Former Miami Heat player Tim Hardaway, who responded to John Amaechi's coming out in 2007 by declaring "I hate gay people," appeared on a radio show yesterday and commented on the Joakim Noah gay slur fine.
Said Hardaway:
"He took the onus and went ahead and corrected the whole situation, like I did. That's all you can do is correct the situation. You're not trying to hurt anybody. You're not trying to offend anyone. You just have to take the right approach and hold your own self accountable for it and make everything right. That's all you can do….I'm still trying to rectify it. People ask me about it, and I tell them, 'That's in the past. I'm moving forward.'…I still learn from it and it's still a bump in the road for me. But you have to still move forward, still have to keep going, and that's the way it is. I'm not trying to shy away from it. I'm not trying to say I didn't do it. I'm rectifying it. I understand what I said and how I said it, which was wrong. And I'm just trying to move on from it."
Hardaway still works for the Heat as a player program liaison. Shortly after his words against gay people he did some work with the YES Institute, an advocacy center for LGBT youth.
