Sports
Game Changers: Capital Tennis Assn.’s Shawn Stingel
‘It feels good to stay active, give back and make an impact’
This week in the Washington Blade Game Changers series, we meet an athlete with Capital Tennis Association who has taken the club to new heights regarding social responsibility.
Growing up in Smithfield, Va., Shawn Stingel discovered tennis by playing in the streets with his brother and friends. Inspired by Venus and Serena Williams, he tried out for his high school tennis team in Windsor, Va., and made the cut playing all four years.
Stingel only played recreationally while attending William & Mary but after graduating and arriving in Washington in 2005, he was eager to rejoin the sport with the Capital Tennis Association.
“I was looking to anchor myself in D.C. and discovering an LGBT-based team was a really comfortable feeling,” Stingel says. “I have met my best friends on the tennis court and being an out athlete has been part of my evolution as an adult. I wasn’t out when I was playing in high school.”
As Stingel became a better tennis player with the Association, he started becoming more involved in a leadership role. When he stepped into the role of social director for the club, he began looking for more diversity and recruitment of young athletes.
“We ramped up our social media, started attending mixers and increased our presence in the community,” Stingel says. “From my own perspective, I could see where I would have fit into all of that as a young adult as I wasn’t seen in high school. Young adults today want to be out and they want to play sports. They should be given spaces where they can be comfortable.”
Already active in LGBT community events, Stingel pushed for the Association to expand its social impact and branch into other communities.
“My agenda was to transcend the tennis court and also have a presence in heteronormative communities,” Stingel says. “I wanted to break down that barrier and allow diversity to thrive.”
Partnering with local organizations, Stingel created events surrounding Breast Cancer Awareness Month, organized CPR training for American Heart Month and helped coordinate the club’s Earth Day invitational while engaging local eco-friendly organizations to raise awareness for their efforts.
“Being progressive in our outreach lets our members know we are more than an LGBT tennis club,” Stingel says. “Creating awareness campaigns gives people exposure to these topics and starts a conversation that will affect change.”
As for his tennis career, Stingel was a doubles specialist for seven years with his playing partner Horatio Oliveira before segueing into a singles career.
Stingel, who works in IT at the Office of Air & Radiation for the Environmental Protection Agency, plays in leagues with the Capital Tennis Association and travels the country competing in tournaments on the Gay Lesbian Tennis Alliance World Tour.
He says his career highlight thus far was qualifying for the GLTA World Tour year-end championships in Prague in 2016. This weekend he will be playing in the Citrus Classic tournament in Tampa.
“I love the challenge and the competition. It brings me joy. We play at a lot of venues where I see older people still competing, so I don’t see myself stopping any time soon,” Stingel says. “It feels good to stay active, give back and make an impact.”
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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