By Dirk Smith, M.Sc, SDL (He/Him)
(Photo: Dave Kopay, Chris Morgan, Roger Brigham and Gene Dermody at closing ceremonies, Chicago Gay Games).
Celebrating 41 years in journalism, Roger Brigham has become one of the biggest voices for LGBTQ+ sports, being a columnist for the Bay Area Reporter for the last 15 years. His last article for the Bay Area Reporter is one of the rare articles that Brigham will write about himself. It is rare, as he will explain in our interview in which Compete managing editor, Dirk Smith, sits down to learn about Brigham’s storied career as he shares exciting stories from his time, literally, in the middle of it all. As one of the first openly gay sportswriters, Brigham offers a unique perspective and legacy that has shaped LGBTQ+ sports and sports journalism, for generations. Our interview is split up into two parts, this is part one with part two coming out within the next week.
David Smith
You’ve had a remarkable career; you’ve accomplished a lot and there’s a lot of work you did you should be proud of! How do you feel about retiring?
Roger Brigham
Well, it’s funny, I was thinking about it a bit before I got the aortic valve last month, it’s time for several reasons. One, it’s not a reporting job. It’s a column job. Right. So, for 15 years it’s been my voice as the only sports voice in the Bay Area Reporter. I really think it was time for another voice in there and I’d love to see somebody other than a gay white man doing it, because it seems to have been unbroken string of gay white men doing it. So, I’m hoping that they can get some other viewpoints in there now. Also, physically, things are difficult for me to do that are required for the column, taking notes during interviews and stuff like that. My handwriting has never been good, but even I can’t really read my handwriting anymore, the arthritis in my hands makes taking notes almost impossible. So that’s not as big of an issue on the writing projects I want to take on and it takes me off external deadlines. I am going by my own deadlines, which I can manage and set more suitably for my limitations at this point. I’m very sad about it, not so much on the on the column, but just the end of that entire newspaper career. It’s been a wonderful journey I never expected I would have these last 15 years. So, I’m very grateful for it all.
David Smith
So, it sounds like you’re continue writing, tell me about these other projects?
Roger Brigham
I have three book projects. One is going to be a major expansion and revision of my cookbook that came up two years ago which that revision is probably about 80% done. I compiled all the new recipes we’re going to put into it, but I’ve doubled the number of recipes. When I started the cookbook, it was going to be a combined book with essays. While people who eat my food have always told me I should write a cookbook and then other people who know me in other in other capacities said I should write an autobiography. I always thought, “who the hell wants to read about my life. I don’t find it that interesting.” But there are a lot of themes that have come up in my life, a lot of things that I’ve learned and recurring circumstances. So, at the same time I started writing autobiographical biographical sketches, and at some point, I realized that it diverted the focus. So, I will be doing the autobiographical essays in the second book. Then the third book that I’m working on is taking articles from throughout my career, starting back when I lived in Troy, New York republishing a lot of them with annotation. So, notes about what was going on in the world, and what was going on in my life and my career at that point because you cannot just see the progression of being a writer but also the personal, political, and cultural context during that time. They all intertwine as to what I was writing, and how I was writing about it. For me, it was fascinating going back to research some of the articles, so that’s a project.
David Smith
That sounds awesome. It’ll be interesting to see what the context was of your writing during that time, right. So, you talked about the cultural context around it, but also what was going on in your personal life at the time as well. The readers can follow the evolution of your writing and the topics that you write about over that period. That sounds amazing.
Roger Brigham
I think it’ll be fun. Funny thing happened when I was a cub reporter in Troy, New York. And that was, it was a very tumultuous 10 months at that first paper. I didn’t lay roots down for long. I once ran into sniper fire to cover a mass shooting and later that night at a hospital, I followed a nurse to gather the names of people who had come in from that, that shooting because they were so stressed out and overworked. They had nobody to talk to the families that were coming in and trying to find out if their relatives were there, what their condition was, etc. So, she grabbed me and recruited me to gather all the information on patients. My job before I was allowed to write anything was to answer the questions from the people. So, I was the one who told a lot of people who was critical or that their loved one was dead. But one of the strange things that happened then, I got a couple of calls from the copy desk. In both calls, they said the same thing, “we don’t know why you wrote this feature story the way you did, but we’re going to let it run.” I never knew what they meant by that; I was developing my own approach to writing at the time. Going back, I think I found one of the articles that they were talking about, and it was a very strange one. I was out covering a county fair and towards the end of the article, I just lapsed into first person as I started to interact with some of the people at the carnival. When I go back and read it, I can see why I instinctively did that, though, against every journalistic rule, I was very strict about never injecting myself into the story. But in this case, it really fit into the picture of despair I was trying to paint and how you just let it create the interaction, so he just went with it. In the circulation, the area of coverage that I was responsible for at that time, we were like the last paper there, even though geographically, we’re closest. We were behind the Albany papers; we were behind the Saratoga paper and stuff like that. While I was there, we became the number one paper in that circulation area. So that was a sign that I should go with my instincts and it’s interesting going back and remembering what was happening. At the same time. I was trying to understand what the hell my sexuality was all about, I didn’t know about things like gay bars. The only place I knew to look was in the streets and I ended up in some very scary, dangerous situations. I’m fortunate and I got through. So, that context of what I was trying to discover about myself professionally and about myself, personally at the same time. That’s the kind of context I want to put these stories in.
