We'd been told for years that professional athletes are Neanderthals who hate gay people. Yet when asked about the coming out of NBA player Jason Collins last week, the overwhelming majority of pro athletes had not just tolerant, but welcoming, comments.

We've compiled a list of all the pro-athlete reactions we could find. If you find some we haven't yet included, please send them my way at cydzeiglerjr@gmail.com

NBA

Tony Allen: Ain't no problem with it. You are what you are.

John Amaechi: Congratulations to Jason - society couldn't hope for a more eloquent & positive role model

Chris Andersen: "he's going to have a tough road, but you know what, I think he's in the right part of a state of mind that he's going to be ... a tough leader."

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“This really should be the end of it,” someone I wouldn’t exactly call a friend said to me about the Cleveland Cavaliers. “Or something has gone horribly wrong.” He’s talking about, or more accurately issuing ultimatums about, the rebuild through which both the Cavs and their fans have suffered over the past three years. You know the one: LeBron left, team ripped off the longest losing streak in NBA history, Kyrie Irving teleported in from a planet where people believe in themselves but have very vulnerable lower bodies, and that about catches us up. There is reason for hope, but the team is still, at this stage, highly capable of getting blown out by 18 points in Detroit. This means some fans consider Cavs GM Chris Grant to be on the hot seat. They are not the ones whose hands are on the temperature dial, but they are no less certain for that.

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Malkin dismissed Rice’s firing as “political correctness ... run amok.” Hannity mused that he could understand asking Rice to “stop hitting” players, but praised the coach’s “intensity” and “drive.” “I like that he’s pushing those kids and he runs a tight ship. Maybe we need a little more discipline in society and maybe we don’t have to be a bunch of wimps for the rest of our lives.”

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"In the enactment of the reserve-rule the clubs were probably influenced by three considerations," wrote Ward in a seminal essay titled "Is the Base-Ball Player a Chattel?" in 1887. "They wished to make the business of base-ball more permanent, they meant to reduce salaries, and they sought to secure a monopoly of the game."

"Chattel" was entirely appropriate because, for much of the 20th century, baseball players and other professional athletes were among the most exploited labor forces in the United States. Team owners dictated artificially low salaries; benefits (pension, medical care and the like) were inadequate. Athletes did not employ agents nor have an organized, certified union to represent their rights, on and off the field.

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This isn't the first time the Heat have made news off the court. In March of 2012, the team donned hoodies in support of Trayvon Martin, a political statement as surprising as it was brave. Their latest video shows they know how to let loose together too.

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That professional basketball players would be allowed into Olympic competition was probably inevitable after the 1972 games, which was the first time the U.S. team had not won the gold medal in roundball since it became an Olympic sport in 1936. A Russian team who were amateurs in name only upset a team of American college boys. Americans were shocked when Frank Gifford, who was doing the commentary, bellowed “Aleksandr Belov …”  as the massive Russian center rammed home the wining shot as time expired. Coaches and players across the country grumbled: “If the Russian can have what amounts to a professional team, why can’t we use our pros?” 1988 settled it: American college boys couldn’t even bring home the silver, just bronze.

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With six minutes left, the U.S. team, made up of future Hall of Famers, was trailing to … not Russia, not Spain, but Lithuania. Yes, the Lithuania whose estimated population of 3.2 million is about a quarter of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The same Lithuanian team that lost to Nigeria a month ago, a team the U.S. beat by 83 points last week.

And then, like in a bad sports movie, LeBron came off the bench, took on their best player –  Linas Kleiza, who plays for the Toronto Raptors – and stayed on him much of the time. LeBron scored 9 of his 20 points, pulled down two rebounds, stole a ball, and said to Team USA, in the words of U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski, “I got this. I’m doing this.”

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The suddenly real possibility of an epic upset got my juices flowing, and I posted this message on Twitter:  “There’s nothing more American than pulling for the underdog. Go Lithuania!”

Within a few minutes, two things happened: 1) LeBron and Team USA woke up and reeled off 17 of the next 23 points, grabbing control and averting a humbling defeat; and 2) outraged responses to my tweet began tricking in, with messages like: “Wow. U suck. Plz self deport.” And: “Revoke your US citizenship dumbass.”

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On Wednesday, we gave you a list of athletes with amazing stories who are worth cheering for. But there are villains in London, as well. Here’s a list of athletes to jeer at in these games.

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Now comes "The Derision."

A city's anger toward LeBron James has been gathering like storm clouds over Lake Erie for five solid months now. The locals burned his jerseys, tacked his likeness to dart boards, pulled down his 10-story tall portrait off the side of a building across from Quicken Loans Arena and luxuriated in each and every one of the Miami Heat's eight losses so far this season.

And that was just the buildup.

That's why there will be plenty of extra cops in the vicinity of the arena hours ahead of the 8:17 p.m. EST tipoff. The Cavaliers' front office has been purposefully vague about what fans will be allowed to wear, scribble on signs or even say once they step inside.

Nothing "vulgar, obscene or profane." Everything else, apparently is good.

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James, whose decision this summer to sign with Miami as a free agent touched off an emotional response in Cleveland, will make his first trip back as a member of the Heat on Dec. 2 -- a return local fans have awaited since he left.

After numerous discussions with the NBA on how to best handle a potentially hostile environment, the Cavaliers will have extra security personnel in and outside Quicken Loans Arena. The Cavaliers are asking fans to refrain from wearing any obscene T-shirts or signs directed at James, who grew up in Akron and played seven seasons for Cleveland.

