Are you ready for some football? I hope so, because next week our city is going to be overrun with tight ends and guys penetrating the middle and going deep. Gay Bowl 2014, the annual flag-football championship tournament of the National Gay Flag Football League, is going to be the largest Gay Bowl ever, with 42 teams including a 10-team women’s division. This week we spoke to center (and sometimes tight end) Bo Banwo, a well-traveled fellow who speaks two-and-a-half languages: Spanish, English and a smattering of Guarani.
PGN: I’ll try my eighth-grade Spanish on you. De dónde era?
BB: Ha. I’m actually from Florida. My dad’s Nigerian and my mom’s American — well, African-American American. So I’m kind of like the president. But yeah, I was born and raised in Tampa and moved around quite a bit. I’ve lived in South America, Arizona, New Jersey and now I’m in Baltimore.
PGN: I don’t think I’ve been to Tampa.
BB: It was a really great place to grow up, probably one of the most integrated places in America when I was growing up. [Laughs] That was before Florida went crazy! I don’t know what happened, we used to have a good reputation! The last 10 years … I just don’t know what’s going on, it’s scary.
PGN: James Carville once said that Pennsylvania was Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with the Deep South in between. It sounds like Florida has similar dichotomies.
BB: It’s true and my family goes back six or seven generations in Florida. They’ve always been activists, doing work organizing people that certainly put us in conflict with certain power structures in the South. So we’ve experienced our share of violence. We’re from the North and I hate to badmouth any states, but it seems like part of the problem comes with people in South and North Carolina moving into Florida and bringing a certain mentality with them.
PGN: Confederate flags flying?
BB: Exactly.
PGN: Tell me about the family.
BB: I’m the youngest of three boys. One brother lives in London and the other is still in Tampa. My mother works as a principal secretary and my father passed a few years ago but he was an engineer/cab driver. I think when you’re African and move to America it’s a rule that you have to spend some time as a cab driver!
PGN: I just watched an episode of “Cold Case” that was about an immigrant who’d been an engineer in his country but was relegated to doing manual labor once he was here, and the disrespect he was shown just because he had an accent.
BB: Yeah, it’s interesting being half first-generation American and seeing the issues that my father faced. He felt hampered by his accent and thought that if he could lose it he might have been much more successful, but on the other hand he was very proud of being Nigerian, so it was tough for him.
PGN: Was he proud to see someone of African descent elected president?
BB: Well … He had a weird political history. For a long time, he voted Republican, which killed me because I worked in Democratic politics in Florida. In 2000, the year of the recount and all that craziness, my dad voted for George Bush.
PGN: Did you want to strangle him?
BB: [Laughs] I did, I did! I begged and begged him, “Please don’t vote for that man.” I told him Dick Cheney was evil! When he voted for them anyway I didn’t talk to him for, like, six months. The thing was, he came from a country that was a dictatorship and when he left, he had two choices — to go to Russia, which has a significant African population, or to Europe, which is where he went. So he had a very anti-Communist, anti-socialist (i.e., leftist politics) opinion. But in the end, George Bush and his policies really moved him to the left and in the next election, he leaned towards Kerry and, by the time Barack Obama came along, he was fully in the camp. It was heartwarming to see his transformation.
PGN: What were you like as a kid? Were you always into sports?
BB: Growing up in the South, you were always expected to play football, which I did, but most of my energy as a young person was involved around politics and activism. We were a family that did apartheid activism. We also did a lot of election work. I was a Ross Perot kid and worked on his campaign.
PGN: [Laughs] He’s not a Democrat.
BB: I know. [Laughs] For a while I was influenced by my dad.
PGN: Oh dear. What’s a good family memory?
BB: The Christmas I got my first bicycle. I woke up and my oldest brother was like, “Come outside!” I walked to the side of the house and there was a bicycle and everyone shouted, “It’s for you!” and I was like, “Oh my goodness!”
PGN: That’s right … in Florida it would have still been bike-riding weather. I don’t know that I would like a warm Christmas.
BB: I love it. Our coldest weather was about 50 degrees. I went to college in Florida and I remember one year we had a few small flurries at Christmas. I think they canceled school! I’m horrified when winter comes here.
PGN: Where did you go to school?
BB: I went to Rutgers University for my master’s in public administration and education and a small HBCU, Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona, for a bachelor of arts in political science.
PGN: I’m not familiar with that HBCU (historically black college or university).
BB: It was founded by activist and educator Mary McLeod Bethune. It’s the only HBCU founded by a woman and we are very proud of our founder, Ms. Bethune. We try to live her legacy every day. And there’s a surprisingly big gay population at the school!
PGN: Which brings me to, when did you come out?
BB: I was pretty out growing up, but officially I told my parents when I was about 22. It was an unspoken thing all through high school where I dated different people.
PGN: Guys or girls?
BB: Guys. I’ve never dated a girl.
PGN: [Laughs] So you’re golden?
