Local newspaper, the B.A.R. (Bay Area Reporter) featured a review of the 2010 Golden GaYte Classic in their most recent issue (pick it up, it’s free!). In addition to covering the finals, the piece goes in-depth with Tony Jasinski, the founder and father of San Francisco gay basketball. The article provides great insight into how gay basketball in San Francisco got to where it is today.
Basketball tourney was pure gold by Roger Brigham
It didn’t have the glamour or media hype of the Winter Olympics, or the record-shattering spectator attendance of the NBA All-Star Game. But for symbolism of enduring athletic activism, the basketball tournament held last weekend in Berkeley and the Castro was pure gold medal.
The 2010 Tony Jasinski Golden Gayte Classic basketball tournament saw some 300 players on 21 teams from 16 cities vie for three division titles over the weekend, playing preliminary rounds at UC Berkeley and the finals Sunday evening at Eureka Valley Recreation Center, home of the host San Francisco Gay Basketball Association.
With domination in the lane by Windell Austin and some clutch 3-point shooting, the San Francisco Rockdogs looked pretty indomitable in pink to win the A Division championship over the Phoenix Hellraisers 61-48; the Chicago Spin toppled Hollywood Blindside 50-44 for the Upper B title; and the San Francisco Shock outscored the Los Angeles Dream 8-3 down the stretch to win the Lower B title, 50-43.
During halftime of the A Division title game, a ceremony was held to honor the tournament’s namesake, the “Godfather of Gay Basketball” Tony Jasinski.
Holding aloft a copy of the Bay Area Reporter , Papa Joe Robinson of the Rockdogs noted that the entire local basketball program that hosted the tournament was started when Jasinksi posted a small ad in the B.A.R. in 1986 after Gay Games II.
“Tony has been a selfless leader for the past 25 years,” said Robinson, who first started playing in the Castro league when he was 19. “It is through his efforts through those years that we are all here.”
“He was doing this before any of us,” said Chicago’s Sam Coady, a gay basketball icon in the Windy City, where a major annual tournament is named after him. “He has a real passion for the game. He has devoted himself for decades selflessly and unmatched consistency. Seldom do you find someone with that much passion for decades.”
For Jasinski, 57, the passion started when he was in his teens playing street ball in Kentucky.
“I always loved the sport,” he said. “I love the gracefulness of it. To me, it’s like ice-skating with a ball. It’s amazing to see what athletes can do. Sometimes you can see the littlest guy on the court do an amazing move.”
It was while he was in college studying to be a teacher that Jasinski came out, on weekends driving with buddies “70 miles each way to a gay bar run by the mafia in Nashville, Tennessee.” But his worlds came to a crashing collision.
“I finished my degree in education,” he said, “but I couldn’t get certified in Kentucky because my college professor told them I was gay.”
He said he moved to Boston where he began playing in a program run by a hippie who played the games in his underwear. Moments like that let you know you’re not in Kansas – or Kentucky – anymore. After a couple of months he took over the program to keep it running, and in the late 1970s helped organize a tournament with teams from Boston and New York City – believed to be the first intercity gay basketball tournament.
And then he played in Gay Games I in San Francisco in 1982 and his life changed drastically.
“I brought a team out from Boston,” Jasinski said. “I had a really good team; we had the potential to win it, but we were intimidated. But we got to experience Kezar Stadium, the opening ceremonies, and I saw the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for the first time. San Francisco was booming, booming, booming. When we got the silver medal, Tom Waddell presented it to us. What an honor! It’s the kind of thing you cry over.”
“I enjoyed it so much I moved here two weeks later.” Jasinski said.
He played in the on-again, off-again basketball games when he could, then after Gay Games II began efforts to get a permanent league going.
“I figured it was time for the average Joe to get to play,” he said. “I think the first week nobody showed up. I didn’t promote it enough. Then the second week I had about 15 people.”
They rented a church gymnasium for games. For years the league was an informal network built purely on trust, passion, and commitment.
As to the secret of his longevity as a basketball leader, Jasinski, now a manager with Wells Fargo, said, “I think it’s an advantage being a poor player. It’s a matter of playing a role. Since I wasn’t such an effective player, there wasn’t a sense I was doing things for myself. Nobody ever accused me of favoritism. I found a niche.”
In the mid-1980s basketball and other LGBT sports fought for and secured homes in EVRC. And in the past few years, the San Francisco Gay Basketball Association was formally reorganized as a 501(c)3 nonprofit.
The previous Golden Gayte Classic was held a decade ago. When the next one will be held is uncertain: it takes a lot of energy to organize and coordinate, and it is difficult to find affordable, available multi-court basketball facilities in the Bay Area. But it is the daily league, more than the occasional tournament, that Jasinski sees as his legacy.
“It’s an honor,” he said about the tournament being named after him. “I’ve bragged about it to family and friends. I can’t imagine being in this situation, but I’m very appreciative. I don’t know that it was warranted, but I would never say no to it.”
“I hope the league is the legacy I leave behind,” he added. “I’m proud of where they are today. In 1986, when I started the program, I had no friends who were gay sports fans. Now all my friends are gay sports fans. I love the celebrations that we have outside the courts. That’s when you get the feeling of the passion they have for the sport. That’s the love. You go out afterwards together, you cry together, you celebrate together.”
They were celebrating Sunday at Eureka Valley’s Mark Bingham Gymnasium, its stands and sidelines packed with a spillover crowd of dozens of fans and players for the finals. Simultaneously, deep in the heart and snow of Texas a record crowd of 108,713 – the biggest ever for a basketball game – was packed into Cowboys Stadium to watch the Eastern Conference trump the Western Conference 141-139 and the combined ego of promoters Mark Cuban and Jerry Jones trumped any sense of rational perspective.
And to the north at the Winter Olympics, devotees of all that is cold and ice were stunned by the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Pride House offered a queer friendly environment for one and all, and insiders were wondering whether anyone would be popping out of the closet, joining Dutch skaters Renate Groenewold, Ireen W st, and Sanne van Kerkhof as openly out athletes competing.
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