Dear John.

I am Penn State... an open letter to my alma mater

2011-11-19T16:57:00.000Z

What I hope I have conveyed below is that in this time of crisis, I do not wish to pull away from Penn State, I want to get closer once again and help them while they heal, not just their reputation, but their internal culture and climate. It's what I do for a living and while I agree with the many people that revel in telling me how average I was as an NBA player, in my new life, as an organisational development professional - I feel like a bit of an All-Star.

To those at Penn State and around the world who are, like me, Penn State:

When I took my official visit to Penn State, the basketball coaches and academic advisers immediately got the measure of me, and one of the first facets of Penn State I was made aware of was The Second Mile. I fell in love with Penn State from that first day on campus.

Lauded in my visit as part opportunity, part obligation of my future "star-status,"The Second Mile was presented as a chance to "give back" while learning how to wield the burgeoning fame that came with being a sports star on Penn State’s campus. As I arrived on campus to stay, I was introduced to Jerry Sandusky and The Second Mile, an induction along with athletes from a variety of sports across campus that told us about our responsibility as larger-than-life figures in a county that revolved around Penn State sports—or more accurately, around the football team.

On my first engagement, I stood paralyzed behind an All-American volleyball player not knowing what on earth a massive black guy from England had to offer the scrawny group of near-transparent, mullet-bearing youths from all over Centre County that stood before us. A basketball extended toward me in two tiny hands and a simple game of keep-away in a high-school car park blew my preconceptions away and gave me my first taste of the joy of taking part, the magic of becoming a role model.

Former NBA player John Amaechi, during the publicity campaign for his 2007 book, "Man in the Middle," which chronicles his childhood, NBA career and his life. , Seth Wenig / AP Photo

I feel ashamed that I sensed nothing out of place with the program, given the allegations now emerging. I cringe when I realize I may have played catch or even sat on the grass and chatted with young people who were at that same time being systematically persecuted. More than that, I selfishly feel like my personal introduction to philanthropy—for that is what those early days at Penn State was—is now fundamentally tainted. For me, The Second Mile led to 10 concurrent “little brothers” at first through the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program and then seemingly randomly. Many years later, I even took in children of my own—but now it feels like my family may have been built on the backs of broken children.

Jerry Sandusky, using many sports stars more eminent than me, created an irresistible veneer for a program whose potential positive impact may have been subverted for one man’s personal gratification at the expense of the very children who were drawn to us for solace. My conscience aches at the thought of my unwitting complicity in the pain of even one child and the knowledge that the numbers may continue to grow.

I stop my self-indulgence here. This scandal is not about how I feel. It isn’t about me. I looked at my school in horror a second time after the removal of Joe Paterno as head coach. A group of students held vigil around him as if, in the scheme of things, he were the victim, and then a smaller group took to the streets to riot at the perceived injustice of his fall. In both instances they yelled “We are… Penn State.” As a proud alum, I can tell them that in that moment—one I know many of them will come to regret—they were not Penn State. They failed to realize that this story is not about them. It’s not even about Joe Paterno, but rather about children allegedly abused in showers they may themselves have used. Children who would now be approximately the same age as of many of the rioting students.

The shame of this debacle isn’t the end of a sports dynasty. The scandal here isn’t the persecution of a vulnerable old man. The crime here isn’t a rush to judgment. The travesty here is that vulnerable children were allegedly identified, abused, and discarded, while those who may have seen it happen and those who were reportedly told the depth of the depravity stood by in order to temporarily stay a crisis within the football program. A choice appears to have been made, over the seemingly obvious option to save the innocence of children and the true reputation of the university as a whole.

I believe now is the time for real change in college sports. The football programs, and perhaps sports in general, have held unhealthy sway over the proceedings at more than just Penn State. At the school I love and many others across the United States, immediate, methodical change must be undertaken to regenerate the appropriate perspective, culture, and climate so that abuses of power on the micro- and macro-level can never become so pervasive and unchecked. This is an example that must be heeded and a lesson that must be learned by the many schools in the many conferences that share Penn State’s zeal for sports.

My personal reflection is that we who really are Penn State—and those whose empathy rightly lays only with the true victims—can’t go back in time to undo poor decision-making and nefarious silence. We can make athletic programs do what they promise to do in every game day brochure or recruiting guide—and in fairness, what Penn State did for me as a young student-athlete.

College sports is an untapped resource for holistic good and perhaps now we can use this scandal, which has rubbed our moral fibers raw, to find ways to use these powerful athletic programs and their participants to proactively improve the lives of the young people in the communities that surround them. I believe it’s possible in the wake of this crisis to buck convention and find ways to teach all involved in our athletic programs—administrators, coaches, faculty, and students—that what is magic about sports isn’t the ability to put one ball in a hole or run another over a line, but rather the disproportionate power that skill gives athletes and the programs of which they are a part. We have seen vividly what can happen when that disproportionate power is wielded selfishly, but try to imagine the greatness that could come of that power shared selflessly. Of course, new outreach programs could be carefully created. Athletes and coaches alike could be taught a few easy skills as a prerequisite, but mostly, the change I am proposing requires we re-evaluate what’s powerful, special, and important about college sports programs and re-balance the relationship they have with the communities who follow, support, and love them, as well as to the schools who create them, so that no sports program, no coach, and no school ever becomes so intertwined, and so compromised that they think themselves too big to be principled.

I loved Penn State the moment I arrived on campus, but enough people in the course of this tragedy have forgotten who “We are.” Some powerful people succumbed to a common temptation of unchecked power—the idea that it is possible to be a part-time person of principle, and because of that, young people suffered and it’s time for us to change.

You can also read this column at The Daily Beast. Many thanks to them, and originally Dan Lebatard who first interviewed me on this sad topic and gave me a voice - hopefully a clarifying one - on this issue:

Don't pray for me, no one is listening.

2011-05-15T20:31:00.000+01:00

Recently, I have been receiving more and more comments emails and even face-to-face interactions with people who variously call themselves "religious," "faithful," "born again," or even just plain old "Christian" or "Muslim." I normally avoid conversation on this topic as I am an atheist and while I have no desire to 'make' another person believe as I do, it seems the reverse is rarely true.

I had an interaction recently on my facebook page that really pissed me off, but I looked at my response and thought it was worth you taking a look at, whatever your world view or perspective, I think it is clear that the reverence expected by the religious is increasingly not shown to those who believe differently or not at all and I am tired of the false dichotomy. This is what I wrote in response to a message that was about as patronising and presumptuous as they usually are, and have noticed that this reply applies to nearly 100% of the messages I get....

The hypocrisy of religion is that someone else’s faith becomes a template for everyone’s life, even those who expressly, vocally, assiduously don’t believe:

“Believers” pray for people who don’t believe the fairytale – but they don’t just do it – they have to tell everyone they are going to – apparently that makes the magic work better?

They publicly fret about other’s “souls” (that the recipients may not even believe exist) in a passive aggressive diatribe suggesting that “soul” is somehow lacking and in peril;

They deride by effusively praising the target, then slyly mentioning that they are still not good enough until the target believes as they do;

And then they get indignant and defensive when they are censured for behaving in a roundly narcissistic way, patently opposite to the desires of the recipient.

I am not always certain, but when I am, it’s on the basis of evidence, not conjecture, convenience or blind faith.

I don’t demand you abandon your faith, but it is profoundly patronising to pray for someone who you know is a very content atheist – it appears to show a lack of respect for any position other than yours.

I believe you are making all the assumptions, I responded directly to your comments, almost line by line.

Being tolerant is immaterial here, I am happy for you to be secure in what you understand to be your faith; your hypocrisy that you do not offer me the same courtesy.

To reveal my inner geek, I would say, “I see you.” Your subtext is laid bare.

Feel free to comment or hit up my facebook page or twitter

Words count...

2011-04-16T17:42:00.000+01:00

I am sure most of you are aware of the recent comments by Kobe. I wrote a piece in the New York Times that you can read here. But I wanted to say that since then Kobe has made, what I think are heartfelt statements about being better when it comes to his outbursts and in his words "killing that word."

I just thought since I spoke out - in what I thought were measured terms - that I should do so again when Kobe had stepped up.

Thanks,

me

Negotiating Time Travel: Lessons for the New Road Warrior 1

2011-02-11T09:40:00.005Z

This was inspired by a couple of things, one being my crazy 18-cities-in-20-days schedule at the moment and that a couple of friends and fb contacts have asked how they should handle new jobs that are going to require similar crazy travel schedules... I know the resources for frequent flyers are numerous, so I won't pontificate too long, but some of these might help....

Practical flight/reservation tips:

Use a seat selection website like Seat Guru or Seat Expert to select your seats before booking.
If the company is not booking, book online, it saves fees and allows easy comparison.
Find an airline you like and stick with it - I am "Concierge Key" (Yes, like the George Clooney character in 'Up in the Air') with American Airlines and always travel with them unless they don't fly where I'm going (I am not flogging AA, but they've never let me down!)
Related to above, immediately join the frequent flyer programme of the carrier(s) you use, note that many are in coalitions (One World, Star Alliance, etc.)
Always check in online or on your phone at the earliest moment - I am not sure it secures your seat, but I have never been bumped to a different one since doing this.
Unless you are lucky enough to travel premium, I recommend lounge access - you'll get it with certain tier statuses and most 1st class tickets - but with the new security you often have to arrive so early that you are waiting for hours and a lounge is usually better than a concourse to make your trip pass more easily.
Take advantage of every extra you can, I have Regus Gold and a couple of other business memberships just through frequent flyer programmes - I don't use them often but when travelling, it is nice to have the option to meet at a neutral business venue.
Don't forget trains! In the UK I have "Traveller" membership for the weekly trips between London and my home (another in 30 minutes!) and it allows members to book free 1st class travel between Fridays and Mondays (at least until they withdraw that provision!!)
Monitor your travel accounts online and don't let points expire, use them for lounge access, free trips, whatever, but don't let them expire.
Don't be one of "those people" who boast about the number of miles they have. If you always have more than 300,000 that you aren't collecting for a specific tangible purpose - you are either a size queen or selfish - most accounts allow you to give miles you can't use away to friends or donate them to charity. When people tell me they have 2.5 million miles, I assume they are self-centred and hung like a peanut. (I have 3 miles. HA!)

Departure and Onboard:

Don't screw with ticket clerks, I suggest you use the automatic machines (in a few years you may not have a choice.)
When the shit hits the fan, as it will from time to time, understand who it is productive to bitch to and who it isn't. Airport security just don't give a shit, and have barbaric, overinflated powers. Leave them alone. Ticket desk workers don't set policy, leave them alone. If a member of staff is rude, you can give them the gas face, but know that it won't help your case. Instead, make a note of their name and send an email. If a member of staff is helpful, make a note and send an email - many companies have an "attaboy" system where employees can be recognised.
If a company screws up and screws you (thanks Virgin Atlantic for my 35 hours in the concourse at JFK two years ago) send them an email or letter (I did both.) If they don't give you a satisfactory answer (or don't answer... Virgin), stop using them. I am using the last of my Virgin miles this month, but haven't paid to travel with them since the Feb 2008 'airport sleepover incident.'
For the love of pete, learn to pack! Yes, the rules about shoes off, plastic bags and liquids and laptops out of cases are a ridiculous affectation, but they are the rules. Just follow them and as you approach, log in your brain what is about to be required. If you have flown more than 4 times in the last 12 months, you should not EVER beep, or need to be reminded to take massive metal belts off as you go through the metal detectors. If you do, you are the kind of newbie, I hate to be stuck behind, please invite me to go ahead or use another lane if you see me behind you!
Don't bother with the paid expedited airport lanes like "clear" and such, unless you are using one airport all the time, they just don't service enough to make sense and they seem to go out of business every 3 years. They are also at the whim of the TSA and could be shut down in the aftermath of another crisis.
The one exception to the above is if you are a UK citizen, and the UK version is quick and simple and works at most airports in the UK, with any new-version passport and no additional set up!
LOOK at flight attendants when they are talking to you, handing your your food or whatever. It makes a difference and not just to them. Call it Karma or human nature, but you'll be better treated onboard and these people deal with the worst of humanity (mostly in business and first class I hasten to add.)
New frequent flyers should not drink on planes. You get drunk faster at altitude and it dehydrates you very rapidly.
No one should ever get drunk on planes or trains, not only will someone important notice eventually, but it dehydrates you and hampers your abilities and judgement on arrival.
Drink enough water when you travel so as to be slightly embarrassed at the number of trips to the loo you have to take. Getting up is good. Hydration: good.
Don't sleep when travelling unless it's an overnight/redeye, if you can nap, have a nap, but not for the whole flight!
Aspirin offsets clotting dangers, but comes with it's own bleeding dangers, consult your doctor!
Don't sit for more than 45 minutes - hour. In economy there's no motivation to be a couch potato, but in first it can be tempting. Get up, walk, stretch, you will feel better for it.
Observe body language & cultural norms: when someone puts their headphones on - even if they appear not to be listening to music or watching the screen it means "DO NOT DISTURB," so, Do. Not. Disturb. If someone asks you to move so they can get out to go to the loo or cranes to look through 'your' window from their aisle seat, that doesn't mean they want to chat. If your questions get one word answers, that means "please stop talking to me." Thanks.
Look around you before you recline. If you recline into my knees, I will make sure that the next 2, 5, 6, 7 or 11 hours together will be as painful for you as they are for me.

Arrival:

Avoid the temptation to go to bed immediately on arrival, before what passes for a reasonable "bed time."
Avoid the temptation to "burn the candle" on arrival by going out late when you arrive.
On arrival: eat, hydrate (again), mild exercise (swimming would work) and sleep at a normal time based on your current time zone.
Learn how you relax - I use solitude and music - and have a "playlist" (song!) that I have trained myself to sleep to within 45 seconds. Extroverts may need to head to the hotel bar to be around people, have a chat and commune with fellow travellers to unwind, but do what works for you before heading to bed.
Set your clocks to your arrival time on take-off, not arrival: make sure when you arrive, your mind is in the moment, not lamenting the 32 hour day you are experiencing.
Stop people from asking you "how does it feels to be up for 20 hours?" or "What time is it (where you came from)?" People travel and live best "in the moment", not in another time zone.
ALWAYS get a wake-up call so you can start the new day at a reasonable time.
Smell is really important to human beings - other senses don't impact the brain so directly (i.e. with so little translation): essential oils can help relax or invigorate you - I am a big fan of few drops of Lavender and Camomile on a hotel washcloth placed near your pillow or next to the bed (don't drop it on the sheets as the next guest may not be a fan and they stain! I also quite like tea tree oil and eucalyptus for wake up, splashed on a shower wall while the water heats is a nice way to wake up.

