Thanks to Tima Hay and the Penn Stater for letting us reprint this – Ed.:
Enough with the soccer and cricket already: John Amaechi wants people in the pubs of England to cheer basketball as well. Three years ago, Amaechi ’94 Lib—whose NBA career included stints in Cleveland, Orlando, and Utah—gave $4 million to establish the first Amaechi Basketball Centre in his native Manchester, where he hopes to build the next generation of basketball in the U.K. His work with children is the focus of a new documentary series on British television, one of the many projects “Meech” has taken on since he hung up his NBA high-tops in 2004. He has been named the captain of England’s national basketball team, was an ambassador for the effort to land London the 2012 Olympics, and is working on both his autobiography and his Ph.D. in clinical child psychology.
How is the British game of basketball different from the American game?
The British game, up until now, has very much been based on street ball. I think that in England the emphasis on skills went away for a few years, and now we’re bringing it back.
You’ve just been named captain of the English team for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Yes, sadly.
Why sadly?
One, I would hope that at my age [35] there would be somebody better to take the job. And there isn’t. And the other part is that I retired for a good reason: My body is tired and my brain is tired of basketball.
I think many children see you as a role model. What do you think about the Charles Barkley philosophy that athletes don’t have to be role models?
I love Charles Barkley. I think he’s a really great man, and I’ve never had a bad interaction with him. But I think it’s complete bupkis. It’s nonsense to think that being a role model is something that the person who is seen as a role model can control. The people elevate you to that level, so it’s almost involuntary. But one day you realize you’ve been elevated. Sometimes it’s by five students in your class. Sometimes it’s by your children. And sometimes it’s by 50 million people, because you’re really good at putting a ball in a hole. But it doesn’t matter—once they elevate you, it’s your job to behave in a way that will never leave you responsible for bad things that happen to them.