John+Amaechi


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=John Amaechi-=

John Amaechi was the first NBA player to tell people he was gay. Amaechi was currently playing for Penn Sate. He spent five years in the NBA with Pennsylvania, Orlando, Utah, and Cleveland. Many people that were once his fans now look down upon him because of his sexual orientation. While some people actually liked him more because he was strong enough to not care what people would think and come out with who he really was. One of those people was Martina Navratilova, a professional tennis player, who is the most openly gay athlete and she thinks that what Amaechi did was great because, famous people like him that did what he did are great role models to kids. This is because kids around America and the whole world all have something that they are scared to tell others. Kids who are homosexual have a really hard time coming out and if they get to much pressure put on them they could hurt themselves. So although many people who are against homosexuals now dislike Amaechi, many now look up to him as a true role model.

After coming out Amaechi wrote his own book on how he felt about coming out and what it was like to keep himself "in the closet". It was called __Man In The Middle__.

I chose Amaechi as my virtual legacy because he is a true roll model that can be looked up to. Many players that he played with started looking down apon him. Such as Tim Hardaway, he said that he would like a gay player to be removed from his team because he would not want to play with him and he said that it is not right that he would change in the locker room with 12 other players on his team and he would make people very uncomfortable on and off the court. He stated that it would be hard to accept him as a teammate again.

Some players liked him even more. Such as Grant Hill. He said that since he did this he may make other players more comfortable coming out and gay NBA players and retired players could come out as gay and gain their confidence back. Some players accepted him but said that as long as he didn't make any advances toward then than they would treat him the same but they also said that it may be awkward getting changed in the locker room with him.

People like LeBron James said that he could now trust Amaechi because James can't play with people that he can't trust. When homosexuals stay "in the closet" that is being untrustworthy so since he came out, James can trust him more.

In conclusion, John Amaechi is a true role model for all homosexuals and all people that are insecure about themselves in some way because they think their different. He had an effect on people all around the country and world about coming out as gay and I think that later on he could really help with the Gay Rights Movement.

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