By
Tracy Baim Windy City Times Reprinted with permission
Peg Grey,
one of the most important and pioneering activists in
Chicago’s GLBT community, died Feb. 24 of complications from
cancer. She was 61.
Grey’s
passion was sports, and through sports she helped unite the
gay male and lesbian communities, raised funds for AIDS and
other causes, and worked internationally to build bridges in
the GLBT community across racial and economic lines. Her
sports work led her to become the first female co-chair of
the Federation of Gay Games ( FGG ) , which was officially
formed after Gay Games II. Grey participated in every Gay
Games since 1986, including last summer in Chicago, and she
ran in the torch run for the first Gay Games, in San
Francisco in 1982.
As a Chicago teacher, Grey also worked helping to organize
GLBT educators.
Last Saturday, when Gay Games VII was honored at the Lesbian
Community Cancer Project gala, I was honored to accept the
award in honor of Grey for her sports work. The event raised
funds in the fight against cancer, and Grey herself
succumbed to cancer that same day. Long-time Chicago
activist Vernita Gray also spoke of Peg Grey’s
contributions, remembering that in the 1970s, many people
did not understand why sports activism could make a
difference in the community.
I first met Peg Grey in 1984, having just returned from
college to a burgeoning gay community. A small-framed,
energetic, driven woman, Grey organized and played on sports
teams year-round, attracting players of all skill levels to
her teams, often sponsored by Lost & Found, the city’s
oldest women’s bar. My first experience in GLBT sports in
Chicago came at age 21, playing for one of her L&F softball
teams; we were all pushed to be the best at both sports and
in the larger community. Grey was an inspiration, a strong
lesbian working to raise up women but to also play sports
alongside men.
Inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in
1992, Grey’s decades-long work in Chicago’s community began
in the 1970s. She saw that most of the gay sports leagues at
the time were dominated by men, so she pushed for more
inclusion of lesbians. She helped create women’s leagues in
the Chicago Metropolitan Sports Association ( previously
known as Gay Athletic Association and then Metropolitan
Sports Association ) for basketball, softball, tennis and
volleyball in 1983, bowling in 1985, racquetball in 1987,
and football in 1988. She also helped form the Women’s
Sports Association, and published the newsletter Women
Together in Sports.
She served as a board member of MSA from 1981 to 1991,
helped in the creation of the Chicago Pride Week
Invitational Bowling Tournament, and in 1989 returned to FGG
as a board member. In 2006, FGG made her an honorary
lifetime member.
One of Grey’s most long-lasting accomplishments was helping
to create The Race Against AIDS ( Proud to Run ) , an annual
event held during Pride Week. She was honored for her work
in starting the event, which led to the creation in 1982 of
the Chicago chapter of Frontrunners, established by Grey,
Rob Williams, and Jim White. Grey brought t-shirts from all
25 Proud to Run events and hung them up for all to see at
the 25th anniversary run last year.
Grey founded Team Chicago Arts and Athletics in 1983, which
became Team Chicago; she and Dick Uyvari were the first
co-chairs of Team Chicago in 1985, prior to Gay Games II,
and they helped get athletes to the international event.
Grey competed in marathon, softball, track and field, and
volleyball over the course of past Gay Games. Grey was one
of Team Chicago’s delegates to the FGG since 2000 and at the
2001 Annual Meeting spearheaded the movement to raise funds
for the Rainbow Warriors, a Namibian lesbian soccer team.
She stepped down as delegate in 2006 when her medical
condition worsened.
“As a delegate Peg participated actively on the Federation’s
Outreach Committee and Women’s Outreach Subcommittee, as
well as the Sports Committee,” said Paul Oostenbrug, Team
Chicago’s co-chair. “She pushed the Federation to establish
an Outreach Mission at its Annual Meeting in Cologne Germany
in 2004. ‘The Federation of Gay Games’ Outreach Mission is
to distribute information and provide scholarship assistance
that will bring participants to each Gay Games; along with
these efforts, the FGG will encourage continued development
of the international gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender
sports and cultural community.’”
At the 2001 FGG meeting in Johannesburg ( where Chicago was
bidding to host the 2006 Gay Games ) , Grey met Castakes
Anton of the Rainbow Warriors Soccer Club, a lesbian sports
organization of 150 members from Windhoek, Namibia. Grey
listened to Anton’s stories about the abuse that her team
experienced and its fear of being openly lesbian—due to the
potential for arrest. Its members were not able to play
safely in Windhoek because of homophobia. As Grey later
said, a vision and then a plan of action began to take form.
