GAY

Games

still improving. I'm still young. I'm going for the championship."

NOTHER reason that

gay men and sports are becom-

ing more compatible is that gay men are changing too. For quite a long time we've been all too happy living in exile from sports, especially the healthy percentage of us who had those proverbial childhoods where we were always the last one picked for the team.

I remember being forced by my father to

AT THE TOP: Carl Lewis (top right) after a gold medal win in 1992.

quit figure skating in fourth grade because it was a sissy sport. From there on out, I had to try to enjoy soccer. I also remember those visits to my grandparents when I'd stay inside playing with my female cousins while the boys would all go out for a game of football. I never felt comfortable interacting with most boys, and playing sports with them meant too much interaction.

Brian Pronger wrote about this feeling in his 1990 book, The Arena of Masculinity: Sports, Homosexuality, and the Meaning of Sex: "For boys, sport is an initiation into manhood.... But not all boys are comfortable with this rookie masculinity. For some, becoming adult men is more a matter of learning how they are estranged from masculine culture than it is one of becoming snug in its orthodoxy. For these boys, the sporting rights of masculine passage make them poignantly aware of their unease."

With sports as such a symbol of heterosexuality, many gay men, by coming out, find themselves free from both. And free for other, more wonderful things.

"We associated sports with a certain world we didn't want to be a part of," says the fabulously funny yet woefully unathletic Charles Busch, the playwright and drag star. “I found watching the 4:30 movie with Norma Shearer as Marie Antoinette much more interesting. There is a stereotype of gay people sitting around watching old movies and pretending to be Bette Davis. I certainly enjoy that myself. I made a career out of it."

What's going on now is that gay men have realized that they can have both Norma Shearer and sports. Over the past two decades, gay community sports leagues have sprouted and grown across the country. Gay men are swimming, wrestling, and running together. They are playing softball, volleyball, and even hockey. Isn't it ironic that as gay men have shed one of their stereotypes and become more athletic, straight men have done little to lose one of theirs, that of the former varsity player who now gets his exercise hoisting a brew in front of the television?

I play volleyball every Wednesday night with Gotham Volleyball, a gay and lesbian league in Manhattan. Founded in 1975, it now includes over 400 players. Some love the

feeling of conquering those feelings of inadequacy they had way back in gym class.

"The first season I played I got MVP of the team, and I was so happy," says Tom Hogan, a yoga instructor who competed in high school on a math team called Matheletes. "I finally understood what my two older brothers liked so much about football. I think it did validate all of the things that I didn't accomplish in high school and in gym class."

Some compete part-

ly because it's a social alternative to the bar scene. "Once I came out

I sought gay social activities," says John Hatton, a computer programmer. "I thought team sports would be a good way to meet people and exercise and have fun at the same time."

More of them than I expected had always loved and played sports. "I come from a sports family," says player Keith Pollick. "Track and soccer were my high school sports, but I also did volleyball and gymnastics. I was president of my varsity club. I've always loved sports. The first thing I read in the papers is the sports pages. I don't have ESPN because I'd be up till all hours of the morning watching international ping-pong competitions."

Oh, and there's one other great thing. "It's OK to look. When you are just with straight people, you can't look at or make a comment about some guy's great legs," adds Jean Lambert, an art student and former hockey player.

It all sounds too terribly butch, doesn't it? "As all of these things begin to develop, we surprise ourselves," says Bruce Vilanch, a comedy writer whose credits include writing Oscar shows for Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg, and material for Bette Midler's Experience the Divine tour. "We keep telling the heterosexual world that we're like them and then we discover we really are. We're not all decorators and opera queens, even though we probably would like it better that way because it's fun."

That's the only thing that troubles me about our rush to embrace sports. I wonder sometimes whether we're doing it partly to be accepted. When I tell straight friends about playing volleyball, I like the effect those statements have on them, that they may just be thinking, "Oh, he doesn't fit the stereotype." Is there a reason why we don't mind calling each other fags, but sissy still has too much of an edge to it?

When I begin to worry about that, I remind myself that the guys in the volleyball league whom I admire the most are the ones who are both the best athletes and also some of the biggest screamers. Perhaps that's the ideal gay jock. Someone who can combine some of the best things about being gay with the best things about sports. Someone who can hit a killer spike and, when the play is over, isn't afraid to swish a little and give his setter a big kiss.♥

OFFICIAL SOUVENIR PROGRAM

GAY GAMES IV

SCORE

GAY MARATHON

A SAN FRANC1900 19823

Card #2

Athletes competing in San Francisco in 1982: 1,700-1,800

Athletes competing in San Francisco in 1986: 3,500

Athletes competing in Vancouver in 1990: 7,000

Athletes anticipated for New York in 1994: 15,000

SARAH FEINSMITH

Mayor's estimate of tourist revenue brought to New York by Gay Games IV: $111 million

Mayor's estimate of tourist revenue brought to New York by the 1992 U.S. Open tennis championship: $112.8 million

Mayor's estimate of tourist revenue brought to New York by the Southern Baptist Convention: $25 million

First ever gay water polo team: 1990

TEAM NEW YORK

Largest city team:

Team New York, 500

Winners' medals manufactured: 6,557

Souvenir coins: 2,000

Matchboxes: 3,600 Keychains: 10,000 T-shirts: 100,000 Sweatshirts: 1,000 Sweatsuits: 1,000

Hats: 10,000

Stadium cushions: 1,500

Mugs: 10,000 Lapel pins: 50,000 Souvenir programs: 50,000