[dropcap]W[/dropcap]earing only a Speedo, Michael Crosby kept thinking “I’d rather be swimming” while he sat waiting to speak at a West Hollywood City Council meeting on May 20.
Was he thrilled about the prospects of two new pools being approved by the council? Sure — that’s why he was there to speak.
“When I heard about this pool moving forward, I thought ‘Yeah, I’m going to speak! Ya I’d love that pool to happen,'” said Crosby. “And they were like ‘And wear a Speedo to show your dedication.’ And I said ‘I’ll do it!'”
But he didn’t expect to wait more than an hour (smack-dab in the front row too, while other swimming buddies, also in Speedos, waited in the back). He also laments that he only got in a 15-minute swim before rushing to the meeting. The publicity wasn’t wanted, either.
In the end, however, he got what he wanted. West Hollywood Park renovations will include a new recreation center with two pools on the roof, one for lap swimming and another for recreational swimming.
While Crosby’s “Speedo speech” certainly made a splash, he’s been making waves as a fearless “out” athlete for years. At Harvard, he came out to his teammates and was elected captain one year later.
The articulate educator, with degrees from both Harvard and Stanford, talks passionately about the support he received after coming out to teammates in college and about the community he has found competing with WH2O, where he met his boyfriend Luis Clavijo. “The best thing about my life,” said Crosby.
WH2O, a masters swimming and water polo club based in WeHo with a roster of over 180 athletes from around Southern California, fields the oldest gay swim team in the world. Crosby both swims and does water polo, where he competes in three to four tournaments a year.
At the WeHo pool, the WH2O swim team practices and competes, but it’s too small, said Crosby. The locker rooms are small and the lanes are skinny.
“I draw blood on a weekly basis,” he said.
Certainly the pool can’t hold a swim meet, he said.
The water polo team doesn’t play there because it’s too shallow. Instead, the team has to play in East LA. It has played in 12 pools in 12 years, according to Crosby.
Nevertheless, Crosby’s been a leader of the group, even coaching sometimes. His workout regime probably puts your daily gym routine to shame. Three to four times a week, he swims. He’ll also run twice a week. He does two yoga sessions and he’ll mix in 2-3 weight room sessions. And “a couple of bike rides.”
“It’s hard to take more than one and a half hours a day (to working out),” said Crosby. “I feel guilty if I take more. There’s other stuff that needs to get done.”
Crosby obtained his steely work ethic in high school.
At Harvard-Westlake, which ranked 12th among the country’s top prep schools in a Forbes’ magazine report, Crosby had access to one of the country’s premier water polo coaches. It is known as an Ivy League-feeder school. Many of Crosby’s classmates were accepted into some of the country’s top universities.
Current Cal Berkeley women’s water polo coach Richard Corso was the head coach of both Harvard-Westlake and the U.S. Men’s Water Polo team when Crosby played in high school. In fact, Crosby recalls Corso being gone much of one summer while coaching the U.S. team at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
Corso was voted “Coach of the Year” three times by California’s high school sports’ governing body (California Interscholastic Federation).
Crosby started his junior year at Harvard-Westlake, but really came into his own his senior year. For the most part, he played “driver,” a position that leads the offense and rewards the fastest swimmers. In high school, the time commitment and practices were grueling, he said.
“I respect him (Corso) and I thank him to this day because it paved the way for a hell of a thrilling, fun college experience in water polo,” said Crosby.
Crosby wasn’t planning on playing Division I water polo until Corso started making calls to college coaches for him.
At Harvard, Crosby wasted no time. He started as a freshman. “I majored in biology and minored in water polo,” Crosby joked.
It wasn’t until the end of sophomore year that Crosby, already a standout player, felt the time was right to tell his teammates he was gay.
“I thought ‘I think they’ll be OK with it.’ They’ll still pass the ball to me,” he said.
Crosby said he knew he was gay by age 7.
“It was when I first started swimming on the co-ed swim team and there were guys in swimsuits and girls in swimsuits, and I liked looking at guys in the swimsuits,” said Crosby.
In high school, Crosby only came out to a few close friends. He told his parents his senior year. But he wasn’t ready for everyone in high school to know.
“I didn’t think you could be on a team sport so physical, and wearing next to nothing with contact like water polo and be out,” he said. “I thought I had to choose one or the other.”
While Harvard is “conservative in tradition,” it is liberal and progressive in a number of social ways, Crosby said.
“I think a lot of my teammates admired the courage that I had to trust them with the information that I was gay,” said Crosby. “I remember some saying ‘It took a lot of balls to tell us that,’ and then we never talked about it again. Others were more curious, asking ‘Are you dating anyone?’ ‘Have you told your parents? It must have been hard.’”
His senior year, he was voted team captain.
“Traditionally, gay men are looked upon like ‘You can’t do sports.’ I was able to come out to my college teammates and feel respected and admired and it helped that I was good,” said Crosby. “It helped that I was a starting player. It’s harder for a marginal player. If I’d gone to USC and been a bench-warmer it would have been a lot harder to come out because you have a lot less social capital on the team.”
Throughout his four years, Harvard got better and better, culminating in a post-season No. 15 ranking (highest in school history). The regular season included a 10-game winning streak (most in school history) and 26-10 overall record (best in school history).
In between his junior and senior year, Crosby remembers a sports panel piquing his interest in playing water polo in WeHo.
“I did a ‘sports and sexuality panel’ and someone asked ‘Are you going to play in the Gay Games?'” Crosby recalled of the panel, which included former NFL player David Kopay, among others. “And I was like, ‘I’ve never heard of that, but it sounds very cool.’
“Soon after that, I Googled ‘gay water polo.’ Or maybe I used Yahoo back then (laughs.) I was surprised to see a whole bunch of teams.”
In the summer of 2001, Crosby joined WH2O, which does compete in the Gay Games, which are held every four years.
“There’s just something about the West Hollywood team and really having a close connection and bond. And not just LGBT folks, but the straight supporters too,” said Crosby. “We have 20 to 30 of them. It’s kind of like the reverse of regular society. So they know how we feel. When we go to an event, people assume they’re gay. Just like people assume we’re straight when we’re in ‘regular society.'”
Crosby says part of the reason he joined WH2O was to meet someone special. Sometimes sparks do fly at WH2O.
“I’d like to give a shoutout to Parker and Brian, who met each other at WH2O and then never came back to water polo! Come on back, you guys are good. We like you!” Crosby joked.
Ironically, after graduating from Harvard, Crosby began working at Loyola High School, his alma mater’s rival. At Loyola, he taught biology and chemistry and coached the water polo team.
After four years, Crosby, decided to go back to school. At Stanford, he got a joint degree, an MBA and masters in education. Driving him was the hope to someday open an aquatics academy. It remains a dream for Crosby, who is currently an assistant principal at Campbell Hall School (although he says he’s searching for something new).
No matter what he does, or where he goes, Crosby hopes to remain involved in WH2O.
And while he showed up to that May 20 city council meeting ready to dive in immediately, he says he looks forward to swimming in the new pools when they’re finished in about five years. WH2O could finally have one home.
“For West Hollywood to recruit for WH2O using the city’s namesake — because it’s the LGBT center — that would be a dream come true,” said Crosby.
