He was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in
the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to Sport and to the Voluntary Sector. He is the first Briton to play in the United States
Basketball Association. He was also the first NBA player to come out as
a gay after his retirement in 2007. Since then, he has become a gay
rights activists.
[on being awarded the OBE]: Normally the kind of thing you say to this is you're standing on the shoulders of giants. I'm a giant who has literally been propped up by a wonderful family and the people that I work with. So it's like a giant standing on the shoulders of slightly smaller people.