Sports
Grown-up scavenger hunt
Local orienteering club welcomes all


Sara Lemanski caught the orienteering bug after watching her wife compete. (Photo public domain)
Earlier this year, the Washington Blade spotlighted noncompetitive sports clubs in the area. One of the sports profiled, orienteering, also has a competitive side.
Orienteering is an outdoor sport suitable for all ages and fitness levels and Quantico Orienteering Club is the largest and most active orienteering club in the nation. Orienteering is similar to a scavenger hunt in which you use a compass and a detailed map to find checkpoints (controls) that have been placed at locations marked on the map.
The club is primarily straight but is becoming wildly popular with the LGBT community. Last weekend, the orienteers hosted the Patapsco Granite meet at Patapsco State Park which offered advanced courses and a special granite sprint course. Upcoming events are online at qocweb.org.
Immediately following the event, LGBT participants posted their appreciation on social media: āAwesome time orienteering this morning at Patapsco State Park!ā (Steve Marker); āOrienteering!?? Love it!ā (Matt Mitchell); and āGreat job guys!!! We escaped mostly unharmed.ā (Jared Silk).
Orienteering offers participants the option to just walk along at a leisurely pace or race against other competitors. Quantico uses an electronic timing system called an epunch that records your start, control check-ins and finish. After the results are posted, you can log-in and check your times compared to others who competed that day.
The group has established sites throughout the Maryland and Virginia region and operates primarily from September to June with events on three weekends per month. The cost is inexpensive and there is no pre-registration. Along with standard orienteering, Quantico offers night orienteering, ski orienteering and mountain bike orienteering.
The group suggests that participants leave their phones in their cars and club member Sara Lemanski can attest to that being a good idea.
āWhen I first started I walked a lot because trying to read the maps was giving me fits,ā Lemanski says. āNow that it is easier for me, I am moving faster and one flying jump over a stream ended with me in the water and a dead phone.ā
Lemanskiās partner Amber is a world-class orienteering athlete and they traveled together to the North American Orienteering Championships in 2012 where Lemanski watched as a spectator.
Once she tried it herself in 2013, Lemanski was hooked and enjoys the way the sport challenges her both physically and mentally. In an effort to reach out to more people, Lemanski suggested that the orienteers join the LGBT-based Team D.C. list of sports.
āThe members of Quantico Orienteering are very welcoming and donāt care if you are LGBT,ā Lemanski says. āWhen Amber and I got married in March of 2015, they were so happy for us.ā
Her wife may be the world-class athlete in the family, but Lemanski has an impressive sports background herself.
Originally from Michigan, Lemanski grew up on military bases including Fort Sumter and played any sport she could get her hands on including softball, basketball and soccer. While she was attending University of Texas at San Antonio she played club lacrosse and soccer.
She moved to D.C. in 2008 and is now working as a program analyst for the Asia Bureau of USAID. She has played softball with Chesapeake and Potomac Softball, soccer with the Federal Triangles and went to nationals with the D.C. Diplomats Team Handball Club.
Lemanski says her main sport is ice hockey and she plays in a Laurel adult rec league which she refers to as the ābeer league.ā She will attend an adult hockey camp near Niagara Falls for a weekend of camping with friends and playing hockey.
As for orienteering, Lemanski is continuing to hone her skills with Quantico Orienteering and has traveled with her wife to compete in places such as West Point, N.Y.; Kentucky, Georgia and the Czech Republic.
āWhen I am orienteering during the day, I try to run through the entire course,ā Lemanski says. āAt night though, I walk because it is so peaceful and there are stars and different noises. It can be a Zen experience.ā
Sports
Celebrating sports history: DC Gay Flag Footballās 25th season
Head of Districtās premier league says itās āgroovinā to its silver anniversary

