Compete Sports Diversity Awards Turn 10

COMPETE SPORTS DIVERSITY AWARDS TURN

jan./ Feb. 2020

It is hard for me to believe that it’s been ten years since Compete celebrated its first Sports Diversity Awards, an annual celebration that has allowed us to honor those who are helping to create a truly level playing field for all athletes. I remember our first award just like it was yesterday. In 2010 we honored just one winner, swimmer Michael Holtz. Michael was our third Athlete of the Year and it was an honor to have diver Greg Louganis present the award to Michael in Los Angeles. Greg was amazing—gracious, confident and charismatic. What else would you expect from a winner of five Olympic medals – four gold and one silver.

We founded Compete (originally Sports Out Loud) in 2006 because we loved sports and were committed to supporting diversity within the sporting community, one of the last bastions of accepted homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. These awards have continued to allow us to honor those who are helping to create that level playing field for all athletes who want to play.

Over the rest of the decade we’ve honored recreational, professional, national and international leagues such as the National Football League (NFL), Major League Soccer (MLS), Major League Baseball (MLB), North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA) and the International Gay Rodeo Association (IGRA). Also included have been awards to some professional sports teams who have made real changes to sports diversity, like the Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Cardinals and Colorado Avalanche.

But our biggest happiness is to honor individual athletes, such as professional athletes like Jason Collins, Robbie Rogers, Scott Norton, Gus Kenworthy, Billy Bean, Ryan O’Callaghan and Sue Wieger. But we especially love honoring our LGBTQ+ athletes like Mark Bingham, Chris Mosier, Sam Lehman, Cyd Ziegler, Molly Lenore, Helen Carrol, Allison Jones, Kirk Walker and so many more.

In the past ten years the Compete Sports Diversity Awards has landed in cities such as Phoenix, Tempe, Los Angeles, Bel Air, Denver, Atlanta, Kansas City and now for the first time, Las Vegas. Las Vegas is special to us because we get to celebrate our 10th Anniversary as part of the Sin City Classic. It’s been such a great year we’re already planning to be back in Vegas as part of the Sin City Classic next year for anniversary number 11.