As late as eight minutes before his speech was about to start, John Amaechi said he had no idea what he was going to say.

At last night's speech closing up the 2007 Distinguished Speaker Series in the HUB-Robeson Center's Alumni Hall, Amaechi, a former
Penn State basketball player, told those seated that he felt a bit nervous, that this talk was extremely important.

"I don't come here as much as I like," Amaechi said, "but I love it here. I want it to be perfect here. I don't understand the concept of 'good enough.' I have a total contempt for the concept of 'good enough.' "

As the first NBA player to reveal his homosexuality, he told listeners with sarcasm that "anchovies in his Caesar salad should be tolerated," but not people.

Every word was conjured up long after he sat on a bench outside of the Carnegie Building trying to piece together some inspiring words, he said.

But he reminisced and said that it was so much better at University Park than when he went here, when the rumor was that there were few gay people at Penn State and that every one of them lived together in East Halls.

The ridiculous assumption brought laughter to the crowd. He entertained, and at the same time flattered the audience by saying as a British male that he "underestimated Americans."

Amaechi expressed his happiness from the number of passers-by who offered kind words when passing him on that bench.

Amaechi ignored no talking points when at the podium for his 40-minute talk, and the scheduled 15-minute question and answer session went nearly as long. Just as he said he hoped, everyone who had an "excuse" to come see him did. People who would otherwise never sit next to each other listened with open minds.

The recent departure of former women's basketball head coach Rene Portland was a step in the right direction, he said. Amaechi cringed when he spoke of people still using the word "alleged" in terms of discrimination during her tenure.

"She's just incongruent," Amaechi said at a press conference before the speech. "She's like an appendix. She may have been useful at one point, but now she serves no purpose."

When a student slowly worked his way toward a question about Portland, Amaechi waited with bated breath.

"Ding, ding, ding," Amaechi said when the student blurted out Portland's name. "I thought I was going to have to extract it from you like a wisdom tooth."

The entire men's basketball team, including head coach Ed DeChellis, sat front and center in the first three rows.

A student who said he felt inspired to tell Amaechi he wanted to run for president someday expressed his revelation. Amaechi seemed emotionally moved by a disabled woman in a motorized cart when she said she understood his concept of "knowing your soul in the dark."

These messages, Amaechi said, are of the best value, something he said might have gotten squeezed out of his New York Times best-selling autobiography "Man in the Middle" because of "30 pages that were kind of gay."

"When I was in the NBA, the thing people found interesting to talk about was that I drank Earl Grey tea," Amaechi said. "You have to take what you can and use these things in the best ways possible. It's ironic to me that the gay thing is the most interesting part because it technically demotes most people."

Amaechi expressed his uneasiness after coming out on Feb. 7. He said he walked out of his house with headphones in his ears but the iPod off, talking into his cell phone with no one on the line and wearing sunglasses to hide his eyes.

But now he has seen the support. Whether it has been kind words from every Penn State teammate when no NBA teammates have spoken to him, or the standing ovation Amaechi received at the end of the speech, he can express a comfort in his own skin.

"There are gay people around you," Amaechi said. "They don't do anything to you. They don't molest you in your sleep. They're here. We are here."