the first openly gay man in australia's top basketball league just retired at 28. he signed off as "your number 8." we're fine. totally fine.
Photo: Isaac Humphries with the Lakeland Magic in 2020. Tom Hagerty, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
"Sometimes life deals you cards that tell your story for you."
That is how Isaac Humphries opened the Instagram post announcing his retirement on Tuesday, Australian time, per ABC News. The Adelaide 36ers center is 28. His knee, which the AAP calls degenerative and which kept him off the court for all of this NBL season, made the call for him. He told his teammates before Tuesday's training, the league says, and then told everyone else.
"I'll miss my teammates. The laughs. The trenches," he wrote. "I'll miss the fans, the noise, and the feeling of having an entire community behind you." He signed off: "It's not exactly goodbye, but maybe an until I see you soon. So for now, and from your number 8, thank you."
why isaac humphries mattered
In November 2022, while playing for Melbourne United, Humphries came out, in a CNN interview and a video of him telling his teammates. ABC describes him as the first openly gay male player in the NBL; the AAP put it bigger, as the world's only openly gay professional basketballer at the time. To CNN's Amanda Davies, per Attitude, he said: "I can be who I am in my environment and I can change the trajectory of how we view being gay in sport and be a role model for anybody." In the same interview he described a period so dark he thought about ending his life.
He then went and had the best years of his career. Back in Adelaide, he was the club's MVP in the 2024 season, averaging 15.3 points and 6.7 rebounds, per the NBL, and helped the 36ers to last season's championship series. In all he played 173 NBL games for Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, with NBA stints with the Atlanta Hawks and Orlando Magic before that. AAP reports he championed the league's Pride Round and stood beside former player Andrew Ogilvy when Ogilvy came out in January.
36ers executive chairman Grant Kelley said he had "long admired Isaac's personal and professional courage." Humphries is not going far: the club says he moves into a non-playing role with its community, marketing and commercial teams. The out gay guy getting a desk at the club afterwards, instead of a quiet exit. That is the part we would like to see more of.
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