Practical hotel tips:

I like hotels with buffet breakfasts (especially the free ones), they are rarely brilliant, but always quick and easy allowing me to wake up later and still eat, a la carte hotel breakfasts are invariably outrageously expensive and/or slow.
Get Skype or other VOIP programme and use them for calls from hotel rooms, in the US internet is usually free and in the UK it usually isn't, but one £15 internet charge is cheaper than data roaming on mobile or hotel phone charges!
If you are in a hurry to eat when you arrive, it is usually quicker to walk down and buy food 'to go' from the hotel bar or restaurant to take up to your room. It also might be the only movement you do after sitting on a plane for 10 hours, so worth the trip.
Spending 5 minutes on Google (or other) maps before you fly to know what's around your hotel will save you money and time when it comes to food, drink and entertainment. You won't want to do it on arrival!
Buy bottled water from a local shop, not from the minibar.
Don't use the minibar. If you are paying it's crazy. If someone else is paying, it's presumptuous.
Don't buy hotel porn (or any movies really) - that's what laptops are for - assume your boss or client will read "Movie" on the expenses bill as "Sexy time on their dime."
Hotels have loyalty clubs too, find a chain or two that you like and stick with them. I am with the Priority Club (Intercontinental group), Hilton and Radisson - I use each chain depending on where I am in the world, what clients demand (or who's paying!)

I will probably post new tips as I think of them, but this is a good start! Good luck and happy travelling.

UPDATED: America - the 2nd amendment is your appendix and you have appendicitis

2011-02-06T10:21:00.027Z

I woke up in the middle of the night last night with that thought in my head. I don't think it's particularly profound or even original (I hope it is, but original thought is a lot more difficult when you are exposed to the world 24/7 via the internet!)

I wanted to at least explain a little, but I woke up, walked to my (home) office and typed in my thought - I am tired of thinking of things when half-asleep that haunt me the next day!

I woke up this morning to some replies via twitter and facebook - apparently some think me radical, so I thought I would explain further in another paragraph.

To be clear for everyone this is what I think when I re-read my sleepy thought:

It is to do a great disservice to the founding fathers to think they assumed the constitution to be a perfect document, never to be updated or changed because they got it all right. The 2nd amendment may have had it's uses (although I imagine it was also an affectation - a nod to the masses - made by people who knew they couldn't take the guns away from people who had so recently fought for their land and also a few who needed them to keep safe from rogue forces in a country with a depleted military and too much land for them to be seen to protect) but the idea that now the overarching power that it bestows to (or is co-opted by) groups like the NRA and 95% of the GOP is appropriate, boggles my mind.

The founding fathers had no concept of assault rifles or ceramic handguns and despite the fact that the tactics used to take America back from the redcoats may have been viewed as terrorist tactics, they didn't have any concept of a world threatened by by so many extremists from across the board, but in this decade, mostly extreme right-wing Christians, ultra-zionists, extreme Islam, the occasional deluded schizophrenic and one or two well-adjusted sociopaths.

Had they known this, the 2nd amendment, once useful for killing bears going through your rubbish in the middle of the town, would not be there - and certainly not in that form -it's a hangover from the British occupation, a vestigial organ useful many generations ago, but now now irrelevant except to remind people of where they came from - and if people were really interested in that then, as my US publisher once lamented - "...they would read more books" not buy more guns.

I feel confident that if the founding fathers saw gun fairs being held 3 miles away from, and 7 days after massacres; mothers carrying a handgun under one arm and a baby under another (I have seen this myself in Fashion Square mall in AZ) and the other continuing tragedies that the NRA insists are the fault of men not bullets - they would weep for their country.

Guns don't kill people? I haven't seen many drive by baseball-battings or school massacres with switchblades...ever. On the day Rep Gifford was shot along with a host of others, 60+ people were shot dead around the rest of the US - she wasn't an isolated incidence - the average is 46 gun deaths per day.

Guns protect? 20 times more likely to be found killed by a gun when there is one in your house.

America: the 2nd Amendment is your swollen, leaking Appendix and it's time to have it out.

Someone commented about taking away the 2nd Amendment taking away their freedom. i think this is absurd, but I had the following comments:

I am wondering since when is the 2nd Amendment about "freedom?" Surely, that is hyperbolic, not to mention a cable TV-talking point. I am not sure why my statistics are considered hyperbolic - the example of a drive by is not hyperbolic is a daily reality and the fact that it's automatic weapons they use and not baseball bats is a part of their efficacy. The title of this missive may be a blunt metaphor, but at least it is not as spurious as the NRA's "guns don't kill people" meme.

I am referring to the utility of the 2nd amendment NOW - or more properly the almost total lack thereof.

Handguns are for killing people, not deer, it should be no surprise when that's what they do - 3 times more than any other weapon in America. It is a shame people delude themselves into thinking guns are actually ethereal, not weapons but "rights" or "protection by possession" - all these euphemisms for killing people allow us to make the ownership of handguns and assault rifles somehow fluffy and noble.

The "freedom" people talk about is simply chaos when unaccompanied by reason and responsibility - the 2nd amendment is a throw back that is long past it's time. And it has been used to throw out intelligent debate informed by the facts in lieu of an overly romanticised idea of personal bravado blended with dangerous American exceptionalism.

The sophistication of arguments to keep the 2nd amendment are nebulous, convoluted, nonsensical (mostly) and refuted by the science and research. Like when people talk about criminals having guns so it is necessary for "good people" to have guns even though we know that for every person who "successfully defends his home or person" by killing their attacker, there are 10 who fail.

The ranking of America in terms of gun violence in the world, with no western country with more gun crime per 1,000 people; with only mid-eastern, South American, Russian and former USSR countries ahead should be an indication that that amendment is 25 - 100 years past its prime.

I am tall & massive, black, gay, privileged, educated and male - pretty much the dictionary definition of "scary" to the mainstream and enough to make me feel quite powerful. I shot a handgun once in 1990 near Nashville, TN, I was working on a farm and was instructed to kill a rattlesnake. Despite my size and privilege, I have never felt so powerful, so nearly omnipotent. According to the literature, this reaction is VERY common.

My reaction to that experience was to reject forever anything that could make a person feel so powerful that it might become an addiction. The recoil in my hand, the snake being blown into smithereens and my first thought was that I must fire it again - and that tin cans probably wouldn't do it; when we can name a change to the 2nd amendment that can nulify the weakness of men for power, then I'd consider an amendment to the 2nd amendment, until then America - the 2nd amendment is your appendix, and it's about to burst.

When it comes to talk of guns, the tension rises and people fixate on the rhetorical arguments that circumnavigate the real issues.

I believe America (and Britain, if that helps take the sting away) is drunk on the rhetorical idea of rights, but not the practical, universal application of those rights in any meaningful way. Rights that apparently only apply to certain types of people and impact disproportionately all others. They are equally not so taken with the responsibilities that come with those rights, which is why nearly any jack-ass (in the US) can get a gun, an extended clip, a permit to carry, a permit to conceal, a semi-automatic weapon ("for hunting") and automatic weapons ("for sport.") It's absurd.

This sense of entitlement and privilege is why Rep. Giffords recent tragedy in Tucson garnered international attention, but the 18 (poor and 80% minority) people killed in Chicago last week didn't.

My rhetoric is not perfect, but the contemporary logic and relevance of the 2nd Amendment is far less sound than even my worst phrasing... and indeed it is visibly, although not uniformly detrimental to the lives of so many. In the current local and global economic and cultural context, that amendment just no longer makes sense.

Everyone in America cites the anglo-aetiology of their laws, without recognising that British vestigial laws on important issues like guns didn't disappear without opposition - but they did go. Our laws evolved with the times, and are imperfect for sure, but at least attempting to keep pace - maybe the lack of change in the US is a product of a Senate full of people who don't believe in evolution? Maybe it's just privilege and exceptionalism? And regardless of the aetiology of a law, why the hell would having an amendment based on 17th century thinking automatically be a good thing in 2011? Exempt from critique under the spotlight of the 21st century?

The privileged (including myself) have the right to a lot of things that we haven't earned and don't need. It's just that most of these things don't kill 50 people a day (in the US) and when they do, people of good conscience voluntarily rescind that right.

America, the Second Amendment is your appendix, it's going to burst and you have no health insurance.

January Charity Event

2010-12-22T10:27:00.000Z

I have had my own charity for a number of years. The staff and volunteers there do incredible work nearly 365 days a year. The charity revolves around a basketball centre I built in 2000, but sport is the "fly paper" we use to attract and retain kids from every walk of life, culture, religion, sexuality and from across the country.

It must be working as we have about 2000 young men and women a week coming through our doors.

The training every coach gets prepares them to deal with a diverse group of young people in a way that helps produce emotionally literate, assertive and trusting young men and women who can communicate and lead.

I know some people think that sports has some kind of magic in the bouncing/rolling ball, but really it is only by having staff who espouse certain core principles that young people get what they should out of playing sports and being on a team.

I would highly recommend you take a look at what we do here:

We receive some help from Manchester City Council, but I can tell you that austerity measures have hit Britain hard - especially the charity sector and I am looking to help us expand our work and continue to be one of the best in terms of our outreach and focus on the needs of young people.

For some in the LGBT community my charity doesn't seem "gay enough," but I assure you that while creating safe spaces for LGBT kids who play sports is important, developing LGBT affirming staff, coaches and straight, young people is what really makes a difference, on the court, and in their schools.

I will be doing small one off charity events in the UK and the US throughout 2011 to raise more money to keep doing the work we do and maybe offer a bit more, I am hoping my network of friends, colleagues and clients will look out for and attend some of these events, and in an ideal world, suggest ways to do more and perhaps collaborate with me to raise more.

The first event - a tester/taster if you like, is in collaboration with another not-for-profit in the US, it's short notice - in January and I am hoping all of you who live, work or visit NYC, will sign up and spread the word. I would really like to fill the venue and I promise I will be entertaining and most probably controversial as well - it's what I do!

Take a look at the flyer for the first event here:

I know that money is tight and there are a thousand great charities out there vying for your dollars (and pounds) but I hope you will see from the (old) video and from what you know of me that the work my charity is doing in Manchester is truly worth supporting. I hope to see you at the National Arts Club in New York on the 18th January 2011.

Thanks for your support. You can sign up and buy tickets here just click "DONATE" and chose the VIP ticket package for the extra meet-and-greet or the regular ticket where we will all drink while I regale you with stories and take questions.

Please spread the word and help as you can.

John

UPDATED: Sepp Blatter, FIFA and the proof of institutionalised bigotry

2010-12-13T22:25:00.003Z

It has been a while since I posted, but I have been on the road almost constantly. No excuse, just letting you know.

I was coming home from doing my monthly stint on a local business show when I heard comments attributed to Sepp Blatter on gay fans (and I assume lesbians) keeping it in their pants while in Qatar in 2022.

I don't enrage easily, but I admit that I am enraged. I am in the process of making a complaint to FIFA, not that I think they give a shit, but their endorsement of bigotry and back-turning on the supposed "power of sport" that these people use to mollify those of us bemused by the power of a bouncing ball in todays world

Here is my statement to the press and much of what I said to FIFA already:

On the comments by Sepp Blatter:
“I am often accused of overstating the endemic, institutional bigotry within the world of elite team sports. This is yet another case where the epic, archaic, neanderthal, ignorance of someone who wields the power to summon kings, princes, presidents and prime ministers to bid at their pleasure uses that power not to foster positive change but to further entrench bigotry.

The statements and the position adopted by Sepp Blatter and FIFA regarding LGBT fans who would pay the enormous ticket and travel prices to attend the world cup in 2022 should have been wholly unacceptable a decade ago, instead, with little more than an afterthought FIFA has endorsed the marginalisation of LGBT people around the world.

Anything less than a full reversal of his position is unacceptable and if the FA and football and sporting associations around the world fail to acknowledge this insult, they too will be complicit.

If sport can not serve to change society, even temporarily during the duration of an event like the world cup that invites the world to participate, then it is little more than grown men chasing a ball and we should treat it as such."

I have had it very eloquently pointed out - and I should have made this point earlier - that Blatt's words aren't really about sex - as I can't imagine that many gay football fans would be bold enough to do it in public in Qatar. Rather, what Blatt is really saying is "don't be camp... don't hold hands... don't look into each others eyes... don't book rooms with one bed... don't have candle-lit dinners in the restaurant..." and on and on.

He's really saying don't even 'look' gay, re-closet yourself and pretend the ties and love and affection you have for your partner or even some random bloke you might meet on your travels are gone for the whole time you are in Qatar. For the same exorbitant prices for plastic flags and whatever the Qatari equivalent of the vuvuzela is, after already paying bumped-up prices for flights room and board - you get to pretend to be the you you were before you came out and that, as was pointed out to me, makes Blatt's words even more insidious.

You can read Sepp Blatter's comments in more detail here... leave a comment and let me know what you think... and maybe now some of you who criticise my "pessimism' (realism) will see why.

Thinking Broadly with Big Think

2010-10-22T12:14:00.000+01:00

I hope you will take a little time to have a look at the interviews I have done recently with Big Think talking about issues as far ranging as identity and prejudice to emotional literacy and education and most importantly, my quest to become a Jedi.

Take a look and please post any questions in the comments and I will make a video to answer as many of them as possible in the next week.

How to do the extraordinary

My body terrifies homophobes!

Coming out has different gestation periods for different people.

Black and gay identities are not at odds.

Why athletes blow their fortunes?

Why emotional illiteracy is crippling our boys.

Why I have thought I am a Jedi since the age of seven!

Don't forget, post your thoughts and questions below and I will respond in a video commentary later next week.

National Coming Out Day

2010-10-11T15:28:00.000+01:00

Happy Coming Out Day everyone. It would seem that this year, more than others, the pressures on young LGBT people have been more severe than normal.

Being out is the best thing you can be - just being your own authentic self is personally liberating and allows you to have meaningful relationships - romantic and otherwise - with people who know the real you.

