Back to Home > Sports > Thursday, Jul 20, 2006 Basketball Posted on Thu, Jul. 20, 2006 email this... Foreigners at Gay Games ca

Sweat shimmering across her face, Natalie Matlou stood over her teammates Monday and, in a mix of English and her native Sotho, demanded victory in the first round of the Gay Games.

Much is made of the fact that at the Gay Games held this week across Chicago, the object isn't winning as much as inclusion and personal best. But for the South African soccer squad, like many international competitors, moral victories come second.

For the South Africans, the goal is to change perceptions in a place where they can usually play women's teams only if they pretend to be straight or men's teams only if they're willing to endure taunts about their sexuality. Rights for homosexuals are written into the South African constitution, but that doesn't always mean much for theworking-class black women who fill the team. Most live in impoverished townships surrounding Johannesburg.

An hour later, the South Africans were celebrating a 2-1 victory, but modestly, because they still had to face a squad from Team Chicago in the afternoon.

Like many of the international competitors, the South African soccer players can thank a Gay Games scholarship program for getting them to Chicago this week. The scholarships, started for the games held in New York City in 1994, brought 115 foreign athletes to this year's events, which run through Saturday.

Of the nearly 12,000 competitors, between 2,000 and 3,000 are international. But the scholarships have been given only to people coming from countries where being gay can be a particular challenge, said Gay Games spokesman Kevin Boyer.

During introductions at the orientation, the biggest ovation, which was standing and sustained, was saved for Dick Uyvari and Joe La Pat, 62-year-old men who have been partners for 37 years and financed more than half the scholarship fund.

The Chicago couple said they were inspired by their own difficulties through the years, such as when they had to get one of their fathers to co-sign on a loan when they bought their first piece of property together in 1971. Gay men have no such difficulties now, they said.

After single-handedly bankrolling most expenses for the South African women's soccer team, Uyvari and La Pat learned there wasn't much money to bring more athletes. Well off from careers in real estate, they soon wrote a check for $75,000.

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