Let's get this out of the way.
John Amaechi hooked up with a men's volleyball player inside a second floor bathroom in Rec Hall, never saw the inside of Chumley's, cared less for Penn State football and knew even less about the exploits of women's basketball coach Rene Portland and lesbians.
Some of that is there in Amaechi's new book, Man in the Middle, in which he reveals he is gay. Amaechi is the first NBA player to reveal his homosexuality.
If you were to believe the back cover marketing, the large pullout quote where Amaechi describes a basketball locker room, laughing because he's "the gay one," the book would be full of guy-on-guy action.
But his exploits as a gay man don't compare in gravity to the rest of his story. He was a half-black nerd reared in Britain by a single mother and abandoned by a crazy Nigerian father. Amaechi turned into an ambidextrous shooter after an accident where a plate glass door almost completely severed his right hand.
As Amaechi promised, this book isn't an autobiography posing as a sex tale -- the sex stuff is only marketing, because as Amaechi said, he can't "control what people find titillating." This story is supposed to be different because the main character is gay, but in fact, it's seemingly unnecessary after hearing the rest of the story.
There is a reason why only about 10 percent of the pages mention homosexuality. Drawn out in great detail is his reformation from a boy with his nose stuck in the Hardy Boys series to an uninspiring basketball prospect to a professional athlete. Amaechi's time at Penn State dominates the middle portion of the book, but don't expect sports to be the meat of it, either. In fact, Amaechi admits he never really loved basketball.
A great deal of words are spent describing his mentoring projects outside of school, including The Second Mile and Big Brothers Big Sisters. So much time that Amaechi used Nittany Notes.
Anyone expecting a long preach on Portland will be disappointed, too. Amaechi said, "Even her wins were tarnished with bigotry," but it seems forced and completely off on a tangent (it moves from that to Magic Johnson and AIDS). Fortunately, after a few paragraphs, Portland disappears from the book.
After such distractions, the book is a quick-read, and you can easily get through it in a night and a day. Some parts are extremely philosophical, and his outlook on life are some of the most thoughtful details. Grade: B+
-- Reviewed by Jon Blau
