Hello Everyone,

My name is Keilan, and I am interested in the early history of gay volleyball. Did you know, for example, that gays were playing volleyball together in Laguna Beach, CA as early as 1968? It's true. There were at least two teams: one called the "Majorettes" and another called the "Bodettes," named for their respective captains. A local radio station called KWER (no longer in existence) broadcast the teams' Memorial Day festivities that year. I'm sure they queered it up

There have got to be other stories out there like these--many of which were lost to us during the devastating 80s. So I thought I'd open this discussion forum to try and recuperate our early memories of playing volleyball together. Your posts will serve as a kind of collective archive.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Keilan

P.S. I use the term "gay volleyball" as shorthand for any sexual/gender minority volleyball. So, basically, anyone who reads these posts should feel welcome to reply. Anyone, that is, except haters.

Boston had a group that met in front of the Hatch Shell on Sundays in the mid '70's. At first it wasn't openly gay as the organizer had a number of co-workers playing with us, but many of the gay players would go out for lunch afterwards. The secretive part didn't last too long and the straight guys were fine with that- we didn't lose anybody and there were certainly a few we tried to get to play on our team, so to speak. In that location there were always people going by who would join in and perhaps be interested enough to ask about the group and return. In winter months we started playing in the Lindemann Center- I think an organization called GRAC (Gay Recreational Activities Committee) was the group who's name we played under and who directed interested players our way. Then I believe Chiltern Mountain Club took over that position and the outdoor destination became the park in the Fens. The current leagues had their origins in groups (still sponsored by Chiltern??) that played back in the early '80s in Cambridge. This is all to the best of my knowledge/memory. Two of my best buds came form that first group- many of us were newly out and it was great to be finding other gays with interest in sports.

Thank you for your reply, WChip. Any crazy anecdotes you'd care to share?

BTW, I just got your double entendre: you tried to get straight guys to play on your team. Very clever

This thread really brings it all back, memory-wise. I played with a gay volleyball group from roughly 1977-1981 in Detroit. We used to gather every Sunday in Palmer Park, at the time "the gay area" of Detroit. We eventually hooked up with a group of gay volleyballers from Chicago and held the first ever intercity matches. The first year we held it (1978 I think), it was over Memorial Day weekend. Our group was housed by the Chicago group, which led us to even larger goings on in the coming years. We eventually contacted groups from around the country and for a couple of years, we had a national volleyball tournament in Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend, held indoors because you can never tell what type of weather you'll have at that time of year in the midwest. We had teams from Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Minneapolis, Madison WI, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Columbus, New York, Atlanta, Houston and probably other cities as well, but I just can't remember. We even had "regional" tournaments, because there was way too much travel to have teams from all over the country each time we wanted to do a tournament. I recall hosting a regional tournament in Detroit in 1980. We had teams in from "east of the Mississippi" from those cities I mentioned earlier. I also recall traveling to Madison, Columbus and Atlanta for their regional tournaments. Our big fun event in Detroit was a huge party at one of the larger bathhouses at the time. They had the usual facilities plus a huge pool. We rented the entire bathhouse for 4 hours and talk about a "hot time was had by all" - you couldn't beat it. One of the best weekends of my then young life. Thanks for starting this thread; bring back a ton of memories.

No particular anecdotes- that guy who started the group was about my age now and was relentless in his pursuit of young men, gay and straight, so we often spoke of his exploits. I recall a post vb birthday party at Durgin Park where the waitress ended up gettting in a "cake in the face" fight with us-she actually started it once we gave her crap for bringing the cake to the wrong person. Rudeness and flippancy was part of the atmosphere there back then.

Thanks for posting, Rick. Sounds like things were already pretty organized even as early as 1980. And the party sounds like great fun!



Cake in the face, Wchip? Was your waitress Anita Bryant?