What started when gay football fans got together in the 1990s to play their favorite sport is now a D.C. institution with 270 players in 20 teams spread over three fields, playing in both fall and spring.
āGet off the bench,ā shouts the slogan on the leagueās website. āGet in the game!ā
The D.C. Gay Flag Football League turns 25 years old this month and is considered not only the premier league of its kind in the District, but is recognized across the country for its players, organization, and spirit.
āThe way we run our league and the way we compete make us stand out relative to the rest,ā DCGFFL Commissioner Logan Dawson told the Washington Blade.
For those who donāt know flag football from any other kind, the difference is easy to spot: Thereās no contact allowed. As the rules say, āThat includes tackling, diving, blocking, and screening. Instead, players wear flags that hang along their sides by a belt. To ātackleā the person in possession of the ball, the opposing team needs to pull one or both of their flags off.ā There are a lot more rules, but thatās the one that really sets it apart from tackle football.
The sport itself dates back to World War II and its origins have been traced to Fort Meade, Md.
Whatās the secret to the leagueās longevity? āI think we attract and hold on to great athletes who are highly competitive, not only on the field, but also, in our professional and personal lives,ā he said. Dawson, 32, plays flag football as well as manages the league. Heās currently single, but says his first love is the weather.
āI knew in second grade that I wanted to be a meteorologist,ā said Dawson, who moved to the District to be a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
A prolific swimmer since high school, he came out as he started grad school at Purdue University in Indiana in 2012. In an op-ed appearing in Outsports in 2014, Dawson wrote about competing in his first Gay Games in Cleveland along with a group of other gay swimmers from Colorado, and left that experience determined to join a gay sports league.Ā
He found it in the fall of 2018 in the DCGFFL, the same year the leagueās Generals team won Gay Games XVIII. The league supports up to five travel teams, which take part in annual tournaments nationwide. It also hosts a summer tournament each year in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
āThere’s a good amount of participation by people who played in the league from the very early days,ā Dawson said. āI think we’re just in the sweet spot, where we have a lot of the original participants, a lot of new players, and weāre just kind of grooving right now.ā
The first group gathered at Francis Field near Dupont Circle in 1994. Three years later, another group formed to play just steps from the Washington Monument Mall. They came together in 1998 to form what is now the DCGFFL.
āFor the majority of those seasons, we mainly had one division that played that was co-ed,ā said Dawson. āThis is our second season that weāve had a Womens+ Division made up of [cisgender] women, trans and nonbinary individuals.ā The Womens+ teams are called the Senators.
Jayme Fuglesten is director of the Womens+ Division and has played in the league in most seasons since 2011.
āThe DCGFFL has been a major part of my adult life,ā she says. āI came out while playing in the league in no small part because of the love and support of this community.ā
Why does she think the league has been such a success to have lasted 25 years?
āI think the league has been so successful because of its focus on inclusion and community,ā she says. āI remember being so surprised in my early years when JJ and so many others would just come right up to me, hug me, and welcome me. And that really hasn’t changed in the 20+ seasons I’ve been around. It also continues to grow and respond to the needs and desires of our players. One example of that is the new Womens+ division, which gives an additional space for people who identify as womens+ to play and cultivate stronger relationships.ā

Next month, the DCGFF will send both Generals and Senators to Gay Bowl XXIII in Seattle. āThatās going to be the first time weāre going to have two Womens+ teams at the Gay Bowl,ā Dawson told the Blade. āItās reflective of the new generation of the league.ā
Earlier generations had trouble attracting new players. As the Blade reported in 2019, what had been a steady number of 20 to 22 teams dropped dramatically to 14, its lowest roster since 2011. The leagueās leadership turned it around with new recruiting events, new sponsors, changes in their social event locations, changes to their player draft and a change of venue for league play beyond Carter Barron fields in Rock Creek Park in Northwest Washington.
Brentwood Hamilton Park in Northeast Washington is now home to the recreation division and Randall Field south of the Capitol is the leagueās third venue.
Just like every facet of society, from coast to coast, what happened next hit the league hard. āCOVID happened in spring of 2020,ā recalled Dawson. āEverything shut down, and we did not play for what amounted to three full seasons for a year and a half.ā
But once the world emerged from quarantine and lockdowns, flag football players started flocking to the DCGFFL. āWeāve had probably over 150 new players join our league in the last two years,ā he said.
One thing is certain, said Dawson: Despite the name, not everyone who plays in the gay flag football league is LGBTQ+.
āIt’s a really great community. Thereās a straight couple thatās married and will be soon having a child in the next month or so,ā Dawson said. āThey met playing in the league, just like weāve had gay couples who meet in the league and eventually get married and have children.ā
Prominent among the leagueās many sponsors is the NFL hometown team, the Washington Commanders. āThey are highly supportive of us, not just financially, but also publicly supporting what we are, and our mission,ā Dawson said.
This current NFL season is the first since 2021 without an out gay player on the gridiron. Thatās when Carl Nassib became the first active pro football player to come out as gay.Ā

While Dawson said, āIām sure there are more out thereā who have not yet come out, Nassibās retirement makes this anniversary of the DCGFFL even more significant.
āItās unfortunate people still feel they cannot be out while theyāre playing and doing what they love, but thatās the reason why something like the D.C. Gay Flag Football League is so important,ā he said. āTo show that there are gay and trans athletes who exist and love playing sports.ā
The league plans to celebrate its 25th anniversary with a dance party and silent auction at Penn Social on Saturday, Sept. 23 starting at 8 p.m. Check the website for ticket information.

