OLYMPIAN. PIONEER. CATALYST FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING continued from previous page Here was an Olympic athlete, a paragon of traditional


manhood, coming out publicly with his partner Charles Deaton in People Magazine: in 1976. Here he was in 1982 launching the Gay Games, the quadrennial celebration that is the largest athletic event in the world, the showcase that provides Waddell’s enduring legacy. Gay Games 9 took place this summer in Cleveland, bringing together


from a married couple who lived nearby, Gene and Hazel Waddell. They had been in vaudeville long ago, experts in acrobatics and dance. Without any children of their own, they embraced Tom as family. Years later, turning 21 at Springfield College, he formally changed his name to Tom Waddell. In the 1959 yearbook, the identity confusion is on full


display. In the gymnastics section there is a photo of “Co- Capt. Flubacher” and an accompanying description of “Waddell” helping to defeat Temple. So, too, in track, where a photo of “Co.-Capt. Flubacher” soaring over the high jump bar accompanies text that mentions his feats in meets: “Paced by a record breaking 6 foot 5 ½ inch jump by Waddell...”. It was as if the yearbook didn’t quite know who he was.


In a sense, Tom didn’t, either. But it was becoming apparent that life for him was a process of discovery, a journey into truth. Even as a young man, he refused to accept convention. He would not subscribe to others’ definitions of who he was. Ann Briley remembers one homecoming at Springfield


Gymnastics coaches and captains, from left: Coach Walter Johnson, captain Tom Waddell, Captain Gerald “Skip” Sutherland, and Coach Frank Wolcott


more than 8,000 athletes, gay and straight, from 47 countries from all corners of the globe. It is a cultural and athletic festival predicated on inclusion of all people. Waddell’s story is one of the hidden gems of Springfield


College. In a sense, the Tom Waddell story is similar to the tale of the commencement address by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964 (against the backdrop of pressure from the FBI to “uninvite” him). Both stories were shrouded in contro- versy. Both held truths the Springfield College community was slow to claim. Both confronted widely held cultural assumptions, some of which still have traction today. But in the long view, both moved us forward, aligning the College more closely with its fundamental mission of educating students in spirit, mind, and body for leadership in service to humanity. **


Springfield College had no idea what it was getting in the fall of 1955 with the arrival of Tom Waddell. One thing it was not getting, oddly enough, was Tom Waddell. When he moved into a second-floor room on the lake


side of Alumni Hall with Don Marshman, he was known as Tom Flubacher. The rugged, blond-haired, 6-foot 2-inch youngster, still a few months shy of his 18th birthday, had grown up in New Jersey in a fractured family setting. When things were at their worst, Tom found support and love


The Springfield College Bulletin 16 TRIANGLE 1 Vol . 85, No.2


when Waddell had three sets of parents show up: his remarried biological parents with their spouses, as well as the Waddells. His sense of family—of “his people”— would be, throughout the rest of his life, defined by his heart alone. So, too, with his sexuality. While Waddell felt attracted


to men in his teenage and young adult years, he actively dated women. Ann Briley was one of them. “We went to the junior prom together,” said Briley, a psychiatrist who lives in Wellesley. “He was wonderful to be with. He had a great sense of humor. He was a wonderful dancer. He was a sweet, sweet man. Tom loved everybody.” His fondness for Springfield College is apparent to any


reader of “Gay Olympian,” the posthumous autobiography written with Dick Schaap. “Springfield became my new family,” Schaap quotes Waddell as saying. “I loved the


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