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Who You'll Meet In Sydney
One day, in Madison, Wisconsin, Jeff noticed a guy playing volleyball in the park and it was love at first site. Of course, the guy was straight; or so Jeff thought. When he saw the guy at a gay bar two weeks later, he decided to try to play with the new gay volleyball group there in Madison, hoping that guy would be there. Sure enough, he was. “At the end of that first day playing [with them], I had enough of the basics that they wanted to bring me along to their next tournament as their seventh player,” Jeff says. “I said, ‘I’d be happy to go to the tournament as long as I could room with that man.’” They all agreed and Jeff was with him until his husband died in 1991. Since the early Eighties, Jeff has been one of the co-directors of the Madison Volleyball Group, which now sports the longest-running gay volleyball tournament in the nation, going on its 23rd year. Last year, they also hosted the North American Gay Volleyball Association’s annual championships. With that tournament, another cycle continued. “My present husband did quite a bit of the organization of those championships,” Jeff says. It seems that, when Jeff met his husband, he had little or no interest in volleyball. Now, he plays with the group and volleyball is now a wonderful extension of their relationship. Jeff says that volleyball is one of the fastest-growing sports in the Madison area. “About 15 years ago, it was tough to find people who want to be involved. Now, they come out of the woodworks.” Jeff attributes the growth to an increase in television coverage – with beach volleyball tournaments airing on ESPN throughout the year, and NBC offering more volleyball with their Olympics coverage. “The other thing is that it’s a sport that, at whatever level you get involved at, you’re able to compete.” The group plans social functions encouraging more newcomers to join the group. They use cocktail parties as fundraisers, and their annual tournament coincides with the MAGIC (Madison Area Gay Interim Coalition) picnic every third weekend in July, hoping to draw more interest to their group and the sport. “It’s the chance to meet people in a non-threatening way,” says the group’s other co-director, John Fernsler. While John is very active in the non-gay volleyball community in Wisconsin, he sees something special about the opportunity the Madison Volleyball Group offers gay men. Away from the alcohol of the bars and blaring music of the dance clubs, volleyball offers men the chance to meet other active gay men in a friendly situation. “You can go and meet people, friends, and maybe a boyfriend.” And, of course, get some exercise and stay in shape. It has also offered John the chance to meet, and date, men from around the world. When he was in New York City for Gay Games IV in 1994, he met a boy from Hamburg, Germany. They couldn’t converse well, given the language barrier, but the two felt a connection of friendship. During the Closing Ceremonies, they took a picture together but quickly lost touch when they went their separate ways. Four years later, at the opening ceremonies for Gay Games V in Amsterdam, John was walking into the stadium when he heard someone call out his name. It was that boy from Hamburg, holding up the picture they’d taken in New York four years earlier, who had picked John out of a crowd of over ten thousand. “That is a true testament of why I play volleyball – it’s the friendships you make. For him to find me and bring that photo – I was just blown away.” ________________________________________ To get involved with the Madison Volleyball Group, contact John Fernsler at nagvamoney@aol.com; or visit NAGVA’s Web site at http://www.nagva.org.
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