John Amaechi - Coming Out

Coming Out

In February 2007, Amaechi spoke about his sexuality on ESPN's Outside the Lines program. He also released a book, Man in the Middle, published by ESPN Books (ISBN 1933060190), which discusses his career and life as a closeted professional athlete. Amaechi is the first NBA player to speak publicly about being gay.

Few male team sports members in the United States have come out as gay. Among them are former NFL players Esera Tuaolo, Roy Simmons, and Dave Kopay, and former Major League Baseball players Glenn Burke and Billy Bean. Bean wrote an op-ed in support of Amaechi's decision.

Cyd Zeigler, the co-founder of Outsports.com, a website dedicated to the gay influence in sports, said, "I don't think (Amaechi's declaration) will have any effect on his ability to do that," referring to Amaechi's businesses and charitable work. "You will have some people who will raise an eyebrow," Zeigler added.

In a 2002 interview with Scotland on Sunday, Amaechi had previously spoken about gays in the NBA: "If you look at our league, minorities aren't very well represented. There's hardly any Hispanic players, no Asian-Americans, so that there's no openly gay players is no real surprise. It would be like an alien dropping down from space. There'd be fear, then panic: they just wouldn't know how to handle it."

In May 2007, a few months after coming out, Amaechi said he had "underestimated America", adding that he had expected the "wrath of a nation" but it never materialized. He made these statements despite having been the subject of death threats a few months earlier.

In August 2008, Amaechi was sent to Beijing to do Olympic Men's and Women's Basketball broadcasts and reporting for the BBC. There, he authored a blog with fellow activist and renowned photographer Jeff Sheng in partnership with Amnesty International. He used Sheng's knowledge of Mandarin and experience in Beijing to get behind the scenes and gather candid interviews with locals and Olympic athletes alike.

In 2008, John Amaechi made several appearances on Shirts & Skins, a reality series on LOGO Television. Amaechi acted as team "mentor" and "psychologist" to the San Francisco Rockdogs, a gay basketball team, and shared his experiences on basketball, life, and coming out. In 2010, Amaechi made public that he had been denied entry to a gay bar in Manchester, allegedly because the doorman felt he was "big, black and could be trouble". He said he was considering legal action.