I'm gay, says British
basketball star
John Amaechi is first
male basketball player to come out in US
Ian Whittell for The
Times Online, February 7, 2007
John Amaechi, a former NBA player and
England basketball international, is to publish a book next week in which he
will reveal he is gay.
The autobiography, entitled Man in the Middle, will detail his six seasons in
the world's leading basketball league and its release is being eagerly awaited
in the United States .
The publishers of the book, ESPN, have refused to reveal the identity of the
author although it understood he will appear on their television station and in
their magazine next week in advance of the February 20 publication date.
Sources in the United States have confirmed that the 6' 10" Amaechi, 36, is the
player in question.
Amaechi, born in the United States but raised in Stockport, will be the first
prominent British sportsman to make public his homosexuality since the late
footballer Justin Fashanu in the late 1980s.
While Amaechi's announcement will be met with interest in Britain, it is being
anticipated feverishly in the United States where no male basketball player has
come out as gay before. NBA teams and officials are steeling themselves
for Amaechi's revelations and whether or not he will discuss the sexual
orientation of other players.
Initial leaks from the States seem to suggest that his former coach at the Utah
Jazz, Jerry Sloan, is the object of Amaechi's anger in his book and is accused
of being homophobic.
"Unbeknownst to me at the time," Amaechi writes, "Sloan had used some anti-gay
innuendo to describe me. It was confirmed via e-mails from friends who
worked in high-level front-office jobs with the Jazz."
The son of an absent Nigerian father, Amachi was raised by his mother, a
Stockport doctor, and attended Stockport Grammar School before his basketball
talent took him to high school in America. He played at two different
colleges, the start of a trend of frequently changing clubs throughout his
playing career, and signed for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA after
graduation in 1995.
After just 28 games, he moved to Europe and played for the French clubs Cholet
and Limoges, Bologna in Italy, Greece's Panathinaikos and the Sheffield Sharks
in the British Basketball League, five teams in the next three years.
Amaechi returned to the NBA with the Orlando Magic in 1999-2000 and enjoyed his
best season, earning him a $10 million (£5 million), four-year contract.
After one more season in Orlando, Amaechi was traded to the Utah Jazz for two
more seasons prior to a spectacular fall from grace which saw him not used at
all at the start of the 2003-04 season. There followed trades to the
Houston Rockets and New York Knicks but neither club ever played Amaechi and the
latter eventually paid up his contract and released him.
Since retiring, Amaechi became well known in Britain for his television
appearances and his work with children. He has helped fund the Amaechi
Basketball Centre, run by his schoolboy coach Joe Forber, in Whalley Range,
Manchester.
Nothing in his playing career will compare with the impact he is about to make
with the release of his biography. No male basketball player has come out
as gay and only a handful of men in other team sports have done so.
Billy Bean, a small-time American baseball player, created a stir when he
published a biography in which he revealed his homosexuality and Esera Tuaolo,
an American football player for nine years in the NFL, did likewise in a
magazine article in 2002.
High-profile women's basketball star Sheryl Swoopes did the same last year but,
with the NBA known for its machismo and womanising players, no male star has
made such a revelation.
|