David Smith
I think that’s an interesting, perspective to have. When you put yourself in that situation, you’re almost part of the story yourself. Everything that you observe and everything that you experience from a firsthand perspective. Even though it’s hard not to interject yourself into the story, but you know people will read and get into the story themselves.
Roger Brigham
One time, there was a major flooding of the Mohawk River while I was there, and I been going around gathering some background stuff to go into other people’s stories. I got a call from my office, they are saying, “look, we don’t have anybody to cover the flood tonight. So why don’t you go home rest up, and then you go out and do it tonight.” I was really annoyed, because I realized that when the bulk of our coverage was coming out that day, my byline wouldn’t be there. I had contributed work to it and that I was just going to be doing the cleanup stuff at the end. He started drawing out that assignment that night and I was in a foul mood. I said, “this is a major inconvenience in my life.” I get a photographer, he’s riding with me and we’re going around, talking to people who just lost their homes. We’re in shelters, police stations, whatever and I’m talking with all of them and thinking, “how can I be so freaking self-centered, so self-absorbed,” I said, if this is going to bother me, I should get the hell out of the business right now. Because this is this is a job that’s not about me, it’s about the people I’m talking with. So, I straightened up my head. At one point, when we were in the northern part of Albany County along the Mohawk. We came down, it was very dark by then, and it was amazing. Seeing the water so high and we’re at eye level with this. So, we’re looking out, and there’s a house there, the water is up in the upper windows. You can just see this house printing is great visual, but it was dark as hell and there’s no way I’m going to get it. So, I said, “let me try something.” I had Volkswagen Super Beetle back then. I got down to the edge of the water and I started driving my beetle into the water. The engines are in the back on those things, so I knew I was safe putting the front in as long as I had pavement under the water. So now my headlights are just at the edge of the water and the light is bouncing up onto the house. Got a great shot that ran across the top of the page, just from doing that. Fortunately, able to back my car back out of the water, helped a fellow staffer do his job. That was so rewarding. For me, it was the first time I realized, “okay, this is not just about you, as an individual writer, not only interacting with community and telling their story, but you’re helping colleagues do their jobs better.” Those were the kinds of inspirations that made me decide, even when things got bad in the profession, I was going to stick it out and see what I could do.
David Smith
You said that at one point, as a young writer, you were struggling with your sexual orientation and trying to understand what these feelings were. Did you notice that any kind of a change or evolution of your writing after you started to understand your sexual orientation?
Roger Brigham
Yeah, when I was 23, I ended up in Kodiak, Alaska and I was hired to be a halftime reporter, halftime ad salesperson. I know nothing about ads and hate sales. I never wanted to be in sales. I don’t have the personality for sales, and I didn’t last long at that, thank goodness. But what happened was the editor went on vacation and before he came back, all the other senior staff members walked into the publisher’s office and said, if they didn’t fire the editor and put me in this place, they were going to walk out. He was not a good editor and from what I guessed, they just did not like their professional interactions with him at all. So, at 23, I was the editor of a daily newspaper in Kodiak. Life in Kodiak was cool, it’s very rough and rugged. I went dancing a lot and I drank a lot, because I didn’t have to drive anywhere. I would date women and then I’d see that they were emotionally going down a garden path that I couldn’t go down. So, I’d cut things off or stay distant. When I’d be out in the bars, I’d see good looking fishermen across the room, looking me in the eye and I could never look back, I could never explore that. In Kodiak, it’s just too easy to make a body disappear, just way too easy. There’s just so much deep ocean all around, it’s too risky and I decided that I had to find some way to break out. I did take trips to Anchorage and explored the bar scene there. Later, I understood that there was a bar scene in Kodiak for years I didn’t know about. And so, I well resolved by the end of my time in Kodiak that I decided I had to make changes and that I couldn’t stay in Kodiak. I needed to be in a little bit safer and bigger environment. I was offered a great job in Montana, an hour from Glacier National Park, a wonderful job, that would have put me at the cutting edge of the movement towards more environmentally sustainable and appropriate things. It’s at the Institute of Appropriate Technology, but I realized I would be going right back into the same closet. The job was in Butte, Montana and I would have also run into the same professional problem I had in Kodiak, which is that I had nobody to learn from. I knew hardly anything about journalism, yet I was the best trained one there and it was going to be the same thing in Butte, Montana. I said I need to get to a big newspaper again and have people I could learn from. Anchorage Daily News had just been bought and they were expanding as a major newspaper, they had openings in sports. Now, I had talked with them earlier and they had suggested I apply a while back before saying I should apply to be their political writer or their editorial page editor. I said no at the time, because my boss in Kodiak had said that he was going to leave for Hawaii and have me become the publisher. Out of loyalty, I was going to stay and do that, but then it became obvious that he wasn’t going to move, and he was just saying it to keep me there. That’s when I wrote myself out of the budget and started looking around. So, the timing wasn’t right when I first talked with the Daily News, but when they were looking for the sports people, I thought, “well, at least that’s an entry”.
