John Amaechi was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of a Nigerian father, he was raised in Stockport, England by his English mother. John attended Stockport Grammar School as a boy, where he soon showed himself to be an up and coming rugby player.

However, by the age of 16 his main interest had changed to basketball and, under coach Joe Forber, he developed his skills and realised an ambition was to play professional basketball. To this end, he moved to the States, to live in Toledo, Ohio, and within two years he had been recruited by an American High School and subsequently by Penn State College to play in the top USA Basketball Conference.

Next, he was recruited by Cleveland Cavaliers in the National Basketball Association, where he became the first English player ever to start a game in the NBA. His game has taken him to Italy, Spain, France and Greece to play in top leagues in all these countries. He also played for the Utah Jazz team, spent two years with Orlando Magic, with the Houston Rockets and at the New York Knicks.

On a completely different front, Amaechi has been actively involved in the Prevent Child Abuse campaign in America since 1997, as well work for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in the UK.

Recently, he has returned back to England - first, to play for the Manchester Magic Basketball Team and secondly, to oversee the construction of the Amaechi Basketball Centre (ABC) in Manchester, a $4 million facility of which he is the sole benefactor.

Since the late 1990s, Amaechi has run the most successful Basketball Camps in both the United States and England.

In February 2007, it was announced that Amaechi would come out of the closet as a gay man on the February 11 edition of ESPN's Outside the Lines program. He is also scheduled to release a forthcoming book, Man in the Middle, which discusses his career and life as a closeted professional athlete.

Amaechi would be the first NBA player to publicly declare his homosexuality and join a very short list of males in professional team sports who have come out. The book is entitled "Man in the Middle" and is published by ESPN Books.

Currently a TV personality in England, Amaechi helps fund the Amaechi Basketball Centre in Manchester, which encourages children to become involved in sports and their communities.