Gay Games

 
Who You'll Meet In Sydney
Mark Chambers Leads Rebels With A Cause

By Cyd Zeigler Jr.

Some say that winning a silver medal is the worst-case scenario in sports:  you know you’re good enough to win it all, but you failed to do so in the end.  As the final buzzer sounded in basketball’s gold medal game in the 1990 Gay Games in Vancouver, the Long Beach Rebels stood on the court having lost.  One of the Rebels, Mark Chambers, decided then that he didn’t want to win silver again.

Mark first played basketball in the fifth grade in Vallejo, California.  With his shooting touch and height, the coach put him in the off guard position.  When high school came around, Mark started dating men and women, and he couldn’t find a place in his life for court time.  “I was out searching for what was missing in my life.”  At the time, that wasn’t basketball.

Fast forward several years to one night in 1990, when Mark and about a dozen other men answered an ad in the Long Beach Center Post looking for gay basketball players.  The Long Beach team that formed that night started playing pick-up and, in the months ahead, getting beaten badly in a straight league.  Later in the year, they were invited to San Francisco for a pre-Gay Games warm-up fundraiser.  In game one, Mark’s team played against San Francisco’s second beast team; the home team embarrassed the visitors.

 “One player came out in drag and was scoring.  That was humiliating,” Mark says.  “Anytime a guy comes out in a wig, a dress and tennis shoes and scores, you just don’t forget that.”  That was enough to inspire them for game two that weekend – against San Francisco’s top team.  While it was another loss for the visitors, this one wasn’t a blow-out and it served as the first building block for the team.

When the Rebels piled into a mobile home in the summer of 1990 headed to the Vancouver Gay Games, they weren’t given much of a chance to place.  They made it to the finals and that loss to San Francisco when Mark dedicated himself to winning gold.

Lambda Basketball, the organization that encompasses all gay basketball in the greater Los Angeles area, was formed soon after those 1990 Games.  Mark’s Long Beach Rebels quickly became the dominant team in the area and, as Mark had committed to himself, they went on to win the gold medal in New York in 1994.

Mark went on to run the Lambda Basketball League in 1993, and he’s been running it ever since.  Mark’s role has matured from player to counselor and, sometimes, mother.  “I ask myself all the time why do I spend so much time this,” Mark says.  “And then I meet those guys who just enjoy basketball and who say they wouldn’t know what to do without the League.  It’s the players that think that such a thing couldn’t exist - that’s what makes it enjoyable.”

Luckily for Mark, his long-term boyfriend is particularly understanding of his commitment to basketball – they play together on the Rebels.  “It makes it even better because we’re experiencing these things together – win or lose.”  They even use the basketball tournaments as family vacations, dragging their three kids along to local tournaments like the recent one in San Diego.

Now, Lambda Basketball sports two of the best gay basketball teams in the country:  the Los Angeles Heat and the Long Beach Rebels.  Being from the same parent organization and playing against guys from the Heat all the time, Mark says that playing them in tournaments has special meaning:  “you always want to beat your brother – you don’t want to lose to them and have to listen to it.” 

Their next opportunity will be in what is considered the real primer before the Gay Games:  Chicago Hoops Classic XII, held April 12-14.  At their peak, the Rebels won the Classic three years in a row, from ’91 to ’93; that was the last time they won the tournament.  Mark defines his goal for this year’s Chicago Tournament with a chuckle:  “My goal is to win it and take the trophy back to where it rightfully belongs – in my living room.”

Now a matured leader of both an entire League and one of the top basketball teams in the country, Mark sometimes looks back at that kid he was years ago, who quit on his team in high school.  .  “I should have been there for my high school team,” he says.  “It’s not about me, it’s about the team.  At the time, I don’t think I understood that.”

As he prepares to make one more run at Gay Games gold, Mark is making sure he’s there for lambda basketball, and for the Long Beach Rebels.