve been asking myself those same questions for about three years now,\u201D Darryl says. \u201CAnd I still don\u2019t have any answers. It was just an addiction.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CWhen I think about it, I want to cry. Forever, when I think about it, I\u2019ll want to cry.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It took almost five years behind bars for him to reach that moment, but he vowed to himself that he wouldn\u2019t go back to jail again. He used to associate manhood with money and power and the number of women he had around, but he began to reconsider manhood. Who was more of a man, after all, him who at 20 was forced to rely on others for what he needed, or his father who provided for a family of five? \u201CYou\u2019re not a man in jail,\u201D Darryl says. He stopped thinking about the streets and instead thought of his family.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With 15 months left in his sentence, he moved to a halfway house in Newark, 20 minutes from his home. Mike Sr. and Sandra brought him clothes, and he got to sleep in his old sheets again. He got a cell phone, even though it was against the rules, and texted his family and friends constantly. Although he hadn\u2019t earned his GED in jail \u2013 he couldn\u2019t pass the math portion \u2013 he wanted to work. He went through a program that required him to do a mock interview with staff at the halfway house \u2013 and to wear a suit every day for three months. But wearing a suit made him feel like a man.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He learned how to catch a bus. He learned how to walk quickly again \u2013 a practice that\u2019s not valuable in jail. He got a job at Popeye\u2019s. At nights, he went to group counseling with other inmates. He brought in the DVD of &lt;em&gt;Prayer for a Perfect Season&lt;/em&gt;, the HBO documentary about St. Pat\u2019s 2011 season. And the other men in the group told them how jealous they were of him. Not because his brother was a basketball player, but because he came from a family with a mother and a father and two brothers \u2013 and they all loved and supported him.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He never knew how rare that was. \u201CAt first, I didn\u2019t want to see that,\u201D Darryl says. \u201CThen I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about it. Family became everything again.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*****\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Derrick was in a prison of his own in Kentucky. He had to know if he really was gay, so he created accounts on a couple of gay dating apps, Grindr and Adam4Adam. He was worried, though: First, because he\u2019d watched too much of the MSNBC show \u201CPredator,\u201D and second because he didn\u2019t want to be discovered.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He met a man for a date, but didn\u2019t like the experience. Convinced now that he was straight, he set out to prove it. The most sought-after girl at school was a cheerleader named Stephanie, and they started dating during the season. They had a physical relationship, and as it continued, Derrick began to realize that he was using her to pretend \u2013 at first even to himself \u2013 that he was someone he was not. He was gay. But he didn\u2019t tell anyone.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As a freshman, he led the Hilltoppers in scoring (11.8 ppg), rebounds (6.7 rpg) and minutes (33.3 per game). They made a surprise NCAA tournament run but lost in their opening game to eventual national champion Kentucky, a team that featured Kidd-Gilchrist.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After that season, he decided he could have a better basketball career at another school but knew that a fresh start would require him to come out. That spring, after a tour of St. John's in New York City, he found a quiet corner of campus and made a phone call to Chris Radecke, the coach he\u2019d spent early mornings with in the gym when he was in middle school. And he said the words \u201CI\u2019m gay\u201D out loud for the first time. Radecke gave him his full support.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Derrick chose UMass and felt reborn when he arrived in the summer of 2012. Everyone assumed he was straight because he was still with Stephanie. His new roommate, center Tyler Bergantino also had a long-distance relationship, so they\u2019d Facetime or Skype their girlfriends at the same time and watch movies on shared screens. He and Derrick even made a YouTube series called the \u201CDG and TB Chronicles.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two Instagram photos changed everything. During winter break in 2012, Derrick was at a gay club called Paradise in Asbury Park, N.J. He snapped a photo and shared it without realizing that it geo-tagged the club he was in. Senior guard Chaz Williams, who hadn\u2019t always clicked with Derrick, saw the photo and called Cady Lalanne, the team\u2019s center and best player, to tell him. Cady then called Derrick as he was enjoying his favorite song at the club, \u201CSweet Nothing\u201D by Calvin Harris. Derrick, who wasn't close with Cady, saw the phone call and panicked. When he answered, Cady asked where he was, and Derrick said he was at Paradise, figuring Cady, who unbeknownst to Derrick was with several of their teammates, wouldn\u2019t know it was a gay club. Just to be safe, he told them he\u2019d gone with some girls, and even texted a picture to try to prove it.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A couple of weeks later, he liked a photo that George, his boyfriend at the time, had posted on Instagram. They were standing cheek to cheek with their arms around each other\u2019s waists. Again, chief inspector Cady saw it. \u201CEverybody had been 50/50 before that second photo,\u201D says Cady. \u201CBut we all just wanted him to come out after it. We would respect him if he was honest with us. But lies catch up with you.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A time comes when silence is betrayal. Derrick was betraying his teammates, his coaches and even his family \u2013 his father had caught him on Grindr, a gay dating app, that same winter break when Derrick had fallen asleep with his phone in his hand. And of course, he was betraying Stephanie. Although he said they were \u201Con again, off again\u201D during the fall, his relationships with her and George overlapped. Derrick broke up with Stephanie in February, after UMass\u2019 game at VCU. Then he withdrew from everyone. When the team gathered for meals at Berkshire, a campus cafeteria, Derrick would sit off at a table in the corner by himself, his phone always in his hand and the screen always out of sight to everyone but him.