Sports
New kickball league thriving in North Carolina
Stonewall Sports expands, finds eager players in unlikely places
Four commissioners of Stonewall Kickball in North Carolina (l-r), Frank Wolfgram, Jason Boone, Will Fisher and Jonathan Melton. (Photo courtesy of Boone)
With an estimated metropolitan area population of six million, D.C. is home to a large and thriving LGBT sports community. There are roughly 35 teams and clubs competing, playing and socializing together, usually outside of the traditional bar scene. It seems that every time a new league is formed, it is immediately filled to capacity. In 2015, Capital Pride Volleyball and Stonewall Billiards completed their first seasons and will have to consider expanding for their second seasons.
The success in D.C. of these leagues can be attributed in part to the sheer number of people here, the transient nature of the area and the progressive thinking of many residents. Many of the LGBT players are having their own sports renaissance, finding their way back to the sports they were bullied out of playing in their youth and trying new sports.
But what about the rural areas around the country where homophobia remains prevalent and where there are still no safe spaces for members of the LGBT community to play sports?
Is it possible for LGBT sports leagues to be formed that offer that safe space when the numbers aren’t there and the local community may not be ready for it?
In the smaller communities, it all begins at the grassroots level.
D.C.-based Stonewall Sports has created a prototype for LGBT sports leagues that has worked well for the five sports that it offers locally. The structure that Stonewall mandates includes organizational guidelines for the proposed sport, financial support to local charities and community outreach.
North Carolina became the target of the first Stonewall expansion effort and leagues are now in place in Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro and Wilmington.
Even with the Stonewall prototype, getting started and maintaining the momentum to keep the leagues running requires establishing a strong connection to the community. Raleigh and Charlotte were the first expansion cities in 2013 and the two smaller cities followed.
Stonewall Kickball-Greensboro started in the fall of 2014 with 70 players on five teams. There were some issues at the beginning with teams being too small and having to forfeit, but they expanded to 107 players in the second season this year.
With the Greensboro population at just over 250,000, to get those extra players, kickball commissioner Will Fisher started networking and going out and just talking to people. They are also competing to recruit players with a straight recreational kickball league in the area.
“There is not really a gay scene here,” says Fisher. “And we don’t have a lot of options recruiting from the colleges as most of them aren’t over 21.”
Greensboro ended up with a diverse group of kickball players — mostly gay, several straight players, some recovering from addictions and a mix of ages.
“This is a lot of people that didn’t hang out together that are playing a sport and getting along fine,” Fisher says.
Sponsorship for the teams in the league has come from varied sources such as an investment firm, a Cross Fit gym, a catering business and a straight bar that caters to gay clientele on Sunday nights. Even a dinnerware replacement company is on board. The players can be found helping out at their sponsor’s events, doing set-up and break-down and the financial benefactor of their efforts is the local LGBT community center, Guilford Green.
The Stonewall prototype is working so well for them, that they are considering taking over volleyball from an old parks and recreation league.
Fisher, who is from Sanford, N.C., didn’t play many sports growing up but was active in eventing, an equestrian sport.
“This is fun and I am really enjoying meeting people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise,” says Fisher. “Actually, I think I might know everyone in Greensboro now.”
The launch of Stonewall Kickball-Wilmington in the spring of 2015 proved to be an even tougher challenge as the population in Wilmington is just over 100,000 people.
“There is no gay community here and most of the LGBT people in town don’t want to go to the only gay bar,” says Frank Wolfgram, Wilmington Kickball commissioner. “It’s a small town and even though no one really knows each other, you still hear about everyone’s business.”
With no Pride events in the area, marketing was a key issue and word began to spread that a kickball league was forming. It was decided that it was necessary to have a few pick-up kickball games to see if everyone meshed. There were enough players to start a league — 60 players on five teams.
“When we were first getting ready to play, I was thinking to myself, ‘please let everyone be nice to each other,'” Wolfgram says. “And they were; it was mind-blowing. Everyone was clapping and being really supportive.”
Wolfgram is from Rochester, N.Y., and has been in Wilmington for five years. He played basketball and baseball growing up and says he has always been a sports fan. With the next season approaching, Wolfgram is already starting to wonder if they will come up with enough players to keep it going.
“I probably shouldn’t worry too much about it,” he says. “People enjoy getting muddy here.”
