Even for each of the carefully worded definitions of irony, there are several legitimate interpretations, and somewhere out there on the resulting semantic map falls this:

In the same week that Penn State settled a sexual orientation lawsuit brought by a former women's basketball player, the NBA got its first official OK-I'm-gay from former journeyman center John Amaechi, a two-time Academic All-American out of Penn State.

There's a joke in there somewhere. I'll take your suggestions.

But let me get this straight, no pun intended.

Ten years before women's coach Rene Portland was running off Jennifer Harris, who isn't gay but apparently bristled at the coach's urging to be more feminine, John Amaechi was putting together three highly conspicuous All-Big Ten Conference seasons in the same building without setting off anyone's gaydar?

Could happen. Apparently did happen. The ruckus has to do with the prevalent assumptions that continue to impede the truth.

"There's this huge assumption that all women athletes are lesbian, while the exact opposite is true of men -- that, if you're an athlete, you couldn't possibly be gay," Heather Barber was saying on the phone yesterday from the University of New Hampshire. "The assumptions are dramatically different, but the way they play out may not be."

Barber is an associate professor of kinesiology who has made a specialty of exploring the tensions endemic to sexual orientation in the locker room through more than five years of research. What she has found explains a lot about why Amaechi's announcement this week plays like a media bombshell, while the far more significant Harris settlement couldn't sustain itself through two news cycles.

While Penn State says it fined, disciplined, censured and put Portland through the sensitivity ringer (Portland countered famously with a rhetorical nose-thumbing), both the university and the National Center for Lesbian Rights no-commented their way through a settlement announcement rather than bringing a serious social issue into full sunlight.

Shame on both of them.

Though the NBA would surely have done the same -- David Stern's "end of inquiry" comment wasn't exactly colloquy -- its celebrity culture pretty much wouldn't allow it. That's why Charles Barkley almost instantly appeared to weigh in on Amaechi, sounding way more accepting than he has been on many matters. That's why LeBron James' comments were somehow required. It was James who best addressed the issue, at least in terms of why sexual preference is at least a perceived issue in the locker room.

"If you're not trustworthy, like admitting you're gay, you can't be trusted," James said. "It's a trust factor."

That's why just a handful of ex-athletes have come out. It's not safe out there. You'll lose trust, and perhaps a lot more.

"No current players are ever coming out," Barber said. "There isn't a sense of safety about it. Even the number of male athletes three-to-10 years after their careers who come out, they're few and far between. [But] right now, there isn't a lot of literature in the research, and there is less on gay men."

Still, the trust factor as James articulates it is misplaced. If not telling your teammates you're gay is a trust violation, what's failing to mention an injury?

Macho. Of course.

This makes sense doesn't it?

This guy over here blew out his shoulder two weeks ago, told nobody, and now he's playing with pain. What a man. What a warrior. Of course, we haven't won since. But that's not our problem. Our real problem is this guy over here, who's a little unclear about his sexual preferences. No wonder we can't win!

It's a little redundant this week in pimping Amaechi's forthcoming book or his forthcoming interview that should include his reasons for being less than forthcoming about all this. But it will be good for a larger audience to see a professional athlete of Amaechi's unique qualities.

A British intellectual and the son of a physician, Amaechi was among the first NBA players to attach himself to a laptop. He spoke fluent French, wrote poetry, attended academic seminars on the road and worked on his doctorate in the offseason.

When he played for the Orlando Magic, the Los Angeles Lakers made him a free-agent offer that would have tripled his $600,000 salary. He declined it.

"Despite the 3,000 or so hate mails I received from Lakers fans and people asking me if I was on some kind of mind-altering substance when I made the decision," Amaechi told Basketball Digest, "I believe it was a sound one to stay. Maybe it wasn't a decision that a financial advisor would make, but that's not why I play basketball. This team needed me more than the Lakers did. This also was the first team that actually believed in me, and that should count for something. I couldn't reward their loyalty with desertion."

Yeah, how can you trust a guy like that?