Sports
Vets welcome rookies in flag football league
Long-time members say younger players have upped level
Matt Murtaugh, left, and Jay Maroney of the D.C. Gay Flag Football League. (Photos courtesy D.C. Gay Flag Football League)
In the continuing Blade series on the veterans and rookies of the LGBT sports teams in the metro Washington area, we shine the spotlight this week on the D.C. Gay Flag Football League.
The League is set to launch its 10th season with 270 players on 20 teams. Members also run a recreation league with four teams which is primarily for players who want to develop their skills, play new positions or try out for the competitive league for the first time.
Matt Murtaugh just came out of the closet last May and moved to D.C. two months later in July. He was looking to make new friends and heard about the D.C. Gay Flag Football League.
“I went through the draft last fall for season nine, the new player skill assessments and the scrimmages,” Murtaugh says. “It was a little intimidating at the beginning.”
Murtaugh, who is 23 and works in government contracting, had never played flag football before entering the League. He grew up in North Potomac, Md., playing basketball and also played intramural basketball while earning his degree at the University of South Carolina.
“I was the only rookie on my team and the veterans were very welcoming and walked me through all the rules,” Murtaugh says. “They are the ones who make the team run.”
Murtaugh found the League to be very competitive and is looking forward to season 10.
“I am so happy I joined,” he says. “I met a lot of great people that I would not have met otherwise.”
Jay Maroney is a veteran who has been involved in gay flag football since 1999 when it was just a bunch of friends playing pick-up games on the Mall. He has played in all nine seasons of the D.C. Gay Flag Football League and is also looking forward to season 10.
He comes back every season because it’s organized, competitive and the teams are different every year (the League redrafts the players every season to prevent team dynasties).
“The social structure of the League is very different than what you often find in D.C.,” Maroney says. “There are no cliques and social barriers seem to disappear. We have a nice mix of rookies, veterans, women and straight players.”
Maroney, 44, attended a small college in western Massachusetts and received his master’s from Georgetown and a doctoral law degree from George Washington University Law School. He played club level sports during those years and fell in love with kayaking after taking it as a class in his early college years in Massachusetts.
He moved out west and became a professional kayaker and eventually moved to the hotbed of kayaking in the southeast where he specialized in freestyle kayaking and down river sprints.
Maroney’s flag football experiences continue to play out in a positive way because of the friendly, outgoing players who join the League.
He says the quality of play gets better every season because of the rookies.
“The veteran players didn’t always bring a lot of prior athletic experience to the League because of the homophobia in sports when they were growing up,” Maroney says. “The rookies seem to be coming to us with more of a sports background which serves to raise the quality of play in all of us.”
Iran and Egypt on Friday faced off during the World Cup’s “Pride Match” in Seattle.
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death. Discrimination and persecution based on sexual orientation and gender identity is commonplace in Egypt.
Friday’s match coincided with Pride weekend in Seattle. The Egyptian Football Association and the Football Federation Islamic Republic of Iran both objected to playing in the “Pride Match.”
Egypt and Iran tied 1-1.
FIFA, for its part, allowed Pride flags inside the stadium during the match.
“The FIFA World Cup 2026 is an inclusive event that welcomes people from all backgrounds,” a FIFA spokesperson told the Washington Blade in a statement. “Fans of all sexual orientations and gender identities are welcome at matches and events. General statements of human rights, including rainbow flags and other flags representing sexual orientation and gender identity, are permitted under the FIFA World Cup 2026™ Stadium Code of Conduct and may be displayed inside stadiums provided they are used in a manner consistent with the code.”
Human Rights Watch welcomed FIFA’s decision to allow Pride flags inside the stadium. Outright International, a global LGBTQ and intersex rights group, distributed Pride flags in Seattle on Friday, which was Pride Match Day.
“Visibility matters,” said Outright International Executive Director Maria Sjödin. “Pride is now being celebrated in more than 100 countries, including this weekend in Seattle. For many LGBTIQ people, seeing a Pride flag in public is a reminder that they are not alone, and that their rights and dignity are recognized.”
FIFA President Gianni Infantino earlier this year told Die Weltwoche, a Swiss magazine, that “there will be no ‘Pride Match’ at the (FIFA) World Cup.”
“There will be a FIFA World Cup match in Seattle, and on the same day, events organized by external organizations will be taking place in the city,” said Infantino. “But that has nothing to do with the match itself.”
Peter Tatchell, a long-time LGBTQ activist from the U.K. who is director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation, was among those who traveled to Seattle for Friday’s match. Tatchell accused FIFA of not vetting World Cup teams — specifically Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Senegal, Qatar, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq, Uzbekistan, and Algeria — over whether they would allow gay players.
“FIFA is protecting LGBT+ visibility in the stands while failing to protect LGBT+ players on the pitch,” said Tatchell.
The Baltimore Orioles will take on the Washington Nationals on Friday, June 26 at 7 p.m. for Pride Night at Oriole Park.
The first 15,000 fans will receive an exclusive Pride Night Orioles jersey. The Washington Blade is a media sponsor of this event.
To purchase tickets, visit Orioles.com/Tickets.
Sports
Minor league team in York, Pa., forfeits Pride Night game after some players refuse to wear special jersey
City is roughly 20 miles north of Md. border
An independent minor league baseball team says it is forfeiting a game because some of its players refused to wear a special Pride Night jersey.
The Atlantic League Pro Baseball’s York Revolution were planning to hold their 11th annual Pride Night event Thursday for a game against the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs.
But the Revolution announced the day of the game that it wouldn’t be played. York is about 20 miles north of the Maryland line. The Blue Crabs play in Waldorf.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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