Out in Sports: January 2008 Archives

...the great Greg Louganis who turns 48 today!

Greg is the greatest diver the U.S. has ever had. In 1976, while still in high school, he won the silver medal at the Olympics and Montreal. The U.S. boycott of the Moscow games kept him from competition in 1980 but at the Los Angeles games in 1984, he took home two gold medals then repeated the feat four years later in Seoul, Korea.

It was in Seoul that Greg hit his head on the diving board during preliminary rounds and cut his head. What the world did not know was the he had recently found out that he was HIV-positive. To be dealing with that and trying to compete against the best, I am still in awe of how he came through that situation and went on to win the gold..

Greg is also a six time World Champion and has held 47 National Championship titles.

But even more than his diving accomplishments, there is nothing more important, in my opinion, than when Greg publicly came out at the Gay Games in 1994. This was the year before he released his superb autobiography, "Breaking the Surface." I was struggling with how public to be with my own sexuality at that time and I was so inspired by Greg and his story - particularly an appearance he made on the "The Oprah Winfrey Show" where the reception was so enormous, so warm, and the look on his face was one of such happiness and joy at being out. It was so inspiring. It was still a really big deal to come out in 1995 - Ellen didn't do it until two years later.

I remember thinking how sad it was that he had reached this point but probably would not live to enjoy it much longer. In an interview with Barbara Walters, he had said that he was not just HIV-positive, but had AIDS. And here we are, 13 years later, and Greg is still with us - thank God.

He's been more private in recent years but you still hear about him now and then and it is always a wonderful thing...

P.S. Greg's book was made into a TV movie starring Mario Lopez. It's available on DVD!