February 8, 2007 6:03 AM

Perhaps someday we'll get past all of this...or not

The “Out” Scoop On Amaechi’s Book

Amaechi becomes first NBA player to come out

In a groundbreaking revelation that began to reverberate around the NBA on Wednesday, former player John Amaechi has become the first professional basketball player to openly identify himself as a homosexual. Amaechi, who played at Penn State and spent five seasons in the NBA with Orlando, Utah and Cleveland, comes out in an upcoming book entitled “Man in the Middle” to be released later this month…. Three years after his playing career ended, Amaechi become the sixth professional male athlete from one of the four major American sports (NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL) to publicly discuss his homosexuality.

I dream of a world in which which no one will care about the “qualifiers”. No one will care about the gender of a President, the color of a football coach, or the sexual orientation of an athlete…because it doesn’t matter. We’ll be free to enjoy our successes or the successes of others without having to categorize or label. We won’t be male or female, black or white or brown, or even gay or straight. We’ll be PEOPLE.

Unfortunately, it would seem that we’re still a long ways away from that goal. The idea of a female President stills give far too many people pause, the color of a football coach is still a legitimate conversation piece, and the sexual orientation of an athlete is still controversial news- when it’s revealed that said athlete is attracted to members of the same sex.

It says something about the state of our society when an athlete like John Amaechi is faced with the choice of living a lie or losing his lucrative career. We still expect our male athletes to be paragons of male virtue and virility- role models that we’d want our sons to pattern themselves after. As a society, we’ve placed professional athletes on a pedestal that most neither deserve nor want. Perhaps in our diminished sense of adequacy, we’ve decided to live vicariously through those capable of feats and accomplishments we mere mortals can only dream of.

John Amaechi was a solid if unspectacular NBA ballplayer who had a respectable career. During his time in the league, he recognized that the only way he had any hope of maintaining his career was to camouflage who he really was…not an easy thing to do in such a thoroughly public environment. I’m not gay, I have no interest in the lifestyle, but it disturbs me that this day and age, a gay person is still required to hide their true nature in order to fit in and reap the rewards of “normal” society. Is it so difficult for us to accept that a person might be who he is, which might differ from our pre-conceived notions of of what a athlete “should” be?

Yep; someday we’ll no longer care about whatever it is that puts a person outside the accepted norm. it just won’t be any day soon. The sad thing is that stories like John Amaechi’s will continue to be controversial, when it really has nothing to do with his basketball talent and success as a player.

We’ve come a long way, baby…just not nearly as far as we’d like to think.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 8, 2007 6:03 AM.

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