Mark Brown - Gay Games I: the True Story: The Forgotten Man

Part I

My name is Mark Brown. This first section (of three) is my story from my youthful roots in rural Illinois to ending up being a pioneering gay sports leader in San Franciscoculminating in playing a key role in the creation of the worlds first Gay (Olympics-style) Games.

Early Years in the Midwest

I was born Reuben Arthur Brown on August 18, 1934, in Manville, Illinois. I attended Bradley University in Peoria for two years where I belonged to Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

I joined the US Army as a paratrooper (101 st Airborne) in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

After military service, I became an Arthur Murray dance instructor for ten years.

Tired of that, I next worked in the shoe business for the Morse Shoe company. Ending up in Mansfield, Ohio, and on the verge of a promotion to district supervisor, I had a change of thinkingprofessionally and personally.

Jump School 1958
101 st Airborne Fort Campbell Kentucky U.S. Army
Paratroopers

Bradley University 1952-1954
Peoria, Illinois
Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity
Delta Sigma Chapter

Move to San Francisco

In July 1970, I left my Midwest existence for the excitementand the emerging gay communityof the San Francisco Bay Area.

I had several jobs through the years in San Francisco. Probably the best was purchasing agent for Gilbert/Clark Stationery Company for ten years.

What a change in my personal life! I fell in love with San Francisco, swore I would never leave, and havent. Loved the gay life. It truly made me feel at home.

Introduction to Gay Sports

In 1974, I met Paul Lynch. We were briefly boyfriends, roommates in the next thirteen years, and are still best friends.

Paul introduced me to gay softball. The team was from the Kokpit Bar in the Tenderloin area. Athletically, the team was terrible. Half were members of the Imperial Court, but we had fun. We won only one game all season.

I became very much involved with the gay softball sceneloved it. I played with some of the best back then in the Community (gay-oriented) Softball League. I became league commissioner for two years (1978 and 1979).

I became involved in gay bowlingagain because of my roommate Paul Lynch. I became president of the Tavern Guild Bowling League (at Haight Streets Park Bowl) for a couple of seasons.

My first venture in gay media/newspapers was a sports column called On the Mark backed by my softball and bowling teams/bars.

Paul Lyncn & Mark Brown as Bubbles

Kokpit-Gay Softball Team 1974 Short Stop

Mark Brown & Paul Lynch

Enter Tom Waddell

Along came Tom Waddell. I had no idea who he was. He showed up at our Wednesday night bowling league, looking for a team to join. As I was tired at the time, I had him take my place. I became the teams substitute bowler. This was the 197980 season. We ended up playing well and winning.

Because of my involvement in the gay community, Tom approached me with the idea of a gay Olympics. Because I was too busy with other things at the time, I said, No thanks, and forgot about it.

The next year, Tom approached me with the Games idea again. This timeloving to be involved with thingsI said, Yes, why not?still doubting that we could pull it off. Back then, there was no interest. My only available tools were my sports column and the Bay Area Reporter .

Doctor Tom was traveling overseas with his medical duties, so it was up to me to get the Gay Olympics idea rolling. I said to myself, What in hell have you got yourself into this time?

Toms Albion Hall home was the site of our originaland subsequentmeetings. We needed to select a board of directors. Easier said than done. Many were willing to lend their names but not the necessary hard work.

Tom Waddell was a medical doctor and also an accomplished athletehe placed sixth in the decathlon at 1968 Mexico City Olympics. His lovely home, Albion Hall in the citys Mission District, was often the site of community/gay meetings. Tom was gay but definitely not part of the flamboyant drag and leather scenes.

Part II

The Forgotten Man

A Historical Account of Mark Browns Involvement with the First Gay Games

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to build on the existing narrative, the accounts, thoughts, and experiences of previously marginalized key actor(s)most notably Mark Browndirectly involved in helping bring the first Gay Games to fruition. Additionally, the project examines the importance of Gay Games I as well as the struggles and hardships encountered. Former Olympian Tom Waddell conceived of the Gay Games, a quadrennial event that first occurred in San Francisco in 1982 and now one of the largest international sport spectacles in the world. Although Brown was a principle designer for the inaugural Games, previous literature and accounts discussing the conception and inception of the Gay Games relegates his involvement to a meager sentence or paragraph descriptor. The qualitative research methodology included in-depth interviews with four members on the board of directors for Gay Games I, an examination of both secondary and archival sources, and document analysis. The results indicated that without Mark Brown, there would not have been a Gay Games. In the early 1980s, his contributions included establishing the original organization, San Francisco Arts and Athletics (SFAA), selecting the board of directors, organizing fundraisers, assembling the sports committee chairs, securing facilities for each event, and was the only person continually in the SFAA office in order to troubleshoot arising complications. Eventually, frustrations, including clashes with Waddell, became too overwhelming for Brown, and he resigned just two weeks prior to Gay Games I, effectively writing himself out of the Gay Games history.

Introduction

The Gay Games is a quadrennial event that first took place in San Francisco in 1982. San Francisco Arts and Athletics (SFAA), a nonprofit organization, oversaw and organized Gay Games I and II. The Gay Games originally planned to go by the moniker Gay Olympic Games, but after a lengthy legal battle with the United States Olympic Committee, SFAA was forced to drop the word Olympic from the title.

In 1989, the Federation of Gay Games was formed and have been the leading organizers of the grand-scale event ever since. The main tenets of the Gay Games are participation, inclusion, and personal best.

According to the Federation of Gay Games, The Gay Games, unlike the Olympic Games, enable people from all walks of life to compete against each other regardless of skill level, age, or physical challenge.

Since the first Gay Games, the event has grown exponentially with the peak number of participants occurring in 1998 in Amsterdam during Gay Games V as nearly 13,000 people participated from sixty-eight countries. Additional Gay Games sites included Vancouver, Canada, New York, Sydney, Chicago, Cologne, Germany, Cleveland, Ohio, and Paris.