However, and this usually gets me a lot of flack, but I believe you should know that in this climate, there is poison all around. People and institutions who would marginalise and abuse you for being who you are and as such, I would encourage you to come out judiciously. Know that coming out doesn't mean the whole world needs to be told at once - or ever - some people will never earn the right to know the whole you.

If you do have someone with whom you can connect, someone likely to embrace you, protect you, share your moments of doubt and be your fierce advocate then that is the kind of person to whom you should come out.

If you are one of the many surrounded by those who love you only conditionally; who "...love you if...." If you you are the person they want you to be, then you must think not just of your personal liberation today on National Coming Out Day - but also your enduring personal safety - psychologically, emotionally and yes, even financially.

If you are beholden to parents or guardians who would withhold your college tuition if you come out, as one young man emailed me this week or perhaps you are isolated in a tiny town in a school where teachers openly deride and mock LGBT people as another young person told me this week, then it may not be safe for you to come out just yet.

Being who you are is so important for your wellbeing, but being safe and ensuring you have a long-term future is more important. I am not looking for you to find lame excuses to stay in the closet, because 'Uncle Pete' might not take you to the ball game anymore... but if the past months have told us anything it is that some of you face much tougher circumstances than that - and facing them without the support of someone near you is a lonely, and dangerous circumstance.

If you are unable to identify at least one person who will stand by you, then think before you burst out of the closet to the world. If coming out now, even with all the intrapersonal benefits might mean you end up being thrown out of your house the second the law allows it, or your family will withhold the college education your siblings are allowed and you have earned (and we all know the toll that not having an education can take on your future) then maybe you need to think about your strategy and know that coming out doesn't mean you have to change the status on your facebook page to "great big gay" but might mean finding a handful or even just one person with whom you can share the real you.

To some of those who have written to me let me say this:
It is not your responsibility to start the revolution in Redfield - the LGBT community, such as it is, is ready and waiting for you and doesn't need your personal sacrifice now. Keep that roof over your head until you can provide one for yourself either through college or when you are old enough to get a job.

For the young woman "near San Antonio" with so many people holding your future in their hands, be careful... from your considered words, I can only imagine how powerful you might be in the future, and for the sake of one more year of discomfort, I don't want to miss out on that remarkable future you.

On this National Coming Out Day, I support all of you in whatever decisions you may make today or beyond. Reach out and find at least one person with whom you can make a connection. If you do that then you are playing your part in progress. As much as the young person who fights their school district or emancipates themselves from their parents to be who they are, you honour and strengthen the LGBT community with every person you reach and as much as I can speak for the LGBT community - I will say that we will be waiting for you when you are ready.

If you don't have anyone to talk to, there are numerous organisations out there like The Trevor Project, PFLAG and others who can put you in touch with the right people to talk to... and if you are still stuck, you can leave a message on my facebook page (there's an email on there too) and I think you will find the people there - not to mention me - will be glad to lend their ear.

The Plague of LGBT Bullycides

2010-10-01T22:09:00.002+01:00

I won't add much preamble, but maybe this is worth a watch...

New York Here I Come: Now Come and See Me!

2010-09-29T18:29:00.001+01:00

Just a quick update (yes, another brief one) to let you know I am in Boston for a couple of days then New York for a week or more starting the 5th October.

People are always saying that I don't do any events that aren't for specific organisations and therefore not open to the public (and they are kind of correct!)

But now, you spoke and I listened, so now I am doing two public events - well one event and one happy hour to be honest!

October 11th 2010
"Meech's Happy Hour Reunion" at Boxers NYC (map) from 6:30 - 9:00pm. There is a facebook events page where you can say if you are coming or not if you like. I am not going to be there and am NOT committing to buying you all drinks, but if you want to come up and chat, I would welcome that. And if you want to, mine's a gin and tonic! The very good people at Boxers NYC will be doing a 2-for-1 drinks special which is nothing to sneeze at, and they are also doing reduced price pizza and hot dogs for people who come to see me, so now you have an excuse to come along, even if you don't want to see me!

October 12th 2010
"Off the Courts: Making a Difference, John Amaechi and Sue Wicks" at the New York LGBT Center (map) from 7:00 - 9:00pm.
This event is a conversation with Sue (a proper basketball star!) and myself hosted by Clay Cane. The official blurb from the New York LGBT Community Centre says. "Join former NBA and WNBA basketball players John Amaechi and Sue Wicks as they discuss their transitions form professional athletes to community advocates and how they’ve leveraged their celebrity in support of lgbt causes." but I think it will just be a good conversation about our individual perspectives on life, love and the rest as well as what more we can and should be doing to further equality as the mid-terms approach.
There is a $10 charge on the door, but please know this goes to the center for it's charity events and programmes.
There is a facebook events page for this event too, so sign up and show up on the 12th - I am sure i'll be hanging at at one place or another in town after this event too.

Anyway, I know that these are just two quick events, but hopefully they'll be the first of many - but it's up to you!

So, i'll see you in NYC in a few days.

The Infamous Crunch Bar Incident

2010-09-14T13:17:00.022+01:00

My, my...this has garnered more attention than I thought. Now, I will say my final words on this and hopefully, the clear-headed of us can move on.
I do not absolve Crunch bar of any of it's fault in this matter. I know what happened on that night and while I have been accused of being a Prima Donna on occasion, this was NOT one of those occasions!

I am not a "newbie" to Manchester, or the the village or to thinly-veiled bigotry and I still see what happened that night.
As I stood unable to enter while an inebriated Batman (complete with cowl) and a group of five men and women dressed as escaped convicts and absolutely blasted out of their minds, were granted passage. Indeed, as two of my friends were allowed to pass before I was barred; this was not a case of some drunken, aggressive patron, it was a case of "I don't like the look of him." You can call that a door policy, but last time I checked, it was bigotry.
I wasn't wearing the wrong footwear (that I could change) or the wrong clothes (unless it was fancy dress or hen parties only.) I was rejected from that bar because some part of how I look - whether that be my size or my colour (or more probably that terribly frightening combination.) On this basis, it was decided, I wasn't the type of clientele Crunch would accept. Matt Taylor from Crunch refuted my assertion in an initial short message on my facebook page:

Essentially, he is saying that because the doorman was "black" (actually, he was Asian, not that it matters) he couldn't have been a bigot. Idiot.

Here are the facts:
I was NOT drunk. 3 beers at Taurus over the course of the evening, prior to arriving at Crunch.
I was told I was being barred because Crunch is a "private members bar" at first, not because I had been previously aggressive.
Only when I made it clear I knew Crunch was NOT a private bar, did the doorman tap his radio to say they had been told "I was a problem."
I stated that I knew I was being rejected for how I looked and what they assumed about me - I said because "I am big and black" they said "...big and black and trouble."
When my friends told the doorman that I was a Patron of Pride, and gay - he laughed and turned his back.
I was not told I could "return the next day" and under the circumstances, it will be a cold day in hell before I do.
I had NOT been "...argumentative and aggressive to another venue’s door staff" at the previous bar I attended (Taurus.)
Crunch Bar had NOT received the message they claimed to have received over the bouncers "nitenet" radio system. Taurus' owner reports that his bar doesn't "operate that system" and VIA's manager reports that he was on the system from 7:30pm - 3:30am and "at no point did (he) hear any messages over nitenet with regards to John and his party."

Here are the email and facebook statements that confirm what I have said:

I think Crunch should get a word in. Here is the (overly long) "official statement" by Matt Taylor from Crunch, it cites the wrong date and has aspects (regarding "nitenet" most prominently) that we now know (from the statements from VIA and Taurus, above) are bare-faced lies, enjoy:

Apparently, Matt thinks his door staff couldn't have rejected me for being big either - because he is big. Wow. Juvenile.

I am still waiting for my apology, and the explanation, and an assurance that this will never happen again to anyone... which were all I demanded in my original complaint to them. I won't hold my breath...

PLEASE bare in mind, if you are reading this from around the world, that Manchester is a wonderful, progressive, cosmopolitan city - it has fantastic people from all walks of life and frankly, it is deserving of better bar owners and better bars, than Crunch.

I am not trying to change the world or destroy Crunch, but even petty ignorance and minor bigotry needs to be challenged.

Here's a little video and a little quote, to end this in my own words - you'll have to turn it up to hear the music I refer to!

In the end...

Sometimes it is by tackling the smallest and least well-recognised kinds of bigotry; the kinds of bigotry that don’t necessarily get entire communities up in arms, that we further the cause of grassroots equality in a day-to-day sense.

It is easy to get excited and vocal about the obvious forms of oppression and prejudice, but in this day of the Equalities bill and tighter controls on overt discrimination, it is the subtle slights and the casual innuendo from well-spoken figures that need our attention as much as the yob in the street who shouts the N-word, the F-word or any other obvious slur.

Sunday Morning Live Appearance

2010-09-05T16:09:00.000+01:00

I know I have been remiss on actual commentary, but if you are UK based you can watch a rather heated debate this morning on a number of issues:

IS MONEY RUINING SPORT?
The betting scandal knocks the world of cricket for six. But was it a one-off – or the symptom of a much wider problem? Has money ruined sport?
IS TV HARMING KIDS?
Plus - It’s almost become a nanny for many parents. But could TV actually be damaging our kids? We'll be hearing why we should all have cause for concern.
IS IT FAIR TO CONDEMN IRAN FOR STONING WOMEN?
And the Iranian woman sentenced to death for stoning endures the horror of a mock execution. But do we have any business to interfere with another country’s laws?

Obviously with a few of my hats on psychologist, ex-athlete and Amnesty Ambassador just to start off, I had a few things to say, but I should point out that I was definitely not the most outspoken person on this panel - ENJOY!

Sunday Morning Live: Episode 9

The iPlayer seems to be under some demand today, so if you get an error message, please try again. If anyone wants to add their 5 pence to the debate, feel free to do it on the BBC page (Sunday Morning Live Interactive Page) or post something in the comments below!

Apologies for my absence!

2010-08-22T11:00:00.001+01:00

Hello from ProCamp!

Well, it has been quite some time since I last posted. I finally find myself with a spare moment before my last week of ProCamp (a three week camp for elite players across the UK that runs at my centre in Manchester.) I am exhausted, but slowly getting in better shape just from running around, demonstrating (kind of) the finer points just in time for Manchester Pride next weekend.
My voice has also developed a wonderful Barry White quality from screaming instructions over the music that plays during the more dull drills that I am hoping that part at least stays during Pride - I have a feeling it might be a plus to have a husky/sexy 'thang' going on... or maybe not....
Anyway, here are a few shots of ProCamp for you (Courtesy of Chris Gleave)
to be going on with, then I am also posting an interview I did on the Citizen manchester Radio show a couple of weeks ago and then after this weekend, I promise I will be back with something of substance. In the meantime I also did an interview with the blog Towleroad that they are posting on Sunday 21st August, so you might want to check that out to see me, well, being me.

Aristotle was right....

Great form deserves a little encouragement!

I recently did an interview with Citizen Manchester, an LGBT programme from BBC Radio Manchester. I can't seem to get the mp3's to upload (may need to take advice on that!) but will try to get it done after this weekend.

I promise more regular postings once the summer camp season is over...

UPDATED: On Being a Role-Model

2010-07-14T11:57:00.002+01:00

UPDATE - Please read my comments to Demond's less than articulate reply in the comments section.

I ask for your input and questions all the time, so it shouldn't be surprising that I do get some feedback that I feel is less than constructive, sometimes puzzling and occasionally unfair. I got the following question/statement last week and it made me really irritated in the first instance, and then progressively more frustrated.... Even as I read it again, there are so many little pieces I want to rip into and destroy - why, for example, is "gay" in quotes? But anyway, have a read, then I'll come back to you....

"ok the one thing that you are world reknown for besides basketball is your being "gay" why is it that your not more of an advocate for gay rights? i understand that you dont want to be a spokesperson and that you want somewhat of a normal life, but world reknown sports figures like you, Esra Tuaolo, Roy Simmons, Billy Bean, and Greg Louganis are known in the public eye for being bold and coming out and its funny that i dont hear about any of you being on the front lines fighting for the causes of gay rights. I see nothing more than you guys writing biographies, making television appearences, and being relaxed in your little isolated worlds does this not bother you?"

~ Demond

Firstly, obviously, I don't agree with the premise, or even the way it starts, I am sure that people know I am gay and play basketball, but it's a fairly short-sighted acquaintance to thinks that is where I end.

Secondly, I have never - and I mean NEVER - been interested in a "normal life." To me, normal is mediocre and I have never wanted a piece of that pie. I have always wanted to be extraordinary, I can't say I am there in every dimension, but I strive for daily.

Lastly, this idea of being "on the front line" is ridiculous. I can't speak for Esera, Roy, Billy or Greg, but I keep my role as a role-model at the forefront in everything I do. It may be difficult for some people to handle the fact that I don't believe I should be a role-model solely for tall, mixed-race, semi-athletic, somewhat intelligent, gay men alone, but I don't believe role-modelling is about appealing or resonating only with people exactly like you. My outreach tends to be for human rights in general, although looking at this blog, I hardly seem to avoid LGBT issues?

The "front lines" of the human rights struggle for LGBT people and other minorities is different than it used to be. It is not riots at the Stonewall Inn or millions marching on Washington anymore, those events inspired change in the past, but the way societal change happens evolves and we must evolve with it.

Organisations like the NCLR, Lambda Legal and others who use the law to enshrine LGBT human rights are actually on the front line, along with them are the candidate support organisations like the Victory Fund and the other lobbying and policy bodies. Behind them are us - people who can make "the LGBT community" more visible and in most cases, less scary, less alien and more human.

I did release a book, and I have done plenty of interviews, but I like to believe that going on Oprah, speaking at major events and even to a much smaller extent this blog actually helps with our part of the bargain - it doesn't directly elect LGBT candidates or change discriminatory laws, but being a massive oddity on the scene does attract attention and hopefully challenge stereotypes and change a few minds.

No minority can look back at the "good old days" of water hoses suppressing peaceful marches, police dogs mauling people at sit-ins, or the government raiding places where minorities gather and mourn for the loss of this kind of front line confrontation. The war now is more cerebral, more nuanced and just as difficult. We must be more resilient and more clever to prevail.

