The John Amaechi book, Man in the Middle was supposed to be a huge leap forward for homosexuals. It was supposed to be a big coming out for a former NBA player. In my eyes, it was just your average biography. Yes it was well written, and yes it had moments where it was very interesting but when it comes down to it, John Amaechi wasn’t a star player, and this detracts from his story.

This was a pretty good underdog story, which kept me turning pages. Amaechi was basically the fat, out of place kid who no one really cared about. He never played basketball until he was a teenager. Even then, Amaechi barely had any talent, and growing up in Britain, he wasn’t exactly aware of the sport and certainly wasn’t up against much talent. He basically got through for being the tall kid.

Amaechi then moves to the United States to finish up high school and go to college. It is at college where he has his first gay moment, and describes it to the reader in no uncertain terms. It really is impressive that Amaechi managed to improve his game quickly enough to play at a Division I level. Throughout this story, Amaechi constantly refers to his “plan” which was supposed to guide him to a career in the NBA as well as shaping him into a good person. This plan guides his life, but for all the importance it appears to have, he never lays out the plan for the reader. I guess you have to hire him as a speaker to get that part of the story.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when Tim Hardaway was known for a lethal crossover and not being a homophobic prick? Yeah, me too. In an interview with Dan Le Batard, Hardaway did a nice job of summing up why there haven’t been any athletes to come out during their career: because they’d be subject to some pretty bigotry.

“You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people,” he said while a guest on Sports Talk 790 The Ticket. “I’m homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world or in the United States.”

Tim, what if a white player came out and said they hated black people? They’d sound pretty damn stupid, right? Well, that’s exactly how you come across. Last I checked, John Amaechi was a basketball player. Seeing as how nothing came out about him making advances on teammates or opponents, I’m assuming it was a non-issue when it came to the game of basketball.

Hardaway could have answered the question a hundred different ways. “What do you think of John Amaechi coming out as a gay man?” You could have said no comment and gotten your point across, you could have said it’d be awkward in the locker room, like other athletes around sports have said. But saying what you did is probably the worst way to handle it.

In yesterday’s blog roundup, we said that a former NBA player would come out of the closet. Jokingly, we suggested Shawn Kemp. Was it Kemp? No. It was former Jazz and Magic center John Amaechi. His autobiography, “Man in the Middle”, will be released on Valentines Day and will apparently vividly describe how he kept the secret.

What’s going to come out of this? Probably nothing. For years, everybody always talked about whether or not a gay teammate could be accepted in a clubhouse. In the end, does it make an ounce of difference either way? If a gay athlete was isolated from his teammates, then it’s the teammates that have something wrong with them.

Ask Jerry Sloan, who might earn Prick of the Week honors. Amaechi said that throughout his tenure in Utah, Sloan referred to him with “anti-gay innuendo.” Sloan is pleading ignorance, saying he didn’t know about Amaechi’s sexual orientation. Either way, well played Sloan.

A few athletes have come out in the past and my reaction to all of them has been the same: who cares? It took reading an article on the subject to even realize that former MLB outfielder Billy Bean was gay. And very soon, I’ll forget about Amaechi being gay. We have hundreds of adulterers in pro sports, some convicted murderers, and people are worried about a guy’s sexual orientation? Wow.