The lesson from starting these leagues in small cities was that the community plays an extra large part in the success of the venture. The typical game day is filled with kickball, cornhole, kids, dogs and food.
“You have to wonder if the community is ready for 60 gays and their allies to walk into a bar all wearing matching T-shirts,” says Martin Espinoza, co-founder of Stonewall Sports. “One thing to note is that the new leagues in North Carolina all have young leaders who are interested in helping the community.”
Another positive development is that despite the physical distance between the four cities, they are forging a new community together. They are playing games, holding events and offering support to one another. This weekend they will all come together to spend a day at the Wet n’ Wild water park in Greensboro. Ten people from Stonewall-D.C. will be there to join in the fun.
“It has been pretty amazing to watch this tight community form from four cities,” Espinoza says. “They are always trying to one up each other. Greensboro even had the straight female mayor come out for the first pitch.”
CONTENT WARNING: The following story discusses suicide ideation.
Her first few weeks behind bars in a Russian prison took a terrible toll on Brittney Griner, the lesbian WNBA star who is breaking her silence on the 10 months she was held on drug-related charges.
“I wanted to take my life more than once in the first weeks,” Griner told ABC’s Robin Roberts in a primetime interview Wednesday. “I felt like leaving here so badly.”
The two-time Olympic gold medalist and nine-time WNBA All-Star, who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, said she ultimately decided against suicide, partly because she feared Russian authorities would not release her body to her wife, Cherelle Griner.
Griner, 33, was arrested on Feb. 17, 2022, at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow. Authorities said they found vape cartridges in her luggage containing cannabis oil, which is illegal in the country.
Griner told Roberts that was the result of a “mental lapse” on her part — packing the cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage, Griner said that she had overslept on the morning she was leaving for Russia to play during the WNBA’s off-season, which is how many of the league’s vastly underpaid players earn a living, compared to NBA players.
So, she packed while she was “in panic mode,” Griner said.
“My packing at that moment was just throwing all my stuff in there and zipping it up and saying, ‘OK, I’m ready,’” she told Roberts.
After landing in Russia, Griner realized that she had those two cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage as Russian security officers inspected her bag at the airport. She recalled the moment as a sinking feeling.
“I’m just like, ‘Oh, my God.’ Like, ‘How did I — how did I make this mistake?’” Griner said. “I could just visualize everything I worked so hard for just crumbling and going away.”
Russian authorities immediately arrested Griner, but her trial would not take place for five months. She described the horrible conditions of her imprisonment during that delay, saying that she didn’t always have toilet paper and that the toothpaste they gave her had expired about 15 years ago.
“That toothpaste was expired,” she said. “We used to put it on the black mold to kill the mold on the walls.”
“The mattress had a huge blood stain on it, and they give you these thin two sheets,” she added. “So you’re basically laying on bars.”
On July 7, 2022, Griner pleaded guilty at her trial to drug charges, admitting that she had the vape cartridges containing cannabis oil but stating she put them in her luggage unintentionally. She testified that she had packed the cartridges by accident, and had “no intention” to break Russian law.
Roberts pressed Griner on this point: “You know there are those who say, ‘Come on. How did you not know that you had cartridges in your luggage?’”
“It’s just so easy to have a mental lapse,” Griner replied. “Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn’t take away from how that can happen,” she explained.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison on Aug. 4, 2022, and in October 2022, a judge denied the appeal filed by Griner’s attorneys.
The sentence landed Griner in a penal colony in the Russian region of Mordovia.
“It’s a work camp. You go there to work,” said Griner. “There’s no rest.” Her job was cutting fabric for Russian military uniforms.
“What were the conditions like there?” Roberts asked.
“Really cold,” Griner said. So cold that her health was impacted and she decided to chop off her long dreadlocks.
“What was that like losing that part of you, too?” Roberts asked Griner.
“Honestly, it just had to happen. We had spiders above my bed — making nests,” she said. “My dreads started to freeze,” she added. “They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to survive.”
Her arrest came around the same time as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, further increasing tensions between Russia and the U.S. But as the Los Angeles Blade reported on Dec, 8, 2022, Russia agreed to release Griner in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
However, before winning her freedom, Griner revealed authorities forced her to write a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“They made me write this letter. It was in Russian,” she said. “I had to ask for forgiveness and thanks from their so-called great leader. I didn’t want to do it, but at the same time I wanted to come home.”