I know what I do well, and that is talk (and occasionally write) in a way that makes a little ripple. I can be conscientious and controversial within moments of each other and I know my niche for helping push change - the place on this stalled car where I can best push to move it forward. That role may not be as loud, or aggressive, or prominent as people might like, but it is ever-present.

That is the best anyone can do: what they do well; always. That, is being a role-model.

and anther thing... on BP

2010-06-15T17:03:00.000+01:00

I was thinking today about BP as you may have already read, and then considered the fact that the rampantly right leaning supreme court gave them "personhood" in a recent ruling. Well, not them specifically, but all companies now have rights as people (in a way - it's complicated.)

Anyway, my thought was that when I deal with people who are dying, as I infrequently have, they do tend to go through the Kübler-Ross stages of grieving - not all of them perhaps, but most and usually in order.

Well, when you think about it BP is dying. Not quickly, but certainly, like a middle aged man in the midst of his most productive years, who takes a tumble that forces him to face his own mortality, they see the end coming for the way they work - and dominate - now.

There is a finite amount of oil, and whatever the many wonderful patents they have bought and harboured for alternative energy, they are in reality an old fashioned fossil fuel company with none of the markers of a modern, adaptable energy company.

I wonder if you see as I do, those stages playing out on an international stage with our own middle-aged and still productive BP? To help you as you read the news and follow the coverage its:

Denial ~ "I feel fine."; "This can't be happening, not to me.";
Anger ~ "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; "Who is to blame?";
Bargaining ~ "I'll do anything for a few more years."; "I will give my life savings if..."
...followed by - and I haven't seen too much of this yet:
Depression ~ "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die... What's the point?"
Acceptance ~ "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."

I might also add, when I look at the most powerful people I have known who are unwell and dying, especially when they have a timescale to work with, one of two things happen at or about that acceptance stage:

1. They start looking for ways to "buy/work their way into heaven"
or
2. They become reckless and selfish beyond belief, the acute awareness of their impending doom makes them unafraid of worldly consequences.

So perhaps this spill is actually an indication that BP has zipped through the stages already - behind closed doors - and chosen option 2?

Stepping out...

2010-06-15T14:01:00.000+01:00

...of my comfort zone. I want to admit off the bat that all I know about the oil industry I have learned from Rachel Maddow, the BBC and "the google."

As a person who straddles both the UK and the US, I am seeing both sides of the coverage of the BP Gulf disaster with perhaps a reasonably unique perspective. I feel for the people whose retirement savings and pensions rely on the continued buoyancy of BP stock, I want the company (for that reason alone really) to do well and prosper. For a living, I work with what some consider the "bad guys" of commerce - investment banks, bio-pharmaceutical companies and even parts of the US Federal government - you can see who else here. By no means do they make up the bulk - they just don't mind me putting their logos on my banner - and I want to be clear here, I don't work for/with/near BP or any other oil company - but they sure as hell could use my help!

My companies finances rely on at least some of these highly influential, multinational companies seeing enough benefit from engaging in change to meet the new challenges (internally and externally) to hire bespoke companies like mine and make some positive changes.

Clearly, some just don't get it. Anglo-American relationships have not been this openly hostile for a long while and the political rhetoric will only heat up. The US government screwed up silently and in the background, and certainly for the last eight years of the Bush administration, Oil companies partied with and (literally) shagged the people they were supposed to be regulated by.

However, this doesn't obfuscate BP's responsibility; BP's stock was bound to drop by a third with this spill, it is bound to not reach it's all-time-highs again if much-needed regulation is finally passed, but the current 50%+ drop in stock price, the escalating acrimony between BP and the Obama administration and now, between the US and the UK (despite a 1-all gift in the World Cup), that isn't Obamas fault.

It isn't Obama's fault for the "boot on the neck of BP" comment, or America's fault for remembering that BP used to stand for British Petroleum. This escalating conflict - for that is what this has become - is just the third, minor, international skirmish for both Britain and America, like either need another?

This debacle is unequivocally BP's fault. Not even so much for creating the set of circumstances (greed, lobbying for almost zero regulation, spending relatively zero resources on clean up and spill prevention technology, greed, not spending money on the existing technology, greed, etc, etc, etc.) that allowed for this spill; nor even for ignoring the lessons of previous spills, but for their lack of a cohesive, believable, emotional (and culturally) intelligent response.

Blunders like Tony Hayward's wanting his "life back" quote, aren't just foolish slips of the tongue, they are unforgivable at that level and he is why the British accent is now as reviled as it was in 1783 in some parts of the Gulf coast - and that last 'skirmish' didn't end well for us....

I wrote a management blog on how not to be an arse-hole manager last week which featured BP CEO, Tony Hayward. I have just now finished watching a US news show interview (in a helicopter of course) BP's COO, Doug Suttles who has replaced Hayward as the face of BP in America, and sadly, I must add him to the list of neanderthal dolts masquerading as talking heads. He - and by extension BP - are tone deaf to the realities of this ongoing assault; as uninterested in the far reaching ramifications to British pensioners as they are to the impact on the lives of crab fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico. Concern for their shareholders seems to be a different kettle of fish.

As an aside, in my head a Michael Jackson song is playing. "They don't really care about us" to be exact. It is not unusual for MJ's songs to play in my head, but it is unusual for them to be post-"Off the Wall." The guitar solo is wailing now, so I can get back to writing.

I wonder what song is playing in BP executive heads right now, something indignant no doubt, and probably socially questionable for those 'in-the-know.' I'll go with something loud and pompous by Wagner (go ahead, look at the bottom of his Wikipedia page for the questionable part.)

BP may not be called British Petroleum anymore, but they are not a British Patsy either. I could spend the next 30 minutes trying to find something insulting, starting with B and P that does seem to represent them, but that 200 strong drumming group, Olodum, has kicked in and I can't hear myself think. You can add them in the comments if you think of something suitably glib.

Anyway, this post was a random one, but I am sure you know I am not one quick to criticise the British - even I have my own questionable song that plays in my head - even more questionable than post-Off-the-Wall-Michael Jackson.

Indeed, to this day, every time I come in to land at Heathrow or Manchester, and only when returning from the US, the entirety of "Jerusalem" (taken from the Milton Poem, I think) with full orchestral backing, plays in my head.

I have stopped trying to stop it, to play something less colonialist and more atheist; less pompous, but equally profound, but I've given up. Perhaps that's where the battle stands with BP now?

On NOT being an arse hole

2010-06-11T11:58:00.000+01:00

I have started blogging at a management blog and I thought you lot might be interested in my first post.

On Not Being an Arse Hole: Management Power and Spatial Awareness

Enjoy!

An UPDATED Special Comment on "the Last Taboo."

2010-05-28T11:50:00.017+01:00

I promised I'd do a "Keith Olbermann style" special comment regarding the recent BBC Inside Sport piece where Gareth Thomas starred as the upbeat role-model and I suppose I featured as what I regard as the voice of reason when it comes to elite and elite-track professional male team sports, but what I have to accept - given the feedback - came across as a dour and uninspiring foil.

It is also prescient that I comment on the "gays in elite sports" thing because there is an upcoming HBO special on Gareth where we will again reprise our roles.

Firstly, I want to say this. All things being equal, coming out, whether in sports or not is just better for an individual's emotional and psychological health.

Secondly, there are lots of professional and professional-track athletes who are out like most of the LGBT community. Out to people who matter to them, including some of their team mates, out to their families and close friends, but not out to the universe - just like 95% of the GLBT community. I know some of these people in premiership football and their academies, the NBA, MLB and MLS and I know some for whom I am the only person they have ever come out to. None of the professional athletes I know have ever said they wanted - or more properly - felt they needed to come out "...like I did." If any did, I would support them whole-heartedly - and indeed rip the heart out of anyone who would attempt to hurt them.

I think it's important to be a bit more nuanced about how we look at 'being out.' Think about how many people the average LGBT person is out to - and that most are people they have at least a small vested interest in through work, family or friendship circles.

The fact is that they can walk down the street holding hands with their partner (in by no means all places) and not have people bother them; but equally, they can also, not 'hide' exactly, but not mention or bring attention to sexuality to their when it suits - a kind of code switching option - if you like, that I think all people and all identities should have.

An out (to the universe) professional athlete doesn't have that luxury. A life of literally millions of great decisions and sacrifice that brought him to sporting fame would now reduced to a sexuality he didn't chose. Let me add, that being out to the universe is a little daunting. Every day, every where, being gay is made my primary identity, whether I like it or not. The geek in me laments.

Now, on to my position. In my recent interview with the BBC and again with the upcoming HBO piece (although there, I think we wandered into other territory too) I was talking about elite and professional-track, male, team sports - and mostly football (soccer) in the UK. I stand by my assessment of the status quo in football regarding homophobia (and also racism, Islamaphobia and misogyny, if you're interested) in these elite and professional-track environments.

I have worked closely with aspects of the football world that have brought me in direct and enduring contact with the UEFA president and it's board members, the executive board of the Premier League (PL), the Football Association (FA), the (former) UK sports minister, and the Professional Footballer's Association (PFA) and Kick It Out (the FA/PFA "diversity" (read: anti-racism ) vehicle. I have also spoken to people involved in diversity in county cricket and professional rugby union, so my opinions on the state of play and the status quo, are not brought about by some residual "bitterness" from my own career, as many have claimed, but my face-to-face interactions over the last 18 months. I can not say I don't hold resentment there because I do: I was a fat kid from England who picked up a ball at 17 and was starting in the best league in the world six years later. How many stories like that have their been in the NBA? And during that time, many people in positions of power, some knowingly, most unknowingly, made my career and my life, more difficult and more miserable than it should have been. However, I encourage you not to make the mistake of thinking my experience so colours my thoughts, that my rhetoric makes no sense.

My words on this issue have been dour, but they are NOT defeatist. With my psychologist hat on, I know the only place to begin meaningful change is with a pragmatic assessment of the climate and culture. Starting with anything else is building a new house on sand.

Many interviewers challenge me on the gays-in-pro-sports bit, by saying that things at the levels I am talking about "...can't be as bad as I say." And perhaps that is why no one also asks (at least on camera) how we change things for the better if they are? Most simply state, we should just be better, which while true is not particularly useful.

I have made mistakes in my interviews and I am sorry to those of you impacted by my lack of clarity - the vast majority of straight men in organised amateur sport at every level (especially the younger generations and those from families who are not steeped in religiosity), have more against the guy who won't buy them a pint back than "a gay." I am sorry to those LGBT athletes, on high school, grammar school, local amateur and college and university teams across the US and the UK whose teammates embrace you and the only ribbing you get is for dropping the ball.

I am sorry to these people because I have not made explicit enough in my rantings that I know that things at those levels are
e x p o n e n t i a l l y better than they have ever been and continue to get better. I am deeply sorry that I have not made it clearer - and indeed that in editing for 'drama' my position could well be perceived as covering a broader group than it should.

However, and you knew this was coming, I am also sorry - and I do mean truly sorry - that if you are on any of those levels but in what sports development people call "the elite- or professional-track" towards Olympic and professional careers, perhaps in a football academy in the UK, then despite the progress at the levels I spoke about above, the situation above you is dire.
It is a situation that will still mean today, a sunny Friday in May, your chances of 'making it' as an out-athlete are reduced - and in some instances eliminated.

I am a little frustrated that my clear and multiple quotes saying the problem with homophobia in elite sport doesn't rest with the athletes and fans, don't seem to have penetrated. This is not to say that straight players (and gay ones too) bare no responsibility and there aren't any bigoted fans of course. Take a listen to the rank racism still spewed by some Spanish fans, the anti-semitism at some games at some London premiership grounds, and homophobia, well, nearly everywhere. Look at the number of Premiership players who refuse to state unequivocally a position against homophobia... it is a sad indictment.

However, I believe that it's not the fans and the players who are the real disseminators of this culture that sustains bigotry (yeah, not even that dolt, Tim Hardaway.) There are people in sport more powerful than the multi-millionaire players, like the owners, executives and administrators of sports teams and leagues and some, but not all of their coaches and their staffs, who create this atmosphere. From sporting board rooms that make women unwelcome, to the environment in Premiership coaching, for example, that sees black coaches work on a strict "one in, one out" policy. These people - some of them purposefully - engender a climate that makes throwing a banana on field feel inappropriate, but allows for "X player takes it up the arse" chants and screams of "MISS you fucking queer" to be treated as "banter."

When we consider these dinosaurs - one might suggest the likes of the T-Rex that is the all white, all male, all straight board of the beautiful game; it is not surprising that there is a push to keep professional football and other professional sports so monochromatic that a rainbow would look out of place.

Back to my position. Despite the obvious emotional and psychological advantages (and there are sooo many) of being out, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, Gordon Taylor, said earlier this month that he would advise any 17-year-old gay (professional-track football) player (he was talking about academy members) not to disclose their sexuality for fear it would damage their career. He and I don't agree on much, but we agree on that - because it is currently the truth. If you come out, in the professional-track environment, your psychological and emotional well-being (outside of the sporting context) will sky rocket, I also believe you'd become a better player, but I also know, just like Gordon said in that moment of alacrity, your chances of 'making it' are severely compromised.

There has been dramatic progress in "LGBT acceptance" especially in the UK, but also in the US; especially with the younger generations, but also across the board. This progress has also occurred, but at a much slower rate in many, even fervently religious communities, which sadly encapsulates many communities of colour.

I have worked in a professional capacity with all the communities I just mentioned, but never have I experienced the outright, uniform resistance to even moderate change - the staunch and vehement death grip on the status quo - that I experienced with elite and professional-track football in the UK and I don't just mean in terms of homophobia and the other -isms, but also in regard to simple things like improving holistic, pastoral care of 'scholars' (what they call their academy players - I think ironically, given their perspective.) I don't mean to boast, but while it is accurate to say I was a very average NBA player, I am really good at what I do now and I know that despite there being some quality individuals within the FA and PFA structure, most want this issue to go away, but definitely NOT be resolved. Instead there is a general rebuke of my experience as a organisational change practitioner.

As for me, I know I am difficult. I know that is a generous description. It's hard to embrace a role-model within the gay community who is so "prickly." My analytical and sometimes brutal assessments are jarring - a polar opposite to the warmth of someone like Gareth Thomas. My critiques of LGBT equality lack the visual beauty of those made by my good friend Jeff Sheng. And I certainly don't have the credibility of a person like Peter Tatchell, whose life is service to LGBT equality.