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He went through an entire year that way. He would come home from practice and play &lt;em&gt;Call of Duty&lt;/em&gt; by himself until he was tired. When he couldn\u2019t sleep, he\u2019d close his eyes and count cartoon sheep jumping over a fence. When he was by himself, he\u2019d cry a lot. He started the 2013-14 season 9-of-27 from the floor with just 24 points in his first three games before bouncing back in A-10 play, averaging 9.6 points a game and shooting 52 percent. It was the least enjoyable basketball season of his life. After UMass lost to Tennessee in the second round of the NCAA tournament, Derrick told himself he had two choices: Come out or quit basketball.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He decided to come out. First, he gathered around himself a support system, including Billy Bean, who came out after a six-year MLB career that ended in 1995, and Wade Davis, a former NFL player who now runs the You Can Play Project, which aims to end homophobia in sports. They suggested that he break the news in an interview with ESPN's Kate Fagan, in part because she is an openly gay journalist. But first, he had to tell his team and his family.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*****\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On Sunday, March 30, he went home to Plainfield and told his mom he needed to talk. They sat on the couch together and he asked her to guess what it was about. She went through three questions about problems with school and basketball, and responded \u201Cno\u201D each time. Her fourth question was, \u201CDid you get a girl pregnant?\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CNo,\u201D Derrick responded. \u201CThat\u2019s way off.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And then she knew what she had long suspected. \u201CDerrick, are you gay?\u201D she asked.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CYeah.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They cried together.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Derrick asked Sandra to tell Mike Sr. while he went for a drive to clear his head. She told both Mikes \u2013 neither of whom was surprised. Finally, she called Darryl. He was shocked. He hung up with his mom and called Derrick right away. No answer. Then he texted his twin, and Derrick replied right away: \u201CI\u2019m driving now, I\u2019ll call you later.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He returned to campus and told his teammates that same day \u2013 after UMass coach Derek Kellogg, who is married with one son, broke the ice by telling the team that &lt;em&gt;he&lt;/em&gt; was gay \u2013 and then did the ESPN interview on Monday. Fagan asked him how he felt. \u201CAwesome \u2013 actually,\u201D he replied. \u201CI thought I wasn\u2019t going to feel this way for three or four years. ... It\u2019s an indescribable feeling.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;By the time Derrick and Darryl talked, two days later, it was tense. Derrick was on high alert for any sign of prejudice. Darryl was more hurt from being the last one to know. And there was something else too \u2013 just as Derrick had lost his dreams of playing basketball with his brother in high school and college when Darryl was locked up, a dream of Darryl\u2019s was dying too. In quiet moments in his cell, he\u2019d think about going up to visit his brother, the college star, and, of course, picking up girls.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Darryl suggested that Derrick go to a therapist. What he meant was that Derrick should talk to someone before coming out publicly, but what Derrick heard was that he should see a therapist to make him straight again. They didn\u2019t talk for two weeks. Then Darryl broke the ice with a series of text messages so long that each one stretched past Derrick\u2019s phablet\u2019s screen. The main message was that Darryl supported him, no matter what. Since that exchange, they\u2019ve become closer than they were even as kids. They text and talk on the phone daily. Darryl was looking forward to being released on Sept. 30. Derrick already had been.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*****\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Around campus now, Derrick shake more hands and has more conversations with strangers than a politician. The construction manager buzzing by in a golf cart? He came out to Derrick after Derrick came out to the world. The chef at the cafeteria? She chats him up for 10 minutes about how he discovered his type of guy and how his new boyfriend Mark is doing. His teammates? He\u2019s with them for every meal now, and often at their dorms or apartments to play video games and hang out afterward. He is all the way out now, and everyone is in it with him.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On Friday, Nov. 14, Darryl takes a night off from preparing orders at Popeye\u2019s and gets permission from his parole officer to see his brother\u2019s first game of the season. Approaching the Mullins Center, he\u2019s so excited he almost starts sprinting -- but he doesn\u2019t want to leave his mother and father behind. The family settles into their first-row seats behind the UMass bench and watch as Derrick struggles to score 6 points in the first half. But they also hear the crowd of more than 8,000 chant \u201CDer-Rick Gor-Don\u201D as he takes his first free throws, and see students holding signs that say \u201C#BeTrue.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the second half, the shots still don\u2019t fall for Derrick, but he gets five points, two offensive rebounds and an assist in the final four minutes to help UMass ice Siena. Mullins Center staff set up a perimeter for the players to exit through after the game. UMass wins 95-87, and Derrick is the last player to walk the path toward the locker room. He sees Darryl.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Later tonight, they\u2019ll laugh and eat pizza. They\u2019ll send Sandra away so that they can have a few moments by themselves and begin making up for what has been lost. They\u2019ll say they love each other and make plans to meet again soon.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But right now, the last barrier between them is a thin yellow rope. Derrick ducks underneath it, and the brothers embrace for the first time as free men.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2014/11/17/derrick-gordon-umass-minutemen>