As you may have noticed, British-born former NBA player John Amaechi revealed last week that he is gay. A middling center whose who career in Orlando, Utah, and Cleveland spanned five years, Amaechi will likely be all over your TVs and your internets over the next few weeks as he promotes his upcoming book, Man in the Middle.
This really shouldn’t be news. Unfortunately, it is.
Amaechi will be featured on the cover of the forthcoming issue of ESPN The Magazine. He’s been in the New York Times. He was on Outside The Lines last Sunday. Google News gives me 1,200 results for the query “john amaechi gay,” and that number will surely rise.
I first learned that Amaechi was coming out on Pardon The Interruption a week or so ago. I didn’t really pay much attention to the announcement. He’s gay. I get it. Sweet. Let’s move on to coverage of college football’s signing day. The only two things I remember about Amaechi’s playing days were that he was British, and he wasn’t very good. Neither of those two traits are particularly notable. In combination, they’re moderately charming but still not particularly notable.
Granted, few high-profile athletes have publicly discussed their homosexuality. (Off topic: I won’t address the issue of whether Amaechi is a “high-profile athlete,” but it’s probably open for debate.) And, even fewer of them are men. ESPN’s Chris Sheridan writes that Amaechi is only the “sixth professional male athlete from one of the four major American sports (NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL) to publicly discuss his homosexuality.” He will be the only NBA player among these six athletes. All of them are retired.
What is it about our culture, and, specifically, the NBA’s culture, that makes it so difficult for an educated, articulate athlete like John Amaechi to come out? Maybe it’s privacy and the fear — whether real or imagined — of unwelcoming teammates. Amaechi writes in his book that the obsession with keeping his sexuality hidden “showed that in my own paranoia and overwhelming desire for privacy, I’d failed to give some of my teammates the benefit of the doubt.”
I want to believe that Amaechi’s right — that in a way he’s to blame for the subject of homosexuality being taboo in the NBA because he wasn’t open enough about it. Ignorance, as we know, often engenders prejudices, be it gender, racial, or sexual in nature.
Still, I can’t fault the man. In his book, Amaechi describes in detail his teammates’ gay phobia. He recounts the echo of “fag” resonating in the locker room and other diatribes, such as “If my kid grew up gay, I’d throw him into the street” and “That’s disgusting — two guys together.”
As you can imagine, then, the reaction of NBA players to Amaechi’s announcement was mixed.
Grant Hill, always the gentleman, applauded the decision: “The fact that John has done this, maybe it will give others the comfort or confidence to come out as well, whether they are playing or retiring.”
NBA savior Lebron James, exactly the type of marketable personality who could usher in a reformation of the league’s image, said,
With teammates you have to be trustworthy, and if you’re gay and you’re not admitting that you are, then you are not trustworthy… What happens in the locker room stays in there. It’s a trust factor, honestly. A big trust factor.
Just goes to show you that LeBron — despite the $90 million Nike contract — is still a 22-year-old kid. Maybe he should focus less about this “trust issue” and more about his dismal 68.2% free-throw percentage.
Shavlik Randolph, though, gives us the best ditty: “As long as you don’t bring your gayness on me I’m fine… As far as business-wise, I’m sure I could play with him. But I think it would create a little awkwardness in the locker room.” Shavlik, you’re a dinosaur.
I believe that every generation has one issue, one social black-eye, one asterisk for which it will be remembered. Our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson and the like, held slaves. In the mid-to-late 1800, our nation witnessed the subjugation (extermination?) of the Native American peoples. The Greatest Generation lived in a time of overt racial and (perhaps to a lesser extent) gender discrimination.
What is our collective failure? I think it will be one of two things: (1) our appalling treatment of the environment or (2) our homophobia. Future generations may wonder how we — wealthy, educated, and cosmopolitan — could allow such outrages. How will we justify this to our children? Our children’s children?
Thankfully, the wheels of social progress may spin slowly, but they do spin. John Amaechi’s announcement matters because it’s another incremental step toward a more understanding culture — understanding of homosexuality, yes, but of other differences, too. One day, an active, high-profile athlete will come out, proving that even in the most masculine of environments (pro locker rooms), being gay can not only be tolerated but also supported.
It’s going to happen.