Griner said her heart sank upon boarding the plane to freedom and finding that Paul Whelan, another American the White House said was “wrongfully detained,” wasn’t leaving Russia with her.
“I walked on and didn’t see him, maybe he’s next. Maybe they will bring him next,” she said. “They closed the door, and I was like, are you serious? You’re not going to let this man come home now.”
Griner recounts on the experience in “Coming Home,” a memoir set to be released on May 7.
988 is the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and is available 24/7 via phone, text or chat to everyone of all ages, orientations and identities. If you are a transgender, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming person considering suicide, Trans Lifeline can be reached at 877-565-8860. LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger) can reach the Trevor Project Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386. You can still also contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 24 hours a day, and it’s available to people of all ages and identities.
Additional resources:
If you are in a life-threatening situation, please dial 911.
If you are in crisis, please dial 988 or contact Rainbow Youth Project directly at +1 (317) 643-4888
Sports
Bisexual former umpire sues Major League Baseball for sexual harassment
Brandon Cooper claims female colleague sexually harassed him
A fired former umpire is suing Major League Baseball, claiming he was sexually harassed by a female umpire and discriminated against because of his gender and his sexual orientation.
Brandon Cooper worked in the minor league Arizona Complex League last year, and according to the lawsuit he filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, he identifies as bisexual.
“I wanted my umpiring and ability to speak for itself and not to be labeled as ‘Brandon Cooper the bisexual umpire,’” he told Outsports. “I didn’t want to be labeled as something. It has been a passion of mine to simply make it to the Major Leagues.”
But that didn’t happen. Instead of being promoted, he was fired. His suit names MLB and an affiliated entity, PDL Blue, Inc., and alleges he had endured a hostile work environment and wrongful termination and/or retaliation because of gender and sexual orientation under New York State and New York City law.
“Historically the MLB has had a homogenous roster of umpires working in both the minor and major leagues,” Cooper claims in his suit. “Specifically, to date there has never been a woman who has worked in a (regular) season game played in the majors, and most umpires are still Caucasian men. To try to fix its gender and racial diversity issue, defendants have implemented an illegal diversity quota requiring that women be promoted regardless of merit.”
Cooper claims former umpire Ed Rapuano, now an umpire evaluator, and Darren Spagnardi, an umpire development supervisor, told him in January 2023 that MLB had a hiring quota, requiring that at least two women be among 10 new hires.
According to the suit, Cooper was assigned to spring training last year and was notified by the senior manager of umpire administration, Dusty Dellinger, that even though he received a high rating in June from former big league umpire Jim Reynolds, now an umpire supervisor, that women and minority candidates had to be hired first.
Cooper claims that upon learning Cooper was bisexual, fellow umpire Gina Quartararo insulted him and fellow umpire Kevin Bruno by using homophobic slurs and crude remarks. At that time, Quartararo and Cooper worked on the same umpiring crew and being evaluated for possible promotion to the big leagues.
This season, Quartararo is working as an umpire in the Florida State League, one of nine women who are working as minor league umpires.
Cooper said he notified Dellinger, but instead of taking action against Quartararo, he said MLB ordered Cooper to undergo sensitivity training. According to his lawsuit, he was also accused of violating the minor league anti-discrimination and harassment policy.
Cooper’s suit says he met with MLB Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Billy Bean — who the Los Angeles Blade reported in December is battling cancer.
The lawsuit says at that meeting, Bean told the umpire that Quartararo claimed she was the victim, as the only female umpire in the ACL. Cooper said he told Bean Quartararo regularly used homophobic slurs and at one point physically shoved him. He also claims that he has video evidence, texts and emails to prove his claim.
But he said his complaints to Major League Baseball officials were ignored. His lawsuit said MLB passed him over for the playoffs and fired him in October. He said of the 26 umpires hired with Cooper, he was the only one let go.
Through a spokesperson, MLB declined to comment on pending litigation. Quartararo has also not publicly commented on the lawsuit.
Sports
Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child
WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022
One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, “I’m never playing overseas again,” Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer.
Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram.
“Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,” the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.
Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.
In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month “Baby Griner” is due. “The only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,” she said last year.
Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, it’s not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives.
The Griners purchased their “forever home” in Phoenix just last year.
“Phoenix is home,” Griner said at the Mercury’s end-of-season media day, according to ESPN. “Me and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.”
As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts — like Griner, a married lesbian — on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects.
Next month, Griner’s tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. It’s titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.
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