I remember the first time I really talked with Peg Grey, a fiery pioneer and activist of the LGBT sports movement. It was at the 2004 annual meeting of the Federation of Gay Games in Cologne during a communications committee meeting.
"I've got a group of 10 women back in Chicago just looking for a sport they can participate in," Grey said after our preliminary introductions. "Any sport, just so they can be part of the Gay Games. How about wrestling?"
For a moment, I thought she might shoot a takedown on me right then and there. She had that kind of energy and enthusiasm.
Sadly, Peg passed away last weekend at the age of 61, depriving the LGBT sports world of one of its truly remarkable contributors. Grey died at about 9:30 a.m. Central Standard Time at Hinsdale (Illinois) Hospital after a lengthy and painful struggle against multiple myeloma cancer. She is survived by Pam Hulvey, her companion of 17 years, and Grac Luedke, her partner of 40 years.
Grey's body is to be cremated. A visitation and memorial drop-in service is planned for Gibbon's/Elliston Funeral Home in Hinsdale this Saturday (March 3) from 2 to 7 p.m. local time.
Grey's athletic voyage started more than a quarter of a century ago when she joined a primarily men's gay softball league in Chicago, and reached its pinnacle when she helped organize her hometown Team Chicago into the largest contingent in Gay Games VII. In between, she helped set the tone for sports as a major means of personal empowerment for the LGBT community.
Grey heard about the Gay Games shortly after some of her gay male friends returned to Chicago from Gay Games I in San Francisco. She quickly helped form the precursor to the Chicago Metropolitan Sports Association to help organize efforts to get Chicago men and women to the 1986 Gay Games II in San Francisco. When the Gay Games went international with Gay Games III in Vancouver in 1990, Grey was chosen to be its first female co-president.
Paul Oostenbrug, a board member of Team Chicago and a member of the FGG's executive committee, had numerous opportunities to see Grey at work through her efforts to reach out to the local and global sports communities.
"Peg Grey was a leader in Chicago's LGBT sport community from its very start," Oostenbrug said. "She helped start the organization that today runs the city's largest LGBT sport leagues as well as Frontrunners/Frontwalkers Chicago. She founded Team Chicago to allow Chicagoans to participate as a group in Gay Games II and served the Gay Games movement as the first female co-president of the Federation of Gay Games.
"She did not sit back on her laurels, though. Peg served as one of Team Chicago's delegates to the federation from 2000 until 2006; helped create a sister-city program between Team Chicago and a lesbian soccer team in Windhoek, Namibia; and inspired the federation to more than double the amount of funding it provided for scholarships at Gay Games VII. I doubt that her incredibly helpful contributions can ever be equaled."
"I met Peg Grey at my first FGG meeting in the early '90s," San Francisco's Gene Dermody said. "She was combative and I was a bit scared of her at first. But the strong commitment she had to the movement was so evident, that I grew to like and respect her for her vision, even though we argued a lot about such issues as sports sanctioning, gender divisions and drug testing."
Largely through Grey's advocacy, the Gay Games increased age divisions in multiple sports in Sydney for 2002, and again last year, when the games returned to the United States in Chicago.
"She saw the problems of gender discrimination and ageism were increasing within our own LGBT sports because of our mainstream successes," Dermody said. "She reminded us that we were forgetting our roots. As a former FGG sports officer, I can say that it will be her lasting legacy to the Gay Games movement that appropriate age and gender divisions were properly restored to the Gay Games mission. It was an honor to know such a pioneer."
"She was a wonderful leader and worked very heavily to get together the original Chicago athletes for the Gay Games in the 1980s," said San Francisco's Sara Waddell Lewenstein, one of the organizers of the first Gay Games. "She was a wonderful leader for women's athletics and worked to combine them in a community with men. And she became a big advocate for getting different age divisions for the elderly. She was very adamant and fought for that. But the biggest thing she fought for was for Chicago to get the Gay Games."