She convinced the women and men at the meeting to raise
funds to allow some of the Rainbow Warriors’ members to
contribute to what she named the First Inter-African Soccer
Tournament. The tournament would be held in the relative
safety of the Johannesburg/Soweto area and would host local
teams, a team from Namibia, and be open to any other country
that could field a team. Funds were raised at that meeting
and Grey asked Team Chicago to establish a Sister City
Program with Windhoek, which paid for the Rainbow Warriors
to travel to Soweto to play against two lesbian teams—their
first experience as “out” athletes. She encouraged Chicago
Games, Inc. to contribute to this program, which it did as
an equal sponsor. The funds that were raised allowed 15 team
members to travel from Windhoek to Johannesburg for a
tournament.
Another passion for Grey was work on inclusion for senior
athletes, and she was instrumental in making sure Gay Games
VII in Chicago had senior divisions in several sports.
“Because of her efforts, 20 of the 32 sports at the 2006
Games had specific age categories and there were new age
categories in several team sports,” Oostenbrug said. “In
addition, she worked with Chicago Games, Inc. to publicize a
number of low-impact sports that are suitable for the less
active—sailing, pool/billiards, and darts.”
Grey’s own 50+ volleyball team, the Golden Girls, won a
bronze medal in the Women’s B division at Gay Games VII and
received a special sportsmanship award from all of the
volleyball teams. Peg organized four 55+ Team Chicago
runners, who won a gold medal in the mixed medley relay.
Grey awarded the gold medal to the Chicago Classics women’s
basketball team for their victory in the Women’s 50+ Masters
division which she helped create.
According to Dick Uyvari, Peg, Sam Molinaro, and Art
Johnston were already on the board of the Gay Athletic
Association when he joined the organization in 1980. Dick,
Peg, and Sam played on a 16-inch softball team in the spring
of 1981 (Art was their non-playing manager) and on a
volleyball team when GAA established a volleyball league
later in 1981. Because the acronym GAA was also used by the
Girl’s Athletic Association, the group changed its name to
the Metropolitan Sports Association (MSA) in the early
1990s, adding the city’s name in the early 1990s. Peg has
been nominated as a charter member of CMSA’s Hall of Fame
which will hold its first induction ceremony on March 31,
2007. Dick stated that Peg’s motivation in GAA/MSA/CMSA was
to run high quality sport leagues/competitions for the LGBT
community and to bring men and women together in the running
of the organization and on teams.
Grey was born May 15, 1945, in Chicago. She received her BS
in Elementary Education from Chicago Teachers College, and
an MA in Physical Education from Northern Illinois
University. She worked for 35 years in the Chicago Public
Schools in elementary physical education. Grey had endured
multiple myeloma ( a cancer that begins in plasma cells, a
type of white blood cell ) for many years. Last week, she
had a stem cell harvesting procedure performed, which left
her very tired, according to her long-time partner Grace
Luedke. On Friday night, Grey had difficulty breathing and
was taken to Hinsdale Hospital. She died there early
Saturday.
“I am proud to have been blessed with Peg as my beloved
partner for these past 40 years. She will always be with
me,” Luedke said.
There will be a visitation/memorial drop-in service this
Saturday, March 3, 2-7 p.m., at Gibbon’s/Elliston Funeral
Home, 60 S. Grant St. in Hinsdale, Ill. A community memorial
is being planned for the next few weeks at Unity In Chicago,
with details to be released soon.
In addition to many friends and teammates, her survivors
include partner Grace Luedke, brother Larry Grey, and sister
Judith Byron.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Team Chicago or
a planned scholarship program in Peg Grey’s name. Checks
should be made out to Team Chicago or the Federation of Gay
Games and can be mailed to Team Chicago, PO Box 13470,
Chicago, IL 60613. Funds raised for the Peg Grey Memorial
Scholarship Program would be restricted to funding women
athletes from the continent of Africa attending the Gay
Games or other international tournaments.
Grey’s
passion was sports, and through sports she helped unite the
gay male and lesbian communities, raised funds for AIDS and
other causes, and worked internationally to build bridges in
the GLBT community across racial and economic lines. Her
sports work led her to become the first female co-chair of
the Federation of Gay Games ( FGG ) , which was officially
formed after Gay Games II. Grey participated in every Gay
Games since 1986, including last summer in Chicago, and she
ran in the torch run for the first Gay Games, in San
Francisco in 1982.