Dr. Tom Waddell

Tom Waddel founder of the Gay Games. Tom Wadell was an Olympic decathlete who competed in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. But Waddell is best known for founding the Gay Games, a sports competition modeled on the Olympics for athletes of all sexual orientation In 1965, he journeyed from Brooklyn to participate in the civil rights demonstrations in Selma, Alabama. Drafted into the Army in 1966, Waddell became a preventative-medicine officer and paratrooper. Entering a course in global medicine, he protested when he found out that he would be shipped to Vietnam. Expecting a court-martial, he was instead unexpectedly sent to train as a decathlete for the 1968 Olympics. At the Mexico orieCity Olympics, Waddell placed sixth. After discharge from the Army, Waddell served residencies at Georgetown University and Montefiore Hospital (The Bronx) before beginning a graduate fellowship at Stanford University in 1970. After injuring his knee in 1972 in a high jump while training, Waddell focused on medicine rather than athletics and began coming out to friends. In his first serious affair, he finally entered into a relationship with Charles Deaton, in 1974. The two men threw themselves into the emerging gay culture of 1970s San Francisco. Waddell's medical background enabled him to find jobs easily and in exotic locales. He served in the Middle East as medical director of the Whittaker Corporation from 1974 through 1981. Part of his job entailed serving as a personal physician for a Saudi prince and a Saudi businessman, and he eventually became the team physician for the Saudi Arabian team at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. After leaving Whittaker, Waddell happened to attend a Bay Area gay bowling competition, which inspired him to consider organizing a gay sports event modeled on the Olympics. He took up the cause of the "Gay Olympics" by traveling across the country to drum up support. The first Gay Olympics was to take place in San Francisco in 1982 in the form of a sports competition and arts festival, but the U.S. Olympic Committee (U.S.O.C.) sued Waddell's organization over its use of the word "Olympic." Despite the fact that the U.S.O.C. had not previously protested when other groups had used the name(Nude Olympics, Police Olympics, Skinhead Olympics) they alleged that allowing a "Gay Olympics" would injure them. They succeeded in securing an injunction just nineteen days before the first games were to begin. Nevertheless, the games, now re-christened the Gay Games, went forward and were a great success, perhaps because they emphasized sportsmanship, personal achievement, and inclusiveness to a far greater degree than the Olympics. The battle over the right to use the term "Gay Olympics" continued in the court and was not finally settled until 1987, when the Supreme Court of the United States, in a 5-4 decision, ruled in favor of the U.S.O.C. and affirmed the U.S.O.C.'s right to collect legal fees from Waddell. In 1981, Waddell met public-relations man and fundraiser Zohn Artman, with whom he fell in love and began a relationship. That same year, Waddell, who had longed to be a father, also met lesbian athlete Sara Lewinstein and they decided to have a child together. Their daughter Jessica was born in 1983. In 1985, Waddell was diagnosed with AIDS. Although dogged by the lawsuit filed by the U.S.O.C. to recover legal fees in the battle over the right to use the word "Olympics," Waddell lived his years with bravery and dignity. He saw the enormous success of Gay Games II in 1986, and even participated in it, winning a gold medal in the Javelin event. O Waddell died on July 11, 1987 with the enormous grace and courage that marked his life. His last words were "Well, this should be interesting."