Brigham decided then to try a comeback. While he hadn’t participated much in “gay sports,” he found the Golden Gate Wrestling Club, which happened to be gay and the only adult wrestling club in San Francisco. His first foray onto the mat with the club and with his two new hips left him tapping out every 15 minutes for a break from the pain. That first practice he also suffered a broken rib. He was hooked.
Brigham made a goal of not just attending the 2006 Gay Games but finally participating in the quadrennial event. It was a daunting task. No one had ever competed in a USA Wrestling meet on artificial hips. To accomplish the goal, Brigham knew he would have to do everything that Gene Dermody, the godfather of gay wrestling, told him to do.
What Brigham didn’t expect was that Dermody’s marching orders for him were to become chairman of then national gay organization Wrestling Without Borders and take a seat as an officer of the Federation of Gay Games, the organization that once told him he couldn’t participate. In his time with those groups, Brgiham has emphasized the growth of local gay-sports groups and has been at the forefront of bringing sanity to the drug testing of competitors who have a higher rate of HIV.
While Brigham’s contributions to sports journalism and gay athletics are huge, his deepest legacy may be the one he’s building with San Francisco Alliance Wrestling. The organization was founded in 2007 as an offshoot of the LGBT wrestling group, Golden Gate Wrestling Club. SFAW’s mission is to provide access to the sport of wrestling for the city’s youth. It’s called “Alliance Wrestling” because not only is it an alliance of resources between the city and Golden Gate Wrestling Club, it’s also an alliance between straight people and gay people.
In his role with SFAW, Brigham is also the head coach of the Mission High School wrestling team. Brigham has built a strong reputation for himself not just at the school but also across high schools in the city. Not only does he produce some top-notch wrestlers, he also teaches life lessons that his athletes carry with them beyond the mat.
Read the full profile HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment