As the first NBA player, retired or active, to publicly acknowledge that he is a gay man, John Amaechi has ignited a nationwide discussion about how an out male athlete might be received in pro sports - particularly in the NBA. I'm working on an upcoming profile on John, author of a thoughtful memoir"Man in the Middle," for the Daily News that will run in the coming days. But, as always, I wanted to give Out In Hollywood readers a little appetizer today with more morsels to come on Friday.
After an initial round of interviews in New York, Amaechi arrived in Los Angeles Wednesday morning and a few hours later, we were sharing a Chinese food lunch inside a conference room in the Beverly Hills offices of his publicist, Howard Bragman. He was only scheduled to be in town for the day before leaving for an
evening event in San Francisco then departing Thursday for Salt Lake City for interviews and book signings.
"Everyone keeps telling me that I knew it was going to be this much fuss and I absolutely did not," John says. "I thought it might be a couple of days of people saying, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ But it became a massive story and a massive talking point. And it wasn’t just because of Tim Hardaway, I think that was an aspect of it that kind of added onto it in week number three. But even in the first two weeks, people in areas where they never talked about gay stuff, all of a sudden started to. I think that was important as a beginning."
I knew that John had in other interviews, already addressed Tim Hardaway's "I hate gay people" and other homophobic comments. I wanted to know what he thought of the backlash Hardaway had suffered including being fired by the NBA and CBA and losing some endorsements.
"Perhaps I do feel saddened that his legacy is tarnished but he is not suffering as much as some other people. There is the psychological and emotional damage that hearing that somebody hates you when you’re 16 years old and unsure of yourself, far outweighs losing a car wash [endorsement]. It is dwarfed by the damage the words have done. It’s dwarfed. Add up the net income, the net loss of the young people if their path in life is affected by this. Forget the money. When you damage a child, you can’t put a price on that. The same as when you elevate a child. You can’t put a price on THAT. The magnitude is massive."
"I’ve gotten emails from kids from Japan, Australia, eastern and western Europe, all around America, talking about how his words have affected them, how some of them have quit their handball, basketball, hockey, football teams because he’s heightened the fear in them that when they’re discovered, that they will be hurt. So he’s been a lightning rod for some kid in Arkansas to blab his mouth about dropping the "f-bomb" left and right and anti-gay slurs in the team environment not knowing that what he’s doing is stabbing his teammate in the neck."
MORE FROM JOHN AMAECHI ON FRIDAY...