Team owner Dan Gilbert took issue with a headline proclaiming the Cavaliers would ban any anti-LeBron shirts. On Thursday, Gilbert said on his Twitter account: "Obviously no profanity, vulgar stuff U wouldn't want kids 2 see but we are not going 2 be the Gestapo (at) The Q."

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O'BRIEN (on camera): Do you think there's a role that race plays in this?

JAMES: I think so at times. It's always, you know, a race factor.

Calling all pitchforks, calling all pitchforks! The criticism piled up, and quickly. A few highlights:

Shaun Powell of NBA.com: "My advice for LeBron? Don't cite race anymore, unless you can give examples or prove you possess the power to look into someone's soul, because the (white) fan doesn't want to hear it."

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"If there was an opportunity for me to return," James says in the September issue of GQ magazine, "and those fans welcome me back, that'd be a great story."

A great story, undoubtedly, but one that will likely remain fictional. Cleveland, after all, is still licking its wounds after James slowly peeled off the Band-Aid in the one-hour "Decision" and announced his defection to the Miami Heat. And it remains the city where fans are doing one of two things to his jersey: burning it or selling it as toilet paper.

So it's safe to say Cleveland fans aren't thinking about a reunion. What they are pondering -- still -- is how James could be so cold, how he could leave them and remain so stoic and unaffected.

Turns out, the answer is pretty simple: James never liked the city.

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In the Akron Beacon Journal ad James says:

It’s where I started, and it’s where I will always come back to. You can be sure that I will continue to do everything I can for this city, which is so important to my family and me. Thank you for your love and support. You mean everything to me.

The messaged is signed "LeBron," and includes pictures of James' annual Bike-A-Thon, an event where he gives bikes away to Akron kids and makes donations to local charities.

It was the necessary show of emotion that was blatantly absent in the debacle known as "The Decision" -- the excruciatingly long one-hour special on ESPN, in which James announced his departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat.

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Most fans outside his new home in Miami react as follows: “Yo, LeBron. First win something, then swagger.”

So it is with GOP congressional leaders already gloating in advance of November’s midterm elections. Several are even warning Democrats not to try any funny business in between the election and the swearing-in of a new Congress next January.

“The American people shouldn’t have to face the prospect of lame-duck Washington Democrats imposing tax increases or any other job-killing policies on their way out the door,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said recently. Tea Party guru Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks is circulating a petition. One-time Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer has basically called upon President Barack Obama to take a vow of legislative chastity.

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There is definitely a connection between LeBron James and China. James is a Nike athlete, and Nike is making serious money in the "Greater China area" -- pulling in $464 million in revenue in the recently concluded fourth quarter. (That's almost ten percent of Nike's overall $5.1 billion fourth quarter haul.) Nike has targeted China with LeBron-branded region-specific basketball shoes for years.

But according to SportsGrid, in China, Laker superstar Kobe Bryant is stomping all over LeBron James in the symbol-significant realm of jersey sales.

According to [CNBCs Darren] Rovell Kobe's popularity is "at least two times bigger" than LeBron in China, a fact that has caused Kobe's jersey to continue to be the number one selling jersey in China.

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I didn't see the comparison jump beyond Twitter until last night, when Rev. Jesse Jackson issued a statement blasting Gilbert for his "slave-master mentality" and claiming the owner saw James as "a runaway slave." I winced. As an editor and a writer, as well as someone who cares about social justice, I'm a stickler about language. I try not to use terms like "psychological rape," "emotional incest," "cultural genocide," "environmental holocaust" or pretty much any metaphorical variations on the term "slavery." All those words have real-world meanings, and to use them as metaphor diminishes that impact.

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Following James' announcement last week that he was leaving Cleveland to join the Miami Heat, Gilbert fired off an incendiary letter to Cavs fans, ripping the 25-year-old and calling his decision "cowardly behavior." Later, Gilbert told The Associated Press that he felt the NBA's two-time MVP quit during the playoffs the past two years and that James "has gotten a free pass."

On Sunday, Jackson responded to Gilbert's remarks by saying the Cavs owner sees James as a "runaway slave" and that Gilbert's comments put the player in danger.

In a statement released by the team on Monday, Gilbert tried to put an end to the issue.

"I strongly disagree with Rev. Jesse Jackson's recent comments and we are not going to engage in any related discussion on it," Gilbert said. "Going forward, we're very excited about the Cavaliers and the positive future of our region."

Gilbert is in Las Vegas attending the owners' meetings.

James' publicist, Keith Estabrook, declined comment to The AP.

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We’ll probably never know what exactly went down between Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and LeBron James as they made their final decisions about where to play next year, but according to the media, it was certainly all LeBron all the time. But what about the other two, what kind of effect did they have on the outcome? This reminded me of something John Huber once said at a conference: that he liked formal modeling because it gave him a chance to understand interactions that he would never actually be able to observe. So with that in mind, consider my very modest attempt at asking what game theory might have to say about the end of the King James saga.

Consider a simple game with three players (no pun intended!) who all have to choose where to play basketball next year. They can each choose to stay in their own city or move to the city of another player. (So for the moment we leave out the option of them all going to New York or Chicago for simplicity’s sake, but I think the logic still holds fine if we expand the number of destinations.) The players get utility from the following four factors:

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