My views are highly complex for the most part, otherwise seemingly simplistic. Always hard to summarise into warm and uplifting ten word sound bites and you would be right in thinking that most of the time I don't try too hard to be that 'warm and accessible guy' when it comes to human rights of any kind.

I am a 6'9", 20+ stone, tea-drinking, black, British, gay, former-athlete, psychologist-nerd and granddad of three (amongst other things.) I embrace nuance, the idea of 'gestalt' informed by all the coherently superimposed identities I own, but the psychologist (and I think maybe the activist) in me demands brutal honesty fills a vacuum. And I do feel that on this issue, in elite- and professional-track sports, there is a vacuum of honesty where there should be truth. Not "my truth" - but the words of those in power and the nature of the reality laid bare from inside.

The near absence of visibly-out (to the universe) gay and bisexual male, team-sport athletes at the professional level, is not a function of their cowardice but a calculation - a risk/reward analysis that means some personal sacrifices facilitate continued sporting success. Equally, the tremendous progress in other areas of sport should not be confused with the context of elite and professional-track male team sports.

In a nut shell, and you will hate this, the majority of straight men in sports say they "don't care" if a person is gay in sports. The problem we have at the moment is that the people who don't care (about "the gays") don't count. Those in power do care, a lot, and they don't like it! [On a side note, on the day of DADT passing, the aforementioned is as apt a description of the problem with the US Senate if ever I heard one!]

The people who honestly don't care, even those who are the staunch advocates we need so much, aren't in the positions of power to make the culture and climate of male, team, elite and professional-track sports change.

Given this, I believe we have three choices:

1. You can imagine that the increasing LGBT acceptance in the majority of amateur sport will wash over and baptise those in power within elite sport with a new philosophy accepting of difference. (One day.)
2. You can accept that these people exist as I have described them but they are old and we can wait for them to die for change to happen.
3. You can aim a laser at these people illuminating them to the whole world (including the corporate sponsors who are light-years ahead of them in terms of diversity and inclusion,) a laser that also functions to guide the plunging comet in that will make these dinosaurs finally, completely, extinct.

I am sure you can guess my approach. I can't honestly say it requires the support of the LGBT or ally communities and in some sense, it may not be practical to have that support, this might be one of those "plausible deniability" situations... but I am up for that.

I just wanted all the sporty LGBT young people and the numerous allies out there to know how I feel, and what I am doing.

I hope this clears things up a little. Probably not. Either way, it's reached that point where I should switch to "radio silence" on this issue so I don't get chomped by a T-Rex.

Thanks for listening.

My new Scar

2010-05-22T14:02:00.000+01:00

Well, I am three days post-operation and I think it's time I wrote about the experience...plus, if you read along, you'll get to see the gruesome first pictures!

I also think it is pertinent to make a comment on the NHS, the 'evil' of 'socialised medicine' as many on the right, in the US would have people believe. This system that is supposed to 'kill Grandma' and have those waiting for serious operations die on the table, did a great job for me and I first want to thank Salford Hope Hospital, my surgeons, Mr Leach and James his registrar as well as the nurses in the Surgical Admissions Lounge (SAL) and those on ward B7 (who dragged me up on my feet and had me walking within 5 hours of the operation!) And now from the start...

I arrived at the surgical admissions lounge of Salford Hope at 7am, I want to point out that I had not eaten or drunk anything since a Nandos feast at 7pm the night before. I checked in and was seen by a nurse, my sister and her partner were with me, but soon had to head off to work. I then sat around for several hours...I will admit, I was grumbling under my breath as "the NHS" slowly let me down. My morning slot for surgery, slipped again and I was so bored I actually watched day time TV. At 10am, one of the nurses who had been very attentive, came round and offered me half a paper cup of water with the stern warning that this was all I was to have - I can tell you, I was tempted for the first time to drink toilet water if it came to it - I was dry as a bone. By 3pm, I was resigned to the wait. All the people who had come into the SAL in the morning with me had gone off to surgery and I was feeling a little peeved - it was almost as if they were trying to heighten the suspense - not that I needed that in a surgery where they cut pieces of my spinal column off.

At 4.30pm, the nurses who had been on all day were getting ready to leave as no more surgical admissions would happen beyond 5pm. They were in two minds as to move me to my post-op ward or get ready for surgery. They chose the latter - I slipped into my oh so flattering gown put on my dressing gown and slippers and no sooner than I get ready in an ensemble that did nothing to protect my modesty than a porter arrived to take me to B7. I wanted to walk - but he insisted I sit. So I was rolled through a hospital that all of a sudden seemed busier than Euston station at 5pm, my face buried in one hand while my other hand fought valiantly to stop my dressing gown from flapping open... it was a sad picture and I am happy to say there are no incriminating photos.

I arrived at ward B7 where dinner was being served, the smell made me feel a little ill with hunger, but I kept it together. Then the man in the bed opposite yelled over to me about how I was, "fine," I said. ""well you won't be afterwards" he said with almost joy in his voice. His wife looked over at me apologetically as we went on "you may not be able to sleep with all the screaming I do from the pain." Right now, many of you think I am joking, but he really said that. He looked at his wife and said "he thinks I'm joking!?" I didn't think he was joking, but I did, in that moment, have the biggest single impetus to get up quickly post operation - if only to smother that bastard with a pillow.

I smiled luke-warmly in his general direction, then Mohammed in the next door bed but one, looked over and said a cheery hello, he was on crutches carrying his catheter bag and slightly rolled his eyes in the direction of the complainer opposite - he told me he'd been in with him for three days - he made three days sound a loooong time, and there was all the extra motivation I needed to get out quickly.

At 6pm, the porter came to take me to the surgical suite - I just said a flat no to the bed they had rolled up, I was going to surgery under my own power and my guess was that Howard didn't have it in him to argue with me. He didn't and we strolled down to the surgical suites, we sat and chatted and I thought about how good anything would taste right then until the anaesthetist, John, came for me. He said they needed a team to "put me under" so he stuck needles in me until another lady arrived - she plugged me into something and asked me my age. I felt a bit confused, said "thirty... ni...." I am nearly sure I would get great pleasure out of being an anaesthetist, they always get the last word.

Before I went for my operation, I had many worries, the post-operative pain, the chances of incontinence or impotence and of course paralysis, but when I woke up, I felt relieved by the almost absence of pain. As I willed myself up through a mire of molasses, trying to pull cogent thoughts together and speak to the recovery nurse I wiggled my toes and actually chuckled - 2 out of 4 worries abated! I relaxed and was gone again and the next time my eyes opened it was to the wailing sounds of the jack ass in the bed opposite me. It was 1am and as he had promised, if he was awake and in pain, we all would be, his light on full he wailed at random intervals "the paaaaaiiiinnnnn." I almost felt guilty for my lack of pain until he picked up his phone and dialled without a murmur then wailed down the line at his just woken, long-suffering wife... one word: divorce.

He got off the phone quickly, I think he realised he may have pushed his luck with that night-time call stunt, so he put his TV on... I have not disliked a man quite so much in such a short period of time. I looked to my right and Mohammed lay quietly, most certainly awake - I felt sure he was mentally plotting doom for our nemesis too.

At 2am, I was finally awake, it hurt to move, and because my mind is weird that way, I started to wonder how many people had seen my arse the previous evening during surgery - I know, it's bizarre - but it was a worry....

A little later a cute doctor came round to check on me, yes, I am sure this was not a morphine induced mirage, but I can't exactly remember what he said to me. I was a little disappointed not to wake with his number pressed into my hand, but at least the operation went well!

A nurse came around and looked at me she asked if I was hot, I said yes and she helped me put on underwear and dump the gown - then she leaned over and said she wanted me to pee. It seemed an impertinent suggestion, and I said quite clearly that I didn't want to pee. They said I had had "a full bag" on the drip and "needed to pee." She called for reinforcements and they had me on my feet in a moment a drain in my back, a drip in my arm and a contraption in my hand also tied into my arm. We stood there, the tree of us illuminated by the light from the jack ass's bed and they held a pee jar in front of me.

Without asking they closed the curtains around me and stood just outside while asking if I had "gone yet" every 60 seconds. I told them that I was "quite aware I am standing in the middle of a room trying to pee in front of two ladies only dressed in my underwear." They shrugged and helped me shuffle into the loo that was, after all, no more than 5 metres away.

You've probably heard enough about my pee-perils now...but let's just say it didn't end there...

After I got back to my bed, I felt quite sore and the nurses told me about my morphine pump...ahh, the morphine pump...feel pain, press the pump, feel no pain. it was a thing of beauty. At 4am in the morning, the irritating light, buzzing noises of TV and the periodic histrionics from the jack ass across the ward were too much. One pump and it was lights out..ahhh....morphine goooood.

I woke at 5am, Mohammed had already been up and showered, I wasn't feeling up to that, but we chatted for a bit and then a nurse came round and offered a cup of tea? She might as well have been an angel - tea never tasted so good.

Breakfast came soon after, toast, porridge and more tea, followed by more daytime TV, the occasional pump of morphine if I moved too quickly or too much...and I was walking all around by 10am.

In the afternoon, I saw Mr Leach, who showed me his hands, they had blisters on them from cutting through my "exceptionally hard vertebrae." I felt only proud that my body had resisted being hacked to pieces...that has to be a good sign surely? he told me all was looking good, asked me if I had been walking around - all the nurses nodded as if to say "a bit too much." and he looked pleased - then he asked me if I had peed... these people seemed to have a fascination with my peeing... I nodded and he said I could leave today if I wanted. I looked over at Mohammed, we both looked over at the jack ass and I said "yes, please!"

Lunch came and passed (lentil soup, chicken curry, apple pie and custard) and I had visits from the physiotherapist, and the discharge nurse with my take-home drugs and by 3pm (visiting hours) I watched as the jack asses wife arrived laden with fruit and cordial because the hospitals juice was "just terrible." What a jack ass.

Muriel and our friend Helen came to see me, but actually, I was already packed and ready to go - I met them in the hallway, we walked back to the ward so I could introduce them to the nurses and Mohammed and also show them the jack ass, so they would have a mental picture of him as I told them his many, many, many failings and irritating habits.

Mohammed shook my hand and said he was getting out today as well, waved at my guests and we were out... I made sure to be extra cheery as I waved in the general direction of the jack ass... so glad I will only have the stories to remember him by from now on...not his incessant prattling, moaning and carrying-on.

I have actually not spoken about the man in the bed next to me, who was simply remarkable... but I am only supposed to sit for 20 minutes at a time, so that's another story for another time...

And since you've been patient too, here are the pictures!

Walk with me...

2010-05-16T19:21:00.004+01:00

It's been a long few weeks. Trying to fit in a million things before my back surgery this week. I am also just getting over another bout of tonsillitis, so this blog is a little late....

I have been all over the UK lately, as well as a trip to France - the briefest trip to France I have ever taken about 18 hours from arrival to departure - to do a presentation with the Special Olympics on court at the Euroleague Final Fours. It actually was quite good and the best team won. The games were crazy, the atmosphere more like a football crowd than a UK or US basketball one. People held home-made banners and scarves triumphantly in the direct eye-line of the fans behind - but they didn't seem to mind as each fan section sang their own songs - the Greek fans from Olympiakos, apparently not effected enough by their countries dire finances to be absent. I steered clear of them, as I still remember the bus driving into their arena for an away game when I played for their deadly rivals, Panathaniakos; stones, coins and road flares pinging off the wire mesh over the doors and windows and when finally on court, ducking everything from car keys and faceplates of car radios to glass bottles of coke as we warmed up and stretched. That was the game when one of my friends warm-ups were ignited by a stray road flare... a charming bunch indeed.
They lost their final game, badly, and I smiled a little over a second gin and tonic. I watched the second half from the hotel - I wasn't going to risk being caught in the rush after the conclusion of the game because, in what is an eternal mystery to me from my time in Greece, the fact remains that many Greek fans seem to riot whether they win or lose.
The final four was a distraction from being in a city I love for the first time in too long. The Parisians have always been touted as rude and nationalistic on a citywide scale, but I have never had any problems there... even the most uptight Parisian seems to give you a break as long as you make an effort and understand that simply increasing your volume in your mother-tongue doesn't aid translation! I smile, say "please" and "thank you" and "I am sorry for my bad French" a lot, and that seems to do the trick.
In the back of my mind, I really wanted to skip the game entirely and stand by the Seine and watch the people in the sun; but inside the arena, I met courtside, with a small group of Special Olympians from the local area who again helped me realise how remarkable people can be. Capable of so much compassion and empathy, behaviours that make us all feel truly connected.
It was quite daunting to know that my tenuous grasp of French was going to have to suffice as I chatted with the Special athletes, and before we went on court, several looked quite nervous... I bent down and whispered "...it's ok, it'll be easy" to one athlete while another grabbed my hand, I must have looked shaken before our debut, and said with a beaming smile, "it's ok, you can walk with me!"
I spent most of Sunday getting to France, a few hours early Monday morning getting back to London and then to Manchester, but while I was in London, still regretting missing my one chance to sit by the Seine I took a little detour and walked to the Thames instead... I took some video. I have no idea why, but there is a sigh when I get to the river that is quite... well, poignant is not the word, but the right word escapes me for now.
So, here it is, you can walk with me a little and see the sunset over the Thames. Most things are worth a short walk, and evenings like this one, definitely....

And now for a little sports...

2010-05-06T15:07:00.002+01:00

I don't talk much about sports really, I like to keep it in proportion - many of you will have heard or assumed that I "hate" sports - which isn't true. I can usually find something else I would rather do than watch sports, other than the players at my own centre of course, things like the AM on Sunday, Cleveland Show, Countdown, Rachel Maddow, The O'Reily Factor (oh yes, really), Spooks, Criminal Minds, Glee, etc., but I don't hate sports.

I do dislike the way that sports is used too often to uphold and reinforce the status quo whether that be ramming the idea into the heads of boys that they must be anti-intellectual and emotionally illiterate to become a real man - or even a real sportsman. I dislike the way generations of "blazerati" have run sports as if it there own private reservation, a place where regardless of incompetence and a lack of requisite skills, leaders (who are usually white, straight, old men) can stay in place f o r e v e r while qualified female candidates and those from ethnic minorities are marginalised and sport becomes less inclusive, and less of a disseminator of evolving, positive characteristics and more a place where good enough will do.