"Peg saw sports as another way to get gays and lesbians to meet one another and to share their love for athletics and to show the world," Hulvey said. "Her heart was always into sports, and through sports, political consciousness was raised. Peg tirelessly worked on recruiting players, forming teams, leagues and organizations for all types of sports, Her motivation for all of her efforts was her desire to serve."
Kevin Boyer, co-vice chair of last year�s Gay Games host organization, said Grey "helped inspire a generation of gay and lesbian people to participate in sports as a way to improve health, create self-esteem and facilitate healthy social interaction. She embraced the mission of the Gay Games as a means to achieve these goals and played a crucial role in the success of the global movement."
Her lifelong work culminated this past summer when the Gay Games came to her beloved Chicago, said Boyer.
"She helped organize the 2006 Team Chicago, the largest city team ever to participate in a Gay Games, and worked hard to ensure that older athletes had ample opportunities to compete. She was part of the soul of the 2006 Gay Games and her death has greatly saddened all of us, but she has left our lives much richer and we are grateful to have known her," he said.
Counter-productive embargoes
Look: I like John Amaechi. I was delighted to meet with him for a few minutes last week when he was in San Francisco for a book signing for his coming-out-of-the-closet-tale Man in the Middle .
He's an intelligent, articulate and well-motivated individual who has the potential to do much to help break down homophobic stereotypes in the sports world.
In our short time together, we were able to exchange a good number of views on how he feels about those who have called his coming out after retirement from competition a courageous act ["Courage isn't the right word. But change requires more than just courage," he said]; why he waited until he retired before he came out ["It took me six years to get to the NBA. So it was a big deal for me to jeopardize that chance," said the former Utah Jazz player]; and the relatively small importance he places on elite athletes coming out ["Gay athletes coming out is not going to change homophobia in America. What we need to do is to educate people so they can be outraged at the inequities," said Amaechi].
But some advice, John, as you continue your advocacy: stop making deals with the devil.
As part of Amaechi's appearance at Border's in Union Square last week, interview opportunities for the local press were set up. Local media had the opportunity to photograph and air their interviews ASAP.
But not the Bay Area Reporter. Minutes before the interview, we were told by his publicist that as a gay publication, we were supposed to sit on our story for a week so that the Advocate could brag that it had the first LGBT media interview with Amaechi.
No big deal, right? Wrong. One of the insidious developments the past decade or more in the media world, gay and mainstream, has been the gobbling up of media outlets by centralized ownerships. This has reduced the competitive freedom of the press and led to more and more homogenized versions of events being published.
Making a deal to exclude an LGBT publication from the opportunity to report the news on equal terms and equal timing with its geographic mainstream competitors needlessly ghettoizes the LGBT community. It is on an ethical par with paying a news source.
That's not the news business. That's packaged entertainment. The Advocate should be ashamed of itself. Journalistic reward should come from serving the community's interests, not your own.
It's just like sports: you shouldn't be afraid to compete on a level playing field.
Brigham is a former FGG director of communications and board member. He can be reached at [email protected].
Frontrunners participate in Kaiser runs
Forty-three members of Frontrunners participated in the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon and 5-K held Sunday, Feb. 4. Thirty-six completed the half marathon and seven completed the 5-K. The club also staffed a water station at Mile 8 with 18 volunteers. Mike Prutz was the top Frontrunner in the half marathon with a time of 1 hour, 21 minutes and 34.I seconds.
Early registration open for Bay to Breakers
Discounted early registration for the Bay to Breakers race will continue through March 22. Adult registration fees will then increase from $39 to $44. After May 17 late registration will be $49. Information regarding the 12-kilometer race is available at www.ingbaytobreakers.com.
'Scouting for All' advocate completes Tour of California
Steven Cozza of Petaluma, who as a teenager was one of the champions of the "Scouting for All" movement that challenged the Boy Scouts of America's policies of discrimination against gay scouts, completed the Tour of California cycling race last weekend, finishing 64th overall as a member of Team Slipstream. Overall, Slipstream, a relatively young new team composed entirely of American racers, finished 12th out of 17 teams.