All it takes is one.

Sixty years ago this April, Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, ushering in a new era of professional sports. But now, all these years later, stereotypes still exist that divide the sports world.

Gay athletes are still waiting patiently for their own Moses to lead them out of the metaphorical desert and into the Promised Land. And with an atmosphere of hate being cultivated in locker rooms around the country, the time is now for that hero to come around.

John Amaechi’s recent decision to come out is a noble one and an admirable one, but still not the final answer. He joins a growing, but still short list of male professional athletes who have come out after their careers have ended, including former NFL player Esera Tuaolo and former MLB outfielder Billy Bean.

It is much easier for someone like Amaechi to make this revelation now. He is away from the spotlight and away from the locker room, and by writing a book he suddenly become relevant again as an athlete, albeit an openly gay one.

No one is accusing Amaechi of using this for fame, of course; anyone who reads what has he written knows that coming out while being in the NBA would have been potential career suicide. He would have become a hardwood pariah, a locker room outcast who would have to deal with comments, bigotry and hatred on a daily basis.

‘The guys I played with just didn’t like ‘fags’ ‘ or so they insisted over and over again,’ Amaechi writes in his new book ‘Man in the Middle.’ ‘Most were convinced, even as they sat next to me on the plane or threw me the ball in the post, that they had never met one.’

He later goes on to add that homophobia was something as ingrained in ball players’ heads as putting on a game face, or driving an Escalade.

How can a culture like this exist in the 21st century, in America, supposedly the land of the free and the home of the brave?

How can something as central to our culture as professional sports still be so unacceptable to such a large portion of the population?

Whether athletes want to admit it or not, they have and do play against and alongside homosexuals. And while many have greeted Amaechi’s decision to come out with acceptance and support, the fact that openly homophobic comments are still being made shows just how far professional sports are from accepting an openly gay athlete.

‘You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known,’ former NBA star Tim Hardaway said in response to Amaechi’s disclosure. ‘I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world or in the United States.’

Hardaway’s comments reveal a seedy underbelly of professional sports, worse than any steroid scandal or criminal charges. Hardaway then offered a half-hearted apology that rivaled Joey Porter’s after he called Kellen Winslow Jr. a ‘fag.’

‘I didn’t mean to offend no one but Kellen Winslow,’ Porter said after his comments became public. Hardly the Gettysburg Address.

A player who came out would have to deal with the Hardaways and the Porters, the comments and the jokes. But use history as a guide.

Sixty years ago Jackie Robinson heard it all. He heard the ‘N’ word, his life was threatened. But he had the courage to step up, and now today we can’t even imagine a world without African-American athletes.

In high schools across the country, gay athletes, ones who could potentially be the next Michael Jordan or Emmitt Smith, are choosing to avoid sports, rather than risk ridicule. They need someone to look up to, someone to relate to.

Someone must step up before another generation of professional athletes is lost to racism and homophobia.

Who knows, maybe they’ll even get a parkway named after them.