I spoke at the (very brave) CCPR conference yesterday and was pleased when I saw 70% of the rather monochromatic audience rise to the challenges I presented to change how we run and use sports in our communities and country. The other 30% looked varying degrees of uncomfortable and angry... but at least I made them think.

A summary of the speech can be read here.

On other notes as I recognise I rarely give athletes credit for the great things they do I wanted to take my hat off to the Phoenix Suns - or "Los Suns" as their jersey's boldly proclaimed as they played (and won) their play-off game versus the San Antonio Spurs on Cinco de Mayo (a big holiday for everybody in the southwestern States as far as I saw from living in Scottsdale for 15 years, but especially relevant in honour of the Latino community.)
They made their opposition to the new (unconstitutional) laws that enshrine racial profiling into Arizona law crystal clear and showed everyone a great example of athletes flexing their status to back justice and equality... hopefully it won't take another six months to find another great example like this!
For the record, I sold my house in Arizona, but if I hadn't, I would have now! I won't be spending a penny there again until that law is revoked. When LA passed prop 8, I left LA, got rid of my apartment and office and I haven't been back since. Money. Where. Mouth. Is.

Opening Heaton Moor Park

2010-05-02T13:44:00.000+01:00

I am always more than slightly embarrassed to be asked to open stuff or cut ribbons, but yesterday I spent the afternoon at Heaton Moor Park, recently refurbished by the Friends of Heaton Moor park and said a few words to officially open it. The place was packed with local families the usual diverse mix you see in my part of town. I thought it was really poignant in this day and age where we are constantly told (usually by politicians and self-titled 'moral authorities') that our communities lack cohesion and our children are feral and out of control, that here was an excellent example, literally walking distance from my house, of community organisers making something lovely happen for their own communities. The very least they deserved was a proper opening, and I hope that's what I help give on the day.
I found out when I arrived, that they had laid a stone with my name on it - and then I was embarrassed - but also quite proud...I took a little video of the day, partly because the sun was shining (a rarity) and partly because I felt I was capturing a little slice of 'little Britain' and I mean that in the very best sense. I stuck around for a few hours and can honestly say it was a pleasure... I took some video of the events and here is the stone they laid in honour of the opening.

My New Scars...

2010-04-28T12:20:00.000+01:00

Since I had my fun with After Elton's Hot 100 list (you can see my thoughts here) it is time to talk about some not fun things.
For many years, literally as far back as college, I have had some severe back problems, I spent most of my career in sports with ice bags strapped to my back, sitting in freezing cold whirlpools, in weekly visits to the chiropractor and strapped to a traction table - most of this was done without my teams knowing about it and if you'd have asked me back in 2000 how my back felt, I would have said, with Tony the Tiger style zeal, "It's Great!"
Over the last few years through a combination of stopping the strength and conditioning work that kept my back muscles toned, travelling too much and sitting at a desk all day it's just got worse and worse.
In the last year, it got to the point that I could only walk 200m before having to sit down and more recently, I have been losing all feeling below my waist for periods of time, which means I can't even drive at the moment!
Consequently, I am going in for surgery on the 19th May 2010 (thank you NHS) to have a lumbar laminectomy performed on several vertebrae. The idea being (barring them finding other causes for the problem) that I will then be able to go about daily life without the constant pain and the embarrassing numbness.
I wanted to put it put there as I already heard a couple of absurd rumours and this way you'll know the bottom line. Hopefully, I will be up and about very quickly after the op, and I can go back to being my bad self! If you have any horror stories, I really would like to be blissfully ignorant of them for now, I know the risks, and I have weighed them against feeling 97 years old every day and, well, it's worth it.
I will let you all know how it goes, but suffice to say at the moment, my largest concerns are:
1. My fat arse hanging out of the back of a hospital gown - I have already spoken with the admitting nurse and told her I WILL be wearing shorts until I get to theatre.
2. Related to 1, that some nasty nurse will snap a shot of said fat arse and put it on the internet.
3. Hanging off the end of the operating table - they have brought in a table they use for their, and I quote, "huskier patients." Hmmmm... not sure I like the idea of being considered "husky."
These primary worries are followed by the inherent risks to the surgery including, but not limited to instability (huh?) incontinence (ewww) and erectile disfunction (oh, nooooooooooo.)

OK, I am working right up to the day - and right afterwards - so I won't be going anywhere... and I have made a vow to change after the op - my days of sedentary living and carbs must be over - I am not as young as I used to be! Last year, I was asked to do a "tasteful" naked calendar for charity (one that shows no bits, you'll be relieved to know!) and I said "NO," because I worried I might be mistaken for a manatee. However, if I get pain free, my exercise excuses are gone, and if they call again for 2011, maybe I can debut my new scars!

If you are morbidly fascinated by a lumbar laminectomy, you can see what they are doing on a few of my vertebrae HERE. Enjoy!

"The Great Ignored"

2010-04-06T18:52:00.001+01:00

Just wanted to drop you a note regarding the past few days of rhetoric - and most recently the last second omission of gay and lesbian people in Cameron’s kick-off election speech. I can only conclude, that should Cameron and his remarkably un-evolved group take power that LGBT people will be a big part of his “great ignored.”

It isn’t enough for politicians to steal electioneering rhetoric from impeached past-US Presidents (Nixon!) to try to make every person feel like the Conservatives are on their side. The LGBT community should have been cautious, and I think fearful for quite some time - Cameron’s own voting history on LGBT issues is less than stellar and his Gay Times interview was disconcerting - he just wanted the bad homosexual to stop asking difficult questions! Even on a BBC's 'Question Time' billed only for it’s inclusion of Nick Griffin, the Conservatives much touted minister for cohesion (Sayeeda Warsi) could only splutter like a cornered fowl when she was challenged about her views on the equalisation of the age of consent. As a black, gay man (amongst many other things) I was horrified that the only remotely brown face of Conservative power - and one ostensibly in charge of our societies "social action” couldn’t even spit out words in support of equality.

Since then Chris Grayling - a man who can’t go north of Luton without insulting one minority community or another - managed to make his position on equal rights to services apparent and complete the Conservative trend.

I have never been party political, I have always thought I am basically too hard on all sides to do more than point out the faults, but for the first time in a long time, I feel as I do when I am in America and a Conservative is in danger of election there. I now feel in personal peril for my standing as a full and equal part of British society. I fear that the ideology and backward-thinking nature of these candidates might serve to make me a second class citizen - or perhaps just more so.

For those who think my rhetoric too strong - that the foot-in-mouth antics of Chris Grayling, the blushing lack of support for equality from Sayeeda Warsi and the latest ommision of the LGBT community from Cameron’s speech today are just “blips;” I would remind you that throughout history interminable numbers of people have been written off by the erasure of a few choice words in a speech and then in a document and then in a law. Words are everything.

If you think that equality can’t roll backwards, look to our "post-racial” friends in the America’s where head law-makers of States and public referendums are constantly repealing hard-faught rights for the LGBT and other minority constituents.

Sadly, we follow America with more than just our waistlines - if we are not vigilant, what we have earned in equality can be lost in the blink of an eye.

Ten Word Answers

2010-02-21T12:32:00.005Z

It is amazing to watch as I go from hero to pariah in a matter of days. As I sit looking at the hateful emails and rhetoric filled comments to a recent interview in the Telegraph. One may I add, like all interview pieces that is a summary, more than a verbatim recollection of my comments. The title of the article was "sporting world must help athletes to come out" which I thought was a suitably on-message idea - although I will admit, I don't think that's what our whole conversation was about. I do think that statement is true, but as much for issues of organisational performance as societal equity.

The critique - to give the comments I have received more credit than they are mostly due - comes from my statement that I don't think all LGBT athletes, especially those at the lowest levels, their feet on the bottom rung of the ladder should necessarily automatically come out. I am not suggesting that an athlete who wants to come out shouldn't but the 16 year old at a premiership football academy doesn't owe the LGBT community his immediate coming out - especially when we know it will have a negative impact on their career and probably their emotional and psychological safety as well. People who don't believe that, are just not paying attention.

So many people want a simple 10 word answers to the problems of the world: "If we stop driving cars, our ozone layer will heal." "We can end world poverty by taxing the rich more." And then there's the LGBT myth that "an athlete coming out will change sport and the world."

People who propose ten word answers to complex, multi-dimentional, multi-agency, multi-textural societal problems ARE LYING TO YOU.

People who blindly accept these ten word propositions either see the lie, and are willing to endorse it or are naive or desperate enough to believe that the complexity of the world can be explained and solved with a platitude.

I am neither. I want equality as much as any of those LGBT people who have called me a hypocrite - and worse - this week, but I am willing to demand that these organisations make the necessary changes that would mean an athlete coming out would be at the nexus of radical organisational and cultural improvement rather than, as we in the UK have seen once before, a high-calibre athlete coming out into the eye of a storm that consumes them.

If you brave critics out there are willing to pay the tuition of the high school kid who fails to win that athletic scholarship after coming out to their college suitors; house the young woman who is thrown out of her home in Layton, UT, or protect the wrestler in Liberty, MO whose coach left him in the locker room with his team to have the "gay beaten out of him." If you can be all these things to all these youngsters: the amateur, collegiate and professional athletes you would demand step out of the closet to achieve a goal predicted only in a ten word meme. Only then do you even have the right to make the demand.

We must make these sporting organisations better so that when our brave youngsters come out they can help achieve the change we all want.

In England, within the FA, this latest advert is all they have agreed to in terms of their "LGBT strategy." Their brief for this "strategy" to the PR company, Ogilvy - who made the ad - was to stop fans from saying bad things about "the gays" in their stadia. It was explicitly NOT to help their players come out - LOOK if you don't believe me:

In change management, INTENT is everything. Even as the FA ostensibly work for equality, they tell us that gay players in not part of that picture.

Perhaps instead of sending me comments and emails about my supposed hypocrisy, you should call them? And I could distribute the hundreds of emails I have received from athletes who have come out and been kicked out of their homes, had scholarships rescinded and been beaten up daily, so that each of them may get one of you as a guardian angel to make everything all right?

Or maybe you just want to continue screaming? Your fingers stuck firmly in your ears, waiting for people to stop speaking a more challenging truth and say the ten words you want to hear instead.

If you want me to be a tireless advocate for young people, LGBT, straight, black, white, whatever; I will be that. If you want me to be a person of principle; I will be that. If you want me to always say the things that make you comfortable and help you feel that everything will be OK; I can't promise that.

Change requires discomfort, it requires nuance as much as cohesion and it ALWAYS requires more than ten words.

UPDATE:
If you want to hear some of my comments listen to this:

My Big Coat...

2010-02-16T09:29:00.001Z

I have a huge trench coat that hangs almost down to my feet. I wear it like armour when I need to feel bullet proof. I have been wearing it a lot lately, something my sister pointed out to me recently. I thought back to a couple of weeks ago when I first started wearing it nearly every day, I was going to visit my friend Tansy, she was in The Christie Hospital, I parked across the street, and walked to the edge of the road facing the hospital entrance, my ears hooked into my iPhone playlist, a wool cap covering my baldness and my body wrapped in my big coat. My face was exposed to the world, but I had chosen the soundtrack.

Traffic buzzed by and my big coat flapped dramatically in the breeze. I walked across and then into the hospital.

Tansy looked so well, we chatted, laughed and even went down to the coffee shop and shared a latte. Her auburn hair shone as we wandered the hallways and I was struck that everyone in the hospital seemed to know her name - I imagined if I had inhabited those hallways for 10 months as she had, I would still be a stranger; but Tansy has always been effervescent - that and a little mother hen, always chiding me for my shut-in tendencies - and right with her criticism.

A night or two ago, my friend Peter came round with a photograph - he has been charged with managing the visitation duties with Tansy so she isn't overwrought with well-wishers...he brought around a painting from Tansy's collection, a greek impressionist painting (if that even exists) of two men, tears in their eyes, embracing with the words "no matter what you do, I will always love you..."

I put the picture to one side and Peter and I sat and laughed together, he looked exhausted, and saddened that the Tansy I had described from just a week ago was now looking so frail. He left with a sigh and I went back to my office to work a little more - or perhaps just distract myself.

I had gone to bed relatively early for me but was lying awake when the phone buzzed it's announcement of a text. Tansy was gone, peacefully and with her family around her, she was gone.

The next day, was so full of meetings that mourning was postponed, as I headed for the door, I looked over at the coat rack and grabbed the reassuring weight of my big coat. That day was a train journey to somewhere, a meetings with someone and then home. Arriving back at my home station late, I looked around to see how big the queue was for taxis. There wasn't one, but there weren't any taxi's either!

I live only 3 miles from the station, but as no proponent of extra exercise, I stood for a while to see if I might get lucky. It was a freezing evening, but clear and I started to walk, I had time to think about Tansy and as with all good friendships even in their passing, I couldn't help but smile. I regretted not seeing her one more time before she died, but as I walked I was with her again as she held court in the hospital everyone, from cleaners to consultant surgeon's stopping what they were doing to address her as she passed.

Despite the chill, I started to feel warm - hot in fact and I unbuttoned my coat a little - then all the way and it blew behind me like a cape. The wind picked me up and I looked around furtively to make sure I wasn't being observed and as I crested a hill, I raised my arms and I admit that for the rest of that 35 minute stroll home, lit only by amber streetlights, I was eight years old again, an infallible superhero, swooping over the streets of Stockport.

Friendships that lift spirits endure...thank you Tansy: you are missed, but not gone.

Features, Op-Ed's and more...

2010-02-15T18:40:00.002Z

I wanted to let you all know that today's (16th February) Telegraph has a feature in it on what I am up to work wise - it might be more than you need to know, but here you go:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/basketball/7244830/John-Amaechi-sporting-world-must-help-gay-athletes-to-come-out.html

Also, today's Times also features an Op-Ed by me as well:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7028242.ece

Enjoy!

The Truth: Homophobia hurts straight people too.

2010-02-12T11:44:00.011Z

I actually start to resent the stupidity of the arguments around prejudice - not because of their lack of depth or critical understanding of the issues at hand and even the nature of change; but because it forces me to become involved - to seem like I am a professional crusader on these issues alone - one more day being a professional gay, rather than a whole person.