David Smith
Had you ever been a sportswriter before?
Roger Brigham
I wrote a couple of sports stories that I had solicited, but I was not a sportswriter. I avoided seriously becoming a sportswriter as far back as college because I knew that the serious journalists considered the sports department, as the “toy department.” There was so much snobbery against it, and I stayed on the news. But I figured I’ll go to Anchorage; they know the work I can do in a new site and at the first opportunity I can move over to news. So, I wrote him a letter and literally said, “I’m cheap, easy and available.” I guess they liked my writing style, so they brought me on board for sports. After a few months, they realized that they were under budget on the news side and since I have that background, they pulled me over and put me on the copy desk. Sometimes they would have me be the wire reporter, pulling in all the wire points, I would go into the daily budget meetings, and must talk about what the top things were going on in the world. At the time, there were hunger strikes going on in Northern Ireland and one of my daily tasks was to report on who were the latest people who had died in Northern Ireland, and who is expected to die next. It really got to me, and I remember wondering “why is this bothering me so much? I’ve been to sniper shootings, I’ve seen people put it out, I’ve uncovered corruption, I’ve covered the dark side. Why is this bothering me so much?” Then, I realized that when I was in sports, I really didn’t have to deal with the negative side of life so much, I was able to come into people’s lives at the moments of their greatest exultation, the pinnacle of years of work and discipline. Those were stories I love telling and that made me appreciate what I could communicate in sports. It was better for me psychologically. So, at the beginning of 1982, they needed a new sports editor. They launched a national search, and I applied for it. The senior editors asked me “well, do you think you’re old enough for this job?” I laughed at them because they were one year older than I was, but I was young looking, but that’s when I became sports editor. I was still livening in Anchorage, and I’ve been getting into the bar scene, I started to date a little bit and I’d come to accept the fact that yes, I was gay. But something was still wrong. I could sense I was still holding back. So, I went in like to see my Managing Editor I told him. I was ready to fight him because I didn’t know what was going to happen. There were no nondiscrimination laws that would protect me or anything like that, but he was cool with it. We got along fine. From then on, whenever anybody would ask me, I tell them.
David Smith
Wow! That is quite a brave thing to do, during that time it would’ve been super easy to be fired for being gay, especially in sports.
Roger Brigham
People must understand back then, when people started coming out in sports, they would always write a column about it, or they go on do a magazine article and stuff like that. I’m very old school, I’m not the story, I’m not supposed to be the story. I didn’t want to be the story. I’m telling other people’s stories. I came out at work for very practical reason. I saw issues coming up in the gay community and I saw that, they (my coworkers) didn’t seem to know who to go to. They seemed really out of touch with it, and I said, “you know how I’m coming out to you? I can be a resource for you. If you have a question or something who you should be talking to or what’s happening in the community. You can come and ask me, and I’ll try to steer in the right way.” At the same time, I was still the editor in Kodiak, and I was working sports in Anchorage. I was also coaching high school wrestling in Anchorage. There were six public high schools and I go around to each of them different days and ask the coach, “who do you want me to work with today?” And they liked it because I was a little guy, and I would work with anybody from their flyweights to their heavyweights. My rule then was that I don’t share anything in my personal life with my high school kids. That was a very practical thing. If word got out among the kids that I was gay, they were going to be hysterical parents. I would’ve been forced out, and I would lose something that was very important to me.
David Smith
Sounds like at this point, you started to really find your way in your professional and personal life?
Roger Brigham
By this point in my life, I had realized, I like teaching. I like coaching, I like helping other people get better at what they’re doing. I found that in wrestling, because it was a way, I was able to continue my wrestling career. But I could see the impact I was having with kids, giving them confidence as they learn new things and grew stronger. I didn’t want to give that up when I was in Kodiak. So, as an editor, I always emphasized staff development and I had this kind of strange relationship. I was known in the community as the most visible person in sports. Most of the professionals in sports knew I was gay, they valued me too much to mess up. In the meantime, I was coaching and some of the coaches knew because they asked. Some of the coaches, I think suspected, but they might have felt if they knew they would have to take some action against it. So, they just didn’t ask, as I was too valuable on the team. I was helping their kids out.
Join us for part two of our interview with Roger Brigham next week!
Photos courtesy of Roger Brigham.
