Book Description
Man in the Middle chronicles John Amaechi’s extraordinary journey from awkward,overweight English lad to jet-setting NBA star. Along the way, he endured endless obstacles to his hoop dreams—being abandoned by his father, being cut from his first college team, recovering from a life-threatening injury, playing for abusive coaches, and losing his mother -- while also protecting a vital secret that could have ended his career: John Amaechi was gay. Now in this poignant and intimate memoir, Amaechi takes us into the hypermasculine world of professional sports and into the very center of his soul. As tender as it is brutally frank, Man in the Middle follows him from the rough streets of Manchester to Penn State (where he first achieved basketball stardom and began to recognize his sexuality) to the cities (Orlando, Houston, Salt Lake City) and countries (Greece, France) in which he played. A moving story of adversity and diversity, Man in the Middle is a testament to the power of one man’s convictions and to the universal desire to make the world a better place.
About the author
John Amaechi played in the NBA for six seasons and was honored by the basketball Hall of Fame for scoring the first points of the new millennium. In 2001, he formed the ABC Foundation and built the Amaechi Basketball Centre (he plans to build five more) in his hometown of Manchester, England, dedicated to personal excellence, mentoring, and counseling young people through sport. He is also the founder of Animus Consulting and a regular commentator on British television. Chris Bull, co-founder of QueerCity.com,is the author of several books, including Going the Other Way (with Billy Bean) and Perfect Enemies (with John Gallagher). A former Washington correspondent for The Advocate, he is a recipient of the 2000 Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship and has written for publications including The Washington Post and ESPN The Magazine. He lives in San Francisco.