Let me be plain - I don't think the issue of homophobia and it's effect on the LGBT community should be the most important thing we discuss. We are not like so many of the African countries who enact barbaric laws to kill or imprison certain minorities in the midst of more critical issues like endemic poverty, famine, disease, etc. But there are certainly more pressing things to occupy column inches and our time in Europe and America.

That being said, as I trawl the papers to see what's happening int he world, I notice an article that quotes Peter Clayton, who chairs the FA’s Homophobia in Football advisory group and is the FA’s only openly gay councillor, who said he too appreciated players’ anxieties (in appearing in an anti-homophobia advert.) “I suspect agents and clubs shied away from it,” he said. “A player coming forward to appear in it would feel he might ignite more vitriol.”

While I understand what he is saying, think about how desperate sad and backwards that reveals football to be? Especially in the light of the various common arguments I have heard recently, like this one on the radio, where the FA and Kick It Out seem to think that it is the job of the individual gay sportspersons to change their bigoted and backward organisations. Sadly, football had a chance to prove that with Justin, and they failed him as they fail all of us now. The LGBT community doesn't need any more martyrs.

A source from the PFA said "Maybe in three, four or five years we will have more players involved. At the moment, no one wants to be the player putting their head above the parapet. It’s about the right time and the right place. Players give a lot; they get so many asks. Sometimes there has to be a ‘no’, and this was one of them.”

Firstly, that time scale is a bit optimistic - football is a century behind not half a decade. Secondly, the idea that an FA anti-homophobia campaign got a "no" from players because they were too tired from the anti-racism campaign, too busy feeding the hungry or healing the sick is bollocks - you know it and so do I.

The straight players who were asked (and I have it on very good information that not many were asked) and said "no" abdicated their responsibility as role models - it's what I believe. Someone like John Terry would be perfect - hell, no one who reads a tabloid is going to believe he's gay!

Frankly, with the record of heterosexual sleaze from the premiership alone, we should have a dream team of irrefutably straight players to chose from for an anti-homophobia campaign.

It's worth noting that I know for a fact that several players told me they would be willing to appear in such a video, including one player who is considers himself bisexual.

As I have been saying all along the real problem is in the halls of power not the terraces, and not the field of play. The FA is afraid of the "gay issue" in the same way eight year old boys are afraid of getting "cooties" from touching the girls in primary school.

They are immature to an extreme, their minds so underdeveloped that while they are batting away white superstar who volunteers to visibly combat racism, they are afraid to even ask many straight players to do their duty as role models in combatting homophobia - and they see no irony or hypocrisy in their failings.

I want to propose something radical for you to consider:
I have mentioned at the beginning of this piece that I don't think the effect of homophobia on the LGBT community is the crux of why we should focus on the "gay issue."

I think homophobia is an important issue because of the effect it has on straight people. Homophobia is literally and figuratively killing our youngsters - especially young, straight boys.

In school, for a boy, being clever and interested in academia is gay, being kind and thoughtful is gay, being respectful to a parent, authority figure or woman is gay.

For a man, being sexually considerate - that is, not sleeping with everything female that moves - is gay. Having non-sexual friendships with women is gay. Being nurturing and considerate is gay. Having a friend who is gay, is gay. Choosing not to drink until you puke is gay. In football, even reading the guardian or using words with more than three syllables is gay.

We still socially reinforce industrial revolution-style gender identity on our boys and men so that to be a "real man" you must be the opposite of anything even remotely considered feminine.

We wonder why violence against women is rising? Why our boys run away from academic pursuits in school? Why they rebel against authority and steel themselves from the true expression of emotion despite the consequences?

In part they do these things because even when it's irresponsible or illegal, such behaviour serves to reinforce that they are a "real man." John Terry got in trouble because he broke "the code" and slept with a team mates "property" - not because he disrespected a woman or women in general - because that's what "real men" do.

Being remotely emotionally intelligent and even slightly able to show appropriate emotion is gay - except on the field where goal scoring celebrations often need only a little seventies music in the background to make them gay porn: Kissing, hugging, lying on top of each other in intimate embrace.

Perhaps this is the real crux of the issue with the FA? We have made team sports the only place where "real men" can break the gender rules and still be considered "real men," and the idea of recognising that some of these men are gay is a little too close to home for those in charge of a game where real, straight men kiss and hug on a field in celebration, for real, straight fans in the terraces, who love it and do the same.

A Strategy?

2010-02-06T09:54:00.005Z

I am posting the URL from this piece in the Pink Paper:

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/02/05/fas-homophobia-in-football-video-premiere-cancelled/

I think I need to clarify a few things and respond to some of the quotes the FA state in the article:

My thoughts are not a criticism of Stonewall, whose work I admire, or Peter Tatchell, whose advocacy is legendary. We are all allowed to have different views of this advert.

The fact is that I feel strongly that this advert is horrible - and the result of ignoring consultation freely given to the FA by myself and other people. I was in the meeting where five PR and advertising agencies showed their advert ideas. This final ad was in there and I picked it apart at the time - and that was when I was fooled into thinking it would be part of a wider campaign rather than the stand-alone it became.

Some people have taken the view that the LGBT community should be glad to take this bone the FA has thrown to us - but I don't agree. As a responsible corporate entity and as an organisation that can influence British culture through it's actions the FA has a responsibility to play it's part in eradicating homophobia, racism, anti-semitism, misogyny and every other form of bigotry and prejudice.

It is worth noting that almost every corporate, philanthropic or educational entity I have ever worked with has put more resources and managerial effort into anti-homophobia strategies than the FA and Premier League combined - please feel free to look at who I am talking about:

http://www.amaechiperformance.com/clients/

The FA has NO strategy - NONE - for combatting homophobia. They have been promising an advert for over two years - the idea that they need more time now to enter a 'final stage of consultation' is a joke.

The FA has only this advert and nothing else around it to be a strategy against homophobia. They and the Premier League refuse to empower Kick It Out the way it needs to be, in order for it to become an independent force for good.

Most of 'football's' thinking on combatting prejudice is steeped in anecdote and marketing-speak, not in contemporary science on change management.

In my last blog, I talked about how important intent is when planning a strategy for wholesale change. This is a copy of part of the brief that the five agencies competing for the advert were given:

Now you tell me, do you think football is serious about addressing homophobia?

Any strategy for changing attitudes towards gay people in sports (or in general), that is restricted to say it specifically isn't designed to encourage people (players, fans, coaches, etc) to come out and isn't designed to defeat prejudice everywhere, not just in the stadiums, is doomed to fail.

Can you even imagine such a brief for an anti-racism advert?! A campaign that is specifically designed not to encourage black people to be proud of who they are. An advert that says "we don't care if people throw bananas at black people outside the stadium, just don't do it inside!"

I am calling "Bullshit" on the combined efforts of football to combat homophobia. I stand by my previous assertion that being well-meaning is not good enough, and that football doesn't even appear to be well-meaning.

Combatting Homophobia in Sport

2010-02-04T17:56:00.002Z

A lot has heard over the last 18 months about Football's "groundbreaking" advert to combat homophobia. People have talking to me about it coming down the line and there were even reports that it would have actual professional players in it.
The film that was created - starting in February 2009 - doesn't have any players in it, lacks a cohesive narrative and certainly is one of the most offensive adverts I have seen in a long time. Maybe I am not cool, or tuned into "the industry" but I was horrified when I first saw it and made sure that I was going to be as far away from London as possible next Thursday, when it was due to premiere to much fanfare and media acclaim.
However, today, at about 11:30am, sitting in a meeting with some members of Kick It Out phones started buzzing around me and the news came that the Chief Exec of the FA had cancelled the premiere.

Anyway, I am hoping that you will get to see the clip soon, enough people out there have it and I think people should have the opportunity to scrutinise the kind of organisation that would produce this kind of advert as a stand-alone solution to the rampant homophobia in their midst - and not as often on the field or in the stands as they would like you to believe.

Anyway, here is my official rebuttal of the web advert:

REACTION TO TODAY’S CANCELLATION OF THE FA’S ANTI-HOMOPHOBIA ‘VIRAL VIDEO' PREMIERE

The premiere of the product of two years of discussion and promises has been cancelled.

I have seen the advert and must raise serious concerns about the potential dangers of this concept as I have done at several high level meetings - one at the FA’s old headquarters in Bow Lane on the 18th February 2009.

The advert is incendiary, vulgar and to cap it all lacks the conviction of it’s own aetiology - to state unequivocally that homophobia is unacceptable everywhere. The problems with the ad are exacerbated by the fact that this is a stand-alone piece without any significant strategic approach surrounding it, meaning it is unlikely to make the tiniest bit of positive difference - it is simply further proof of the FA’s willingness to window-dress it’s most serious problems.

The FA & the Premier league through Kick It Out are trying to address the symptoms and not the cause of the problem of prejudice and bigotry - and do it as cheaply as possible! The importance of LGBT fans and players to the high echelons of football can be summed up by the £10,000 budget for the entire anti-homophobia project.

This subsequent cancellation is less a sign of burgeoning understanding of the error of their ways and more an exercise in pre-emptive damage control.

The reality is that this advert, like the organisations that spawned it, lacks a true understanding of the issues or any sense of nuance or proportion.

This advert shows an ostensibly straight, white thug abusing his co-workers and other random people around him and never once being challenged. It shows what we must assume is a gay man shrinking behind his cubicle to avoid abuse and in the final scene at the football game the abuser again goes completely unchallenged while letting out a verbal tirade that made my eyes water. All that going on without even a disdainful look from the crowd. Sadly, it is far more a picture of "what is,” in and around football, than what should be.

The end tag lines start with a statement: “This behaviour is unacceptable here.” We are being told by the FA/PL/KiO and whoever else's badges are at the end the advert that this language IS unacceptable in workplaces. Then the next tag line is a conditional tense question “So why should it be acceptable here?” This suggests there is still a debate to be had about what is allowed at matches and what is not - indeed the authors - “football” - fail to tell the audience definitively that this is NOT acceptable and give the catalogue of reasons why.

It’s a poor language choice to end what I think will be roundly perceived as a deeply offensive ‘shock’ advert that uses almost every slur available to defame LGBT people with no apparent on-screen fall out. I will not be surprised when some people take the ad as a guide to new, colourful, homophobic insults.

Football can’t shock fans out of being bigots - this process requires a highly strategic, multi-modal approach, not to mention and a significant investment. 90 seconds of bad language that will only be seen on the internet, is not a solution to the problems faced by football and the concept of trying to create a “viral video” to combat homophobia in football feels crass at best.

Even the brief this advert was designed to fill was flawed from the start. One PR agency bidding for the job of creating this advert at a February 2009 meeting, stated that they were told “...this advert is...explicitly NOT designed to encourage players to come out.” This project was doomed from it’s inception.

In change management, INTENT is everything. Even the infamous “Respect Ad” with celebrities acting out a football game without a referee was - unintentionally, but most certainly homophobic. It’s budget was also an order of ten higher than that for this flawed anti-homophobia exercise.

It has become clear to me over the last 18 months, that the FA and Premier League are not interested in actually changing themselves from the homophobic, misogynous, racist institutions that they currently appear to be. I don’t say that lightly, but my conversations with board members, executives and staff alike from the FA, the PL and the PFA seem to bare this out.

‘Football’ doesn’t seem to want black people or women on the FA board or management team: 12 straight, white, old men are currently supposed to be the representatives for the diversity of British football. A quick google search on Lord Ouseley makes many of the issues clear and he stands adjacent to the core of power in football.

‘Football' doesn’t seem to want black people on 'their sidelines' and through their inaction at least, they tacitly support the one in, one out system for black coaches that has persisted for years. I refuse to believe every black candidate for a premiership head coaching job in the last two decades has been insufficiently skilled to get a job and remain in post for more than a year!

I spoke to Catherine Long last year, (she’s the Head of Supporter Relations) at the PL, she told me that the recent Stonewall research was “flawed" and my interpretation of the hostility of the sport in general were figments of my imagination; she felt that in fact they had “...almost completely eradicated...” racism and homophobia from the game through their support of Kick It Out.

When I attended the 2009 FA Player’s player of the year award, I endured a homophobic, misogynous comedian from the stone ages who had the room rolling on the floor. I watched the top table and observed that to be one of the two black people on it, you needed a life peerage or a knighthood.

I don’t watch much sport, but even I know better than to attend a football game with my partner and show any kind of affection - I am 6’9” and 22 stone and I KNOW it’s not safe - emotionally and perhaps physically too - maybe they think my skin is too thin and the Stonewall research the product of some over-sensitive gays?

That being said, the FA and the Premier League approach that it’s all the fault of fans and 'stupid, under-educated players,’ leaves what I believe are the main culprits above the fray and out of the conversation. The fans and the players are lead by those who pay players and those who manage and administrate the teams and the leagues fans support.

I have reached out on numerous occasions to help the Premier League, the Football Association and even UEFA make the necessary changes to bring them into the 21st century, but there is simply too much denial in too many quarters to penetrate to the heart of the problem in football.

Real change takes concerted, systematic and targeted efforts as well as a sea-change in the mindset of the leadership: board, executives, coaches, and top players. I have worked with literally hundreds of international companies and have never met more resistance to clearly necessary change than that I have heard and seen within football; change that would bring them closer to, but by no means match that of their corporate partners.

In football, the leadership remains firmly in the 20th century, threatened by any diversity work beyond compliance to new regulations or PR efforts that save them law suits or bad press. They fail to see what the majority of corporations already know and embrace: That a functionally diverse organisation is a stronger, more creative and more resilient organisation.

At this point, I have to maintain that Sir Ian McKellen was right (as he so often is) when he said last week that “The sports world should be ashamed of itself.”

There are good people in the mix, organisations like Kick It Out for example. Piara Power and his team, work within a restrictive framework without enough power or the resources to make the necessary changes. At the moment, there is a serious disconnect between where the UK is on issues of diversity and inclusion as a whole and the status quo of the powers that be in football and one thing I am sure of is that such a disconnect is ultimately really bad for business.

A short film

2010-01-09T13:40:00.001Z

A short film by Sunny Midha - and no, I did not commission it! My role was lending him some old jerseys!

Not sure I ever had a south London accent, but I like the film -- hope you like it too!

http://14islandsfilmchallenge.bahamas.co.uk/?video=180&page=1#

A little snow sculpture sing-a-long

2010-01-05T19:04:00.002Z

OK< so I embedded the video all wrong - will try again tomorrow!