Carl Nassib, who made history in 2021 when he became the first active player in the National Football League to come out as gay, announced Wednesday he is retiring at age 30.
āThis is a bittersweet moment for me,ā the free agent wrote in a post on Instagram. āBut after seven seasons and just over 100 NFL games I am officially retiring from football to focus on my company Rayze.ā
RayzeĀ is a mobile platform that connects people willing to give of themselves with those who need it most, born of an experience in Tampa, Fla., where Bucs players volunteered as mentors to kids being held in a nearby juvenile detention center. Rayzeās website says the company serves to āshine a light on opportunities that need volunteers, while making nonprofit engagement, volunteer recruitment and donating as simple and intuitive as possible.āĀ
āIt really feels like just yesterday starting out as a walk-in at Penn State,ā Nassib wrote in his post. āFootball has given me more than I ever could have imagined. I can truly hang up my helmet for the last time knowing I gave it everything I had.ā
Ever since he came out in 2021, the former defensive end for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has become a philanthropist for the LGBTQ community, especially for queer youth, personally donating $100,000 to the Trevor Project. That year, the NFL matched his donation, and in 2022, Nassib himself matched donations dollar for dollar, up to $100,000.
According to the Bucs, Nassib played in 99 regular-season NFL games with 38 starts, recorded 187 tackles, 25.5 sacks, 45 tackles for loss, 59 quarterback hits, four forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries, one interception and 19 passes defended. In 2016, he the Cleveland Browns drafted him with the second pick in the third round. At Penn State, Nassib was a star player, leading the nation in sacks and forced fumbles during his senior year with the Nittany Lions in 2015.
āIt was not an easy decision. It really, really wasnāt,ā Nassib told People magazine in an exclusive interview timed to coincide with his Instagram.
āThis would have been my 23rd football season. Iāve been playing football since I was eight years old, and Iām really excited to move on to the next chapter of my life,ā he said.
Nassib says he began considering retirement last season before becoming a free agent, when he said he was āstaying at the Bucs facility until 9 p.m. every night working on Rayze.ā
āI feel like itās my calling and itās what Iām meant to do,ā Nassib says of the app. āIām really excited to move on to the next chapter of my life and to give Rayze everything that I have.ā
In July, he posted that he had accepted an appointment to the board of directors of the local United Way chapter in his hometown of West Chester, Pa.
Nassib said he is also going to work with the NFL in a new role, in matters related to the leagueās philanthropic endeavors and its ādiversity, equity and inclusion.ā
āI think that I can provide a very rare and specific view of how life is for an out gay player, and I think that there are some amazing opportunities that I can also learn,ā he toldĀ People.
āMaintaining that relationship shows that the NFL is continuing to support me. Theyāve supported me so much over the last two years, and I really couldnāt have done it without that support,ā he said.
Nassib said the NFLās offer to utilize him in this new role ācontinues to show people that you can be yourself and compete at the highest level.ā
But what heās most excited to do with his time now, he told People, is to spend the holiday season with his family and his boyfriend, retired Olympian SĆøren Dahl.
āIāve spent 11 out of 12 Christmases away from my family, many of them alone in my apartment,ā said Nassib. āI havenāt spent Thanksgiving with my family since 2010, so I am really, really looking forward to spending time with my family, my friends, and those special moments. And thatās something that Iāve been looking forward to for years.ā
Thatās one of the many reasons why he wrote on Instagram: āI really feel like the luckiest guy on the planet.ā

Team DC and Federal Triangles Soccer Club will host āUnited Night Outā on Saturday, Aug. 26 at 7:30 p.m.
This event will celebrate the LGBTQ community and cheer on the Black-and-Red as they take on the Philadelphia Union.
Team DC is the association of LGBTQ sports clubs in the greater Washington region with 42 member clubs (including FTSC) with more than 7,000 participants. Team DC sponsors the Pride Night OUT Series, which helps organize Pride nights with all local pro teams. In 2023, Team DC will sponsor 14 different Pride nights, including the United Night OUT.
Tickets are $30 and can be purchased on Team DCās website.
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