Sports
Milestones and medals
Gay sports leagues in full throes of competition

Members of the District of Columbia Aquatics Club in action. (Washington Blade photo by Kevin Majoros)
The LGBT sports community of D.C. continues to shine after their medal haul in August at the 2014 Cleveland/Akron Gay Games. Leagues and tournaments are being contested during the fall season by the competitive teams that have traveled as far away as Sydney, Australia.
Team D.C., Federal Triangles Soccer Club and D.C. United are hosting the annual United Night OUT on Sept. 27 at 3 p.m. as Eastern Conference leaders. D.C. United take on the Philadelphia Union at RFK Stadium.
Special guests will be the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington whose members will sing the National Anthem and the D.C. Different Drummers Pep Band in the Screaming Eagles Cheering Section.
The Triangles will host their traditional tailgate party starting at noon in Parking Lot 8 and will provide the grill and meats. Team D.C. will provide the beer and all are welcome to bring side dishes. Tickets are $25 in the lower level and can be purchased at unitednightout.com.
The Capital Tennis Association will be hosting Capital Classic XXII from Saturday through Monday with close to 300 players competing. This year’s tournament will be contested on hard courts and will be held at the Rock Creek Tennis Center and the East Potomac Tennis Center. The event will be broadcast live on the CCE Sports Network.
Capital Tennis Association runs an abbreviated outdoor fall season league from September to October.
The travel teams from the D.C. Gay Flag Football League will head to Gay Bowl XIV Oct. 9-12 in Philadelphia which is expected to draw 28 men’s teams and 12 women’s teams from across the country.
At last year’s Gay Bowl, the Washington Generals lost by one point in the Championship game and they are looking for another successful run this year. For the first time, they will be sending a female team, the Washington Senators, to the Championships. They will be joined by three men’s teams: the Washington Generals, the Washington Admirals and the Washington Commanders.
The League also recently kicked off season nine with 20 teams competing for the fall championship.
Members of the Washington Scandals Rugby Football Club traveled to Sydney, Australia at the end of August for Bingham Cup 2014. They competed as a combined club with members from other teams as the Muddy Armada Berzerkers and finished fourth in Pool D. You can watch some of their matches on their Facebook page.
The D.C. Strokes Rowing Club traveled to Grand Rapids, Mich., in August for the USRowing Masters National Championships where their team boats won one silver and three bronze medals. Two other local rowing clubs, Potomac Boat Club and Capital Rowing, also won multiple medals and finished first and sixth respectively in the team competition. The Strokes are currently in the middle of their head race season which are crew time-trials in longer distances that are contested into November.
Fall Ball started for the Chesapeake and Potomac Softball League on Sept. 6 and runs through Oct. 18. Three teams from the league, D.C. Blitz, D.C. Disturbance and D.C. Titans, are headed to the 2014 North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance Gay Softball World Series in Dallas Sept. 22-27. About 4,000 players from 44 leagues across North America are expected to compete.
The Federal Triangles Soccer Club wrapped up its 2014 Summer of Freedom League at the end of August with the Annie’s team winning the championship match and taking home the Cummings Cup.
Swimmers from the District of Columbia Aquatics Club will compete at the 2014 Patriot Masters Sprint Classic at George Mason University in Fairfax on Oct. 26. The meet offers sprint length races including 25 yard events in all four strokes.
The Washington Renegades Rugby Football Club began match play for the fall season in the Capital Rugby Union league. The season will run through Nov. 15 and the Renegades field one team in Division III and one team in Division IV.
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.
Sports
Jason Collins dies at 47
First openly gay man to actively play for major sports team battled brain cancer
Jason Collins, the first openly gay man to actively play for a major professional sports team, died on Tuesday after a battle with brain cancer. He was 47.
The California native had briefly played for the Washington Wizards in 2013 before coming out in a Sports Illustrated op-ed.
Collins in 2014 became the first openly gay man to play in a game for a major American professional sports league when he played 11 minutes during a Brooklyn Nets game. He wore jersey number 98 in honor of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student murdered outside of Laramie, Wyo., in 1998.
Collins told the Washington Blade in 2014 that his life was “exponentially better” since he came out. Collins the same year retired from the National Basketball Association after 13 seasons.
Collins married his husband, Brunson Green, in May 2025.
The NBA last September announced Collins had begun treatment for a brain tumor. Collins on Dec. 11, 2025, announced he had Stage 4 glioblastoma.
“We are heartbroken to share that Jason Collins, our beloved husband, son, brother and uncle, has died after a valiant fight with glioblastoma,” said Collins’s family in a statement the NBA released. “Jason changed lives in unexpected ways and was an inspiration to all who knew him and to those who admired him from afar. We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers over the past eight months and for the exceptional medical care Jason received from his doctors and nurses. Our family will miss him dearly.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Collins’s “impact and influence extended far beyond basketball as he helped make the NBA, WNBA, and larger sports community more inclusive and welcoming for future generations.”
“He exemplified outstanding leadership and professionalism throughout his 13-year NBA career and in his dedicated work as an NBA Cares Ambassador,” said Silver. “Jason will be remembered not only for breaking barriers, but also for the kindness and humanity that defined his life and touched so many others.”
“To call Jason Collins a groundbreaking figure for our community is simply inadequate. We truly lost a giant today,” added Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson in a statement. “He came out as gay — while still playing — at a time when men’s athletes simply did not do that. But as he powerfully demonstrated in his final years in the league and his post-NBA career, stepping forward as he did boldly changed the conversation.”
“He was and will always be a legend for the LGBTQ+ community, and we are heartbroken to hear of his passing at the young age of 47,” she said. “Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones. We will keep fighting on in his honor until the day everyone can be who they are on their terms.”
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