I know I am perhaps going a little overboard with the snow stuff, but I have to say that todays flurry has had a profound impact - I played in the snow as I haven't in 30 years - and it felt really good to be a kid for a while.

I even pretended to be randomly shovelling snow when my neighbour caught me singing to myself as I sculpted (again, loose use of that term.)

Anyway, enjoy...

John

Snow Sculpting...

2010-01-05T11:42:00.001Z

I went outside to clear off my car like a respectable middle-aged man. Instead, I made this:

Somehow, I feel better now!

Now read the next post!

Ali Babba and the 40 inches...

2010-01-05T09:59:00.006Z

I spent a couple of hours in Marple (Stockport, UK) last night - not really important where it is except that it is the kind of place where there are still independently-owned corner shops. An old school mate of mine from Stockport Grammar School, who is into the am-dram called me to ask if I would come along and give my critique on their dress rehearsal given a lot of the youngsters had seen me brutalise competitors as a judge on the BBC TV show "The Speaker."

I am not sure given being "the mean judge" why they asked me to critique them, but they were brave, so I braved the cold and joined them.

I have to admit that AmDram fills me with horror, especially the idea of mixed adult and young people AmDram. The thought of people whose opportunity had passed them by - or more likely never materialised - 'working' with young people who just want to impress their Mum or have a laugh makes me pale.

However, I am always intrigued by the gender play in panto: old(er) men dressed up as women, leading male parts "Haroon" (Ali Babba's son (apparently)) played by a relatively buxom (and braless) teenaged girl and several older women as male bit parts. This contrasted with the many pre-pubescent children being kept in staunchly gender-typed costumes, every "hareem girl" looking like a fairy princess, every one of the 40 thieves looking like a butch pirate, etc.

I won't bore you with the details, but I had to suspend my disbelief, dive into the spirit of panto and just enjoy it and you know what? I did. I still wish, when the cross-dressing grandad who played the burlesque, servant character "Kaskara" who looked like Dame Burley Chassis (a local drag queen) asked me, as part of the always horrifying audience interaction, if I "fancied him," that I had said "yes," to see if Marple was ready for inter-racial, inter-generational, cross-dressing, gay romance. I imagine not.
And frankly, neither was I.

Anyway, I realised that although panto doesn't really tweek my melons, it was evident that even through the nerves and the occasional slip-ups, this was an environment that really gave the younger participants especially, something positive. I continue to have my reservations about AmDram-parents, and over-zealous, never-off-stage youngsters, but there were young people there who disappeared into themselves when the lights dimmed, but positively shone under the limelight. That is an experience they can treasure for life, that even cynics like me should support. A journey well worth the drive.

At this point, you are probably asking what the 40 inches was all about? I imagine some passers-by are the type that always click on links that mention inches, so I exploited your weakness for length (or girth.)

In actuality, I was referencing snow. That's it. It started as I drove away from Marple, a positively Dickensian scene, made more strangely victorian by the glow of amber street lights through the flurry and it's still snowing now. I needed a little poetic licence.

I hope you are safe wherever you are, snowed in or otherwise... and I leave you with this view from my window...

My yucka plants are really bearing the brunt of things this winter!

A little video legacy

2010-01-02T13:24:00.005Z

Well, since I want to keep up the posts, here is a little video introduction, so you can learn more about me than you ever wanted to know! It's a little difficult to read all the words in this space, so feel free to watch it on my youtube channel (meech13)

Enjoy!

To the go-getters, goal setters, the ugly ducklings, the dreamers and me; for a better 2010.

2009-12-29T13:47:00.004Z

Year after year, I see articles at this time of year promoting New Years resolutions, so this year, I thought I would throw my hat into the ring. I do this because it’s topical, but also because I am working on this material for another purpose and this a first “field test” for at least some of these principles.

Most of this is healthy mental exercise for you to try, whatever you are hoping to achieve in 2010, even if you have no specific resolutions or goals (yet). You will see me refer to achieving “great” things or the attempt to be “brilliant.” These terms are relative to each individual, but with these principles combined, I know what can be achieved will be great and brilliant relative to the majority of people.

I am using some examples from my past and the specific challenge of weight loss that seems to be so relevant to so many at this time of year - including me!

Principles for a better you*

1. “Know Thyself” - My first two principles come from the inscriptions on the Oracle at Delphi (I am a geek that way.) Take a day or two to do what I call in my work a pragmatic self-assessment. Doing this: logging your strengths weaknesses, values, personal convictions, deepest desires, wishes and fears etc, you will go a long way to knowing what personal resources you have at your disposal to achieve what you plan and perhaps more importantly I think, you will know what personal weaknesses might hold you back or waiting in the shadows to ambush you. We all have our Kryptonite (mine include baked goods.)

When I first started to have success in basketball, I carried out a pragmatic self-assessment and realised that I am intrinsically not that interested in tedious, hard, manual labour - seems like a downer for an athlete - but knowing this meant that I chose to live 500m away from the personal trainer I had chosen (also because of my PSA) in Phoenix. I made the decision to never take more than 10 consecutive days away from training in the offseason and never stayed away from Phoenix for more than a month in the off-season throughout my career in Europe and the NBA. Knowing yourself is the key to achieving the truly difficult things in life.

2. “Nothing too much” - it is a rare person indeed who can change every old habit, thought process, emotional entanglement or whatever else in a single moment. "Nothing too much" means, in part, not trying to achieve everything in the shortest time or in a single stroke. If it’s weight you are looking to lose we know the equation - take in less calories than you burn. Simple, right? But if you aim to lose all the weight you want in the shortest time you will demand levels of discipline, effort and sacrifice that are unsustainable for most people not to mention a speed of weight loss and possible nutritional deficits that are unhealthy. As with all change, their is bound to be discomfort, but pain (psychological, emotional or physical) is nearly always a bad sign - and a sign of eventual, inevitable failure.

3. Be Bold - it may seem strange that I have just told you “nothing too much” and now I am saying be bold. Goethe said “Boldness has genius, power and magic in it” and he is so right. Even if New Years Resolutions are just accidents of the calendar, why not use this moment to examine yourself and make a bold, specific statement about what you want to achieve, over what time period and how you will go about it. Not “get in shape” a statement whose boldness couldn’t inspire flatulence, but really think, and set a courageous goal.

4. The Specific Possible Self - To achieve beyond the average I think it is essential to memorise a picture of your possible future self. A pragmatic picture based on reality, one where the gap between where you are and where you are attempting to get, even if improbable is not impossible. A lot of people who want to “lose weight” have the image of a size 1 supermodel or a man with an eight-pack chiselled out of granite. Most of us aren’t made to look that way without photoshop or eating disorders, and the image of the leaner-you needs to be possible in reality. I want to, but never will have Tyson Beckford’s body, so I need to visualise what a lean-Meech looks like and work towards that instead! So, consult a doctor, and chose to lose a specific number of pounds or kilos to lose, a sustainable rate of loss, and what combination of tactics you will use to get there. If you are like me, then your figure to lose might be quite high, I want to lose it all by February, but that is too much, too soon. Know yourself, be patient, be bold and use whatever is at your disposal to make the path easier: from a trainer or gym buddy, to weekly reward days when you can still have a treat but stay on the path…Whatever your intention for this New Year, create a picture of it in your mind, how it will impact your life, how it will feel to achieve, what other possibilities it might open up. Create a picture so vivid, so detailed and so entrenched in the context of your life that it will seem like you are revisiting a memory, not aiming for a vague, implacable future goal.

5. Make a public declaration of your intention - much like with therapy, some of the power in the process is just hearing your own thoughts, feelings and ideas bounced back at you - they become tangible. Tell the people you love what you have in mind to do so that they might be recruited as advocates. I warn people away from thinking this principle is about public accountability: People do achieve meaningful things because they are important to others and not themselves, but rarely do they achieve great things that are meaningful to themselves in that manner. There is probably a little statement to pushy parents in that. Erma Bombeck said that it takes great courage to show your dreams to someone else and I think that courage is part of the initial impetus to future success. I don’t even think you need to tell the world in a blog or book, but just a few people or even one person, whose friendship and counsel you value. Below is a scanned page from yearbook in my Grammar school's library as an example of my past specific, bold, public declaration - they don’t guarantee success, but I know they help. Every time I see this, I feel I have to apologise for the childish comment of "making a lot of money" but then I realise - I wrote it when I was a child. Nonetheless, six years from the day that yearbook was published, I started my first game for the Cleveland Cavaliers against Michael Jordan and his world champion Chicago Bulls - we lost, but I won.

Also, I should point out, I don't live at that address anymore, so don't bother whomever it is by writing or stopping by!

6. Embrace ridicule & disbelief - Ridicule accompanies all great achievements: I was once told while schooling an opponent at a local park in Manchester, that it was a “...long way from Fog Lane park to the NBA.” The headmaster at my school used to pull me into his office to demand I stop being so foolish with the “fantasy” of playing “that poor man’s sport.” If you make a clear, specific, bold, public declaration of your intention to achieve something brilliant for yourself, others will laugh, smirk and role their eyes and even attempt to dissuade you. People, friends and foes alike, often fear that another’s attempt at brilliance, never-mind the potential for actual achievement, might shine a light their own shortcomings and lack of personal aspiration and vision. I repeat, ridicule accompanies all great achievements.

7. Setbacks and Fatigue - The best, most vivid, most specific, most bold and publicly declared intentions can go awry, sometimes they drift, sometimes we fall (off the wagon or otherwise.) Everyone falls sometime. I have failed many times, often dramatically, but to this point never critically. I think every high achiever is marked by scarred knees and shins, so to speak. I think envisioning a plan where setbacks are an expected outcome and setting a routine for when that happens. We do it with our cars - most people pay for some kind of roadside assistance, or learn enough to get their own car back on the road, not because we expect them to breakdown, but because we know breaking down is always a possibility. So for our own goals, let's think about our New Years resolutions and what we are going to do to “fix the flat tyre” should it occur. I know I am not going to be able to stay away from single malt for a whole year, but I also know what I will do when I drink or eat too much and blow my progress towards “lean-Meech.” Figure out your "what-ifs" now.

There are quite a few principles I haven't included, but I think even with this you might have quite a bit of success. I would be glad to hear your thoughts and of your trails and achievements into the new year.

Here’s wishing you the best for 2010. John

Gareth Thomas - and the gay in sports/gays in society discussion

2009-12-21T15:43:00.000Z

I have been asked to comment so many times on the brave and quite noble coming out of Gareth Thomas. Here are some of my thoughts and a few rebuttals on the comments I have heard Many valid points about male team sport have been made, about the intimacy and the locker-room atmosphere; it is true: sport has been homoerotic since Homer and that aspect of bonding is a fragile and well-protected heterosexual domain. It is because of the certainty of heterosexuality that so many straight men in sports, armed services, fraternities and stag parties can behave... well, so gay. I didn't feel coming out would have hurt that unity, my teammates, like Gareth's, knew I was gay, but none of them wanted to be an advocate, if challenged publicly, all I could expect was non-committal language as I saw when I did come out. They employed a "Don't ask, don't tell" attitude for the most part and when I did come out publicly, they scuttled away at best making "no comment" or uttering an inane platitude. Take a look at the comments that were 'positive' most said nice things about me - but not one person I played with said them to me. Some were even afraid of being seen with me - one player I met in JFK ignored me until we got into the airline lounge then wouldn't sit with me because people might think "we was together."

What I did knew then, and still applies now, was that as an average player - not a superstar like Gareth - and living in America, not Wales, it was legal to fire me for being gay and I didn't think all the millions of good decisions that got me to the top of world basketball in six years should be sacrificed for something in which I never made a conscious choice.

The LGBT community doesn't need any more martyrs - especially in sport - not another suicide, not another career suicide, not another 14 year old boy who steers away from sport because their coach, TV coverage, advertising, and primary and secondary school banter tells them sport is for 'real men;' and faggots, well they aren't 'real men.' Not another 14 year old girl whose parents make her stop playing football because girls with hand-eye coordination, who excel at sport - are "all lesbians." I think the assertion that we live in a far more enlightened society is only partly true, maybe not even that much.

Many good people rank sexuality with all individual differences - interesting at first, then just part of the whole - gestalt-style. But many are still bigots at heart - more sophisticated for sure - they know who can be made fun of in plain language and who needs code to insult. They know which environments encourage their bigotry, the status quo of stereotypes and strict gender-roles and they thrive there. Still.

Sadly, LGBT people fall in the former category, with words like "fag" and "gay" being the pejorative of choice in schools across Europe and the US. Many countries still have and are creating more laws that actively discriminate, in Europe and the US, I mean - not just Uganda. In fact, in progressive Britain, we have civil partnerships for "the gays" and marriage for everyone else - someone tell me where separate but equal has ever worked? Even in the UK, gay people are fit to amuse on late night TV, coif hair, dispense drinks on aircraft, and as Sir Clive Woodward tells me, play Rugby - but we aren't fit to marry.

The problem with Sport is that it is a part of a society that pats itself on the back for minor social progress, even though it may not lead to tangible change - it simply isn't that enlightened - it is administered, owned, sponsored and televised all too often by dinosaurs: old, straight, white, conservative 'blazerati' who cling to the status quo as they do to their power, knowing, above all things, that the two are co-dependent.

Athletes stay closeted while active; or like Gareth and myself, come out at the twilight of their career or later, not because we are cowards, but because had I come out at 14 - you would never have heard of me. I would never have become Britain's first NBA player, never made the basket that got me into the US basketball Hall of Fame and 2,500 young people per week would not be playing in the centre I built in Manchester.

There are enough bigots in positions of power in sport to stop players- unless outed - from coming out, because a gay boy in football, rugby, or most male team-sports is far less likely to become the next Gareth Thomas or even Justin Fashanu or even to make it past secondary school or amateur sport.

Gay sports clubs don't exist because we are weak, but because we are smart - sport is laced with entrenched, unconscious bigotry and we make our own teams to allow the positive experience of team sport without the scars.

Let's be honest: The coaches, administrators and owners of sport struggle to handle the idea of women in their board rooms and black people coaching their teams, never mind a gay person on their pitch. It is not the comments of unenlightened peers or ignorant fans I feared most, it was the actions of coaches and owners that I know from experience amount to constructive dismissal.