I HAVE known John Amaechi for almost a decade now. We've had many interesting discussions on both sides of the Atlantic which have rarely had anything to do with sport. We even share the world record for the shortest ever visit to Disney World (two minutes, thanks to autograph hunters - for him, not me).
I consider him to be the most cerebral sportsmen I know, as well as a friend. Until last week, we'd never discussed his sexuality. But I knew.
When it came to this particular elephant in the room, I evaded the beast by using gender-neutral termin
ology - "seeing anyone?" - respecting John's decision to control his life as he saw fit.
Three years ago, however, he gave me the only interview during his playing career on the subject of the ordeals which a gay basketball player would go through in the NBA, telling this paper that the league was not ready for such a thing, that "it would be like an alien beaming down from space". Last week, those words were recycled and regurgitated in newspapers and websites across America and beyond. They now carried a much greater significance than when originally uttered.
Yet the quandaries, peculiarities and sensitivities of the subject of gays in sport are all wrapped up in this untidy package. Should sexuality matter on the field, court or arena? Of course it shouldn't.
But it does. Otherwise, Amaechi's book, fascinating though it is, would be buried on bookshelves rather than sitting near the very top of Amazon's bestseller list. Should it cause division? No way. But it does.
Observe the proliferation of gay rugby teams and football leagues, generated by more by a need to be included than to create exclusion.
Stereotypes reign. Gay men don't play sport, they go shopping. They don't watch sport, they watch romantic films with a box of tissues. "You could say there is an amount of that but it is more a stereotype than reality," said one rugby-playing gay acquaintance of mine. "If you are not out, you can go and play but if you are out, there is that atmosphere of being different. If you go to see a football game, there are chants, there is that machismo. It's not something a lot of gay men enjoy."
Allen Iverson, one of Amaechi's regular opponents during his spell in America, once composed a rap tune. "Come to me with faggot tendencies and you'll be sleeping where the maggots be."
Which perhaps explains why there are so few like Amaechi.
Ian Roberts, one of the toughest men in Australian Rugby League, is one of an even more exclusive club: those who came out while still pursuing their career. " Some people call you a poof and you laugh with them," he observed at the time, "while there are others who you just want to smack in the head."
It is widely rumoured that the list of covertly gay British sportsmen includes current and recent rugby internationals, Olympic medal-winning athletes and swimmers. Few in their sport care, but you need only think of the tormented Justin Fashanu to know that there is no guarantee of a happy ending. He was humiliated by Brian Clough, being sent off to train on his own, before being exiled to Hearts. Eventually, in a fit of self-loathing, he killed himself. Even Fash's own brother, John, disowned him.
Double standards apply in which gay sportsmen are beyond the pale while lesbians are so common in sport that they're barely worthy of note. There are entire female rugby and football teams in Scotland where there is not a single heterosexual. Not an eyelid is batted. Martina Navratilova was stigmatised as she blazed a trail but in more enlightened times, others such as Amelie Mauresmo have followed with little fuss. In golf, the predilections of Karrie Webb and Patty Sheehan attract minimal review. And rightly so.
