a different kind of dribbling...

seems like everyone's coming out these days...it's insane..but good insane...and finally a basketball player...and he's kinda sexy too....i wonder what it was like for him all this time being in the locker room...without everyone knowing...and how different his career would be. I applaud him for coming out whether it was after he retired or not...hopefully it will provoke more people to do it even daringly enough at the height of their career. No one has been this brave in the professional sports community since magic johnson publicly admitted that he was hiv positive.
i wonder if he's single...and if he likes husky white boys from jersey ehehheh

Former NBA Player Says He's Gay

NEW YORK -- John Amaechi is gay, and now the first NBA player to come out publicly is ready to talk about it.Amaechi, a center who spent five seasons with four teams, is scheduled to appear on ESPN's Outside the Lines on Sunday, and his autobiography Man in the Middle, will be released Valentine's Day, Feb. 14.
"He is coming out of the closet as a gay man," Amaechi's publicist Howard Bragman said Wednesday.NBA commissioner David Stern said a player's sexuality is not important."We have a very diverse league. The question at the NBA is always 'have you got game?' That's it, end of inquiry," he said.Three years after his playing career ended, Amaechi has become the sixth professional male athlete from one of the four major American sports (NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL) to publicly discuss his homosexuality.Former NFL running back David Kopay came out in 1977, and offensive lineman Roy Simmons and defensive lineman Esera Tuaolo came out more recently. Glenn Burke, an outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland A's in the 1970s, and Billy Bean, a utility player in the 1980s and 1990s, also have come out.In his book, Amaechi describes the challenge of being gay in a league where it is assumed that all players are heterosexual. He writes that while playing in Utah, coach Jerry Sloan used anti-gay innuendo to describe him.Sloan said Wednesday that although his relationship with Amaechi was "shaky" because of the player's attitude, he didn't know Amaechi was gay. Sloan had no comment about Amaechi's contention in the book that Sloan used anti-gay innuendo when referring to him. Amaechi said he found out about it in e-mails from friends in the Jazz front office.When asked if knowing Amaechi was gay would have mattered, Sloan said: "Oh yeah, it would have probably mattered. I don't know exactly, but I always have peoples' feelings at heart. People do what they want to do. I don't have a problem with that."Amaechi, 36, who is British, competed for Penn State, then played 301 NBA games over five seasons. The 6-foot-10 center averaged 6.2 points and 2.6 rebounds in the NBA. He began his career with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1995-96, then spent a few years playing in Europe. He rejoined the NBA to play for the Orlando Magic from 1999-01, then played two seasons for the Utah Jazz.The Jazz traded him to Houston, which traded him to the New York Knicks. When the Knicks waived him in January 2004, he retired.



Here are reactions from some other NBA players...some of them are positive and some of them are a little frightening...certainly displaying the iq involved in becoming a basketball star and the worldly experience one must have in order to excell at dribbling

*Orlando's Grant Hill, who said he didn't know Amaechi when he was with the Magic, also applauded the decision to go public.

"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," Hill said.

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*LeBron James, however, said he didn't think an openly gay person could survive in the league.

"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," James said. "So that's like the No. 1 thing as teammates -- we all trust each other. You've heard of the in-room, locker room code. What happens in the locker room stays in there. It's a trust factor, honestly. A big trust factor."

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*Injured Philadelphia Sixers forward Shavlik Randolph acknowledged it's a new situation.

"As long as you don't bring your gayness on me I'm fine," Randolph said. "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."

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*"For real? He's gay for real?" said Philadelphia center Steven Hunter. "Nowadays it's proven that people can live double lives. I watch a lot of TV, so I see a lot of sick perverted stuff about married men running around with gay guys and all types of foolishness."

Even so, Hunter said he would be fine with an openly gay teammate.

"As long as he don't make any advances toward me I'm fine with it," he said. "As long as he came to play basketball like a man and conducted himself like a good person, I'd be fine with it."