2025 - Q4
2025 Q4 Newsletter
The final board meeting of 2025 was held on November 12, 2025, via Zoom. All board members were present. The Agenda and meeting minutes can be found to your right.
BIG GAAY HOLIDAY EXTRAVAGANZA
The third annual Big GAAY Holiday Extravaganza will be held on Sunday, Dec 14th. It will be packed full of fun activities and new this year, our first-ever Holiday Potluck, because nothing represents family more than everyone bringing a passing dish! At 4 PM, the festivities will get started for those who register for our first-ever Basketball Sharp Shooter Contest and/or the Fall Cornhole Tournament. You can sign up for one or both; each is $10 per participant. Both those activities will be taking place in the gymnasium. At 5:15 PM, everyone else can start showing up and putting their food in the kitchen, and head over to the community room, where our first-ever Mario Kart tournament will begin at 5:30. By 5:45, everyone should have arrived, and we can begin to eat. At 6:30, we hope to start our final competition of the night, our first-ever State Dodgeball Championship. We hope to have two teams from Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, and Lansing all compete for the title. Lastly, we will announce the Lansing Athlete of the Year and the Betty Lou Freebusch Award for Congeniality. You must preregister for any of the three competitions by Friday, December 12th, if you wish to compete. More details are on the Holiday Extravaganza page. And you can RSVP by clicking the link below.
2026 LEAGUE SCHEDULES
For the first time, we have a comprehensive schedule for the entire calendar year of 2026. Some of the dates are rock solid are ready, and others we will have to be flexible with, as we are at the mercy of the facility we rent from. But tentatively, these are the plans for each city in 2026. I hope this helps everyone plan better for which things they will participate in, and gives them the opportunity to rearrange schedules far enough in advance if they need to!
For the winter leagues starting after the holidays, you should start to see registration open for them this week. Keep an eye on social media for when they go live, or just check back on the website all this week. Bowling for Lansing and GR should open up, Pickleball for Ann Arbor will be open soon, and our brand new billiards league for Lansing will be open very soon!
Ann Arbor
Grand Rapids
LANSING
THANKSGIVING FOOD DRIVE (LANSING DODGEBALL)
The Lansing Dodgeball League is collecting non-perishable food items to donate to The Bread House here in Lansing to assist families in need during this holiday season. Highly encourage Ann Arbor and GR to do this as well, if someone is gracious enough to organize it and physically take the food items to wherever you donate them. Thank you, Grace DeLee, for taking the initiative to get this started in Lansing.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, Chuck and Jim Coggin have once again graciously opened their home to anyone looking for a place to celebrate Thanksgiving. If you or someone you know has noplace to go, please pass along the information, OR if you just want to hang out with GAAY Sports people because we are awesome, that's okay too! Details to the right.
Chuck and Jim will be providing the turkey, gravy, and cranberry sauce. To ensure we have a variety of foods, the maître d' for the day, Orneal Brown, has prepared a signup sheet for transparency as to what people are bringing. This also serves as your RSVP, and is where the address to the home will be given out. But for planning purposes, it is near Waverly High School in Lansing.
If you have any questions, contact Orneal at orneyb@gmail.com. In addition to your food item, don't forget to bring your own beverages.
A NOTE FROM NICHOLAS
This year has flown by! It has been just another amazing year of growth and change on so many levels for GAAY Sports. From adding new leagues like indoor volleyball and pickleball this year, to having a league form in Jackson, the number of people we serve continues to grow exponentially year over year. No year is ever easy. There have definitely been some ups and downs and unique challenges throughout the year. Did we get everything right the first time? Absolutely not, and I'm always the first to admit when I or the organization drops the ball on something. But I'm usually the first person to get back up on the saddle and figure out how to avoid the same mistakes again. To me, failure is the best way to grow and learn. So cheers to the things we learned in 2025 and the many more things we will learn and grow from in 2026!
I couldn't wrap up the year without thanking our many sponsors around the state. They are critical in helping to keep the cost of leagues at a reasonable rate so that those of you who never did sports for a multitude of reasons can be a part of this great community and try something you have little experience with. I always tell hesitant people because "they aren't sporty, "GAAY Sports is really about community and bringing people together outside of just gay bars. Sports are just the vessel we use to congregate with one another.
I hope every one of you has a fantastic end to 2025! I hope many of you will join us on December 14th. It is sure to be a great time. Be on the lookout for nominations for Athlete of the Year and Congeniality Award. Be safe in your travels as the winter weather starts to sneak in, and remember to always PLAY WITH PRIDE!