Scoring points – and friends with local LGBT sports teams

After a difficult breakup in 2008, Carlos Marzano needed a game changer. He needed to “hit reset and become a new person,” he said, so he relocated to Denver, where he picked up the game of rugby – he’s now married to a man and a coach for the Denver’s gay rugby team Rush.

Marzano is standing in an open field at Denver’s Congress Park. Around him are dozens of LGBT athletes are running, jumping, scoring touchdowns, spiking and having a good time chatting and drinking cold beers on the sidelines.

This is SportsFest. And Marzano is no longer alone.

A collaborative effort between Team Colorado – an umbrella nonprofit for local LGBT sports teams – and the GLBT Community Center of Colorado, SportsFest held its fourth annual summer event in Congress Park June 16, the Saturday of PrideFest. Each year it draws athletes from a variety of sporting backgrounds from across Colorado and neighboring states. Participants gather to play, enjoy a picnic, and most of all, connect with other LGBT players.

Camaraderie is integral to Team Colorado and LGBT sporting.

“The very nature of LGBTQ sports is celebrating solidarity, friendship and fair play,” said Tony Smith, a sitting member of the Team Colorado executive board. “I’m so proud to be associated with the organization. Team Colorado is very inspiring, and very true to Colorado’s values. The people on these teams really support one another.”

Despite the heteronormative stereotype that would conclude two athletic men could never be attracted to one another, many major sports teams have LGBT players among their ranks. Statistically speaking, it’d be impossible for any major sports team to have not had an LGBT athlete during the course of its history.

A slew of accomplished major league athletes, including NBA player John Amaechi, the NFL’s David Kopay, and the MLB’s Glen Burke (who arguably invented and popularized the high five) have all come out as gay. Liberace, a famously–flamboyant gay pianist who died more than 25 years ago, and an unnamed Green Bay Packers player have been subject of recent gossip – the eccentric pianist’s recent HBO biopic, Behind the Candelabra, stated the two had an intimate relationship 70 years ago.

Yet all of the aforementioned major league and popular athletes chose to stay closeted throughout their careers, or in the case of the mystery Packer, his entire life. It has only been this year that the world of major American sports saw its first active athlete, basketball player Jason Collins, step out of the closet. Collins’ coming out was greeted mostly with warm and affirming responses, even garnering a phone call from President Barack Obama. But he was still met with some hostility from other players, sports fans and commentators. Only one other rostered member of a major American sports team has opened up about his sexuality since; Robbie Rogers simultaneously announced he was gay and retiring from soccer in February. Upon returning to Major League Soccer as a member of the Los Angeles Galaxy in May, he became the second openly gay rostered athlete in the United States.

Does the Collins test, in which an athlete took time to examine the field before playing as an out gay person, suggest that the sports world may, indeed, still be a heterosexist and antigay world? And if this is true, what is a gay and ambitious athlete to turn to?

There is an abundance of LGBT sports associations that nurture and acknowledge the talent of out athletes locally, like Team Colorado, and internationally like the OutGames and Gay Games.

Under the Team Colorado umbrella, active gays, lesbians, and transgender people around the state have access to about 15 LGBT specific sports teams and leagues. There’s a swimming and tennis team, soft ball and bowling leagues, a cycling group, flag football, and rugby. All of the Team Colorado groups meet regularly and are open to anyone — regardless of sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or athletic ability and history. (Some LGBT sports leagues that compete competitively do require tryouts.)

“You don’t have to be ‘the jock’ to play with a Team Colorado sport,” said Sonya Lewis, co-president of Team Colorado. “We take in absolutely everybody, you don’t even have to be LGBT. No matter what, you’re welcome — and that’s a bit of what makes Team Colorado so wonderful.”

And that very affirming spirit of the organization, which was established in 1982 as the Colorado Athletic Exchange, is apparent at Team Colorado’s annual gathering: SportsFest.

Held during PrideFest weekend at Congress Park, a large number of players from various different sports teams came out to the park to recruit new participants, as well as engage with other members of the LGBT sporting community. And though many of the Team Colorado members showed off impressive skills through organized tournaments (with perhaps the most popular being flag football), a sense of community, the promise of inclusion and the offer of lifelong friendship was, indeed, their greatest and most powerful pitch.

Aaron Killpack, a member of the Denver LGBT flag football league described the other players as his “cute, little family.” ………………………………………

Sharing a friend got him involved with the team, Killpack said what he valued most about his experience with the group is the bond he was able to forge not just with the gay male athletes around Denver, but with Colorado’s LGBT community as a whole.

“I really love the mix between gays and lesbians,” Killpack said, as he pointed to the game going on in the field. “The mix between everyone, gay and lesbian really makes this feel like I am playing with brothers and sisters. This group is a real, solid family.”

And it really is the social part that transcends the actual sport and the field, the rugby coach Marzano asserted. “We go to housewarming parties, bars, and the movies together. They’re there when I need them, and I’m there when they need me. We’re not just teammates, we’re friends.”

And in Marzano’s case, one of his teammates is also more than just a friend. Legally married in New York, Carlos’ husband, Vito Marzano, also plays on the rugby team. The two said the sport is just one more thing that brought them closer.

Carlos quipped it’s quite the turn–on to watch his boyfriend engaged in such an aggressive sport.

As Smith, Team Colorado’s co-president, reminds us: A sense of connectedness is vital in order to have a winning game plan, on and off the field. But that much desired team spirit still isn’t a given in mainstream major league sports and events.

Many of athletes at SportsFest said that being lifelong athletes, they were not always comfortable with being out to their predominantly heterosexual teams.

“Being a part the [Denver Gay and Lesbian Flag Football] league really allows that part of you, your identity as a gay person, to be out,” said Killpack. “It’s a really great opportunity to play with people who are like-minded and share experiences.”

Organizations like Team Colorado, which is among the oldest and most active of similar local LGBT sports groups in the country, allows out athletes to continue to excel in their own discipline without feeling a need to hide or face hostility.

“That’s what Team Colorado is for,” Smith reaffirmed, “we provide fun, constructive activities and help LGBTQ people network.”

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While creating an open and supportive environment in which openly LGBT athletes can be honest with themselves and their teammates is what Team Colorado has pieced together through fundraising, competing in national tournaments and the in the quadrennial games, and supporting the activities of teams locally, Smith hopes that someday the group is no longer needed.

In envisioning an athletic sphere wherein antigay prejudice does not exist, Smith said, “The purpose of organized gay sports is to no longer have them some day.”

And though that day may be nearing, thanks to out athletes like Jason Collins, Robbie Rogers, and local champions like Killpack and the Marzanos who proudly shatter stereotypes and live authentically and openly, it is still on the horizon. This is why Team Colorado remains not only a necessity, but a valued one

“LGBTQ athletic competition really encourages us to recognized and work toward our individual goals. And when we better ourselves through these goals, we are bettering society as a whole,” said Lewis.

“That’s why Team Colorado has stuck around, and that is why we’ll continue to be here.”