BB: Oh, my goodness. Yes, I am. I didn’t even go to the prom because I wanted to take a guy and I knew that I couldn’t. I wasn’t really out because I played football and wrestled, you know. I think I knew of one guy somewhere in Indiana who played sports and was out at the time. It’s amazing how far we’ve come in a short period of time. I’m so happy with where we are going and gay men being able to express their masculinity in sports, etc., showing that there are a lot of faces to our community.
PGN: Including the whole flag-football community. How did you get involved in that?
BB: I went to D.C. for the inauguration and someone took me to a gay sports bar, Nellies. Gay men interested in sports was a new phenomenon for me; I’m attracted to very feminine guys who usually have no interest in sports. Side note: We need to come together as a community and support both feminine and masculine men. Then I moved to Phoenix, Ariz., and I happened to see that TV show on Logo, “Shirts and Skins,” and I thought, Wow, there are whole leagues out there where people play sports! So I Googled “gay flag football in Phoenix” and a team popped up. I played there for a year before moving to New Jersey and joining a Philly team.
PGN: A favorite football moment?
BB: I guess being selected All State, or maybe when I went to my new school, which was a performing-arts school. It didn’t have the greatest football team and we lost our first game, like 72-0. The second game we really got murdered: 96-0! But our finest moment came the first time we ever scored. [Laughs] We were really close to the end zone and our coach called a time-out. He said, “Guys, please, please, we have to do this.” We ran a play up the middle and scored and everyone went crazy. [Laughs] The whole school poured out onto the field! We didn’t win, but I’ll never forget that moment. In flag football, I just love seeing people start the season at one level and getting better as the season progresses. It’s fun to see the confidence they gain, and of course the camaraderie of playing in the league is great.
PGN: Why were you at a performing-arts school?
BB: I played the contra-base clarinet for 16 years. The decision I made as a seventh-grader to play the clarinet changed my life, probably saved it. As a young gay male, I really wasn’t interested in school but I wanted to play, so I went. It kept me focused through college too. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had music, where I might have ended up. So I’m very passionate about the arts. I’m on the board of the Sister Cities Girlchoir in Philadelphia and Camden and the board president of Yell Gallery. Sister Cities is a wonderful group. The executive director is a woman named Alysia Lee and she’s one of the most inspiring people I know. She works on empowering young women through music. She’s gay too; you should do a profile on her.
PGN: Sounds good. Did you play in marching band, orchestra, concert band?
BB: All of that except for marching band during football season because I was on the field. In college, I did marching band too. HBCU colleges take it seriously so it was a lot of work. We’d go to games in middle Georgia and when we came on at halftime, people were stunned. [Laughs] They were like, “Woah. We’ve never seen anything like that in our lives. What is that?” I was actually in the movie “Drumline.”
PGN: Cool. Changing topics, you have quite a quirky résumé. Tell me about beekeeping in Paraguay.
BB: I’ve always wanted to join the Peace Corps. My dad being a foreigner made me want to explore the world and we’ve always had quite a few people in the Peace Corps in our lives — family, friends, etc. — and Chris Matthews was a Peace Corps volunteer.
PGN: Wait, what does Chris Matthews have to do with it?
BB: Um … I was obsessed with Chris Matthews for a long time. So I really wanted to go to Africa and managed to get an assignment there. Unfortunately at the last moment they had to switch me and sent me to Paraguay in South America. I was like, What? Why would you send me there? I have no connection to that place. Since they messed up, they let me choose what job I wanted to do. Beekeeping sounded the most interesting to me. I went and fell in love with the place. I’ve actually been back several times. There are more returnees and Peace Corps/host marriages there than anywhere else.
PGN: What’s so amazing about it?
BB: It’s a landlocked country without many resources but they have such amazing spirit. I lived in a little village and taught farmers about increasing honey production and doing cooperative work.
PGN: I volunteered recently at Philabundance with Wonder Women and it was very gratifying. What was a moving moment working with the Food Trust?
BB: I was in charge of coordinating our Healthy Corner Store Network. It was always empowering going into a store and seeing that the storeowners had taken techniques I taught them about promoting healthy eating, driving people to healthier options and seeing them implemented and working. It happened a ton of times and I was so proud. I’m doing similar work with my job in Baltimore now, as well as some youth leadership around nutrition and health education.
PGN: Scariest moment?
BB: There were two while I was in the Peace Corps. I was visiting another volunteer at his site and all day we heard a rumor about a crazy man who had been killing chickens, which are really valuable there. We were baking cookies and suddenly saw a guy outside the window. He was running down the street and 30 seconds later we saw about 30 people chasing him with guns and sticks. It was like a movie. He hid in the swamp area and everybody was looking for him. It was very surreal. They finally found him and hit him with whips so I called the police. The cop showed up on a little Vespa and walked him out of town. The scariest story was with a guy named Vale who I met there and dated for over a year. He invited me to stay at his house one night and we were hanging out watching movies when his cousin showed up at midnight. He looked at me and said, “Who’s that guy?” Vale wasn’t out to the family so he told them I was his Brazilian friend. He looked at me, said, “ I want him out of here” and walked out. It wasn’t even his house. Vale started freaking out and told me I had to go. We were about an hour away from my place and I had no way to get there at that hour, so he said, “OK, I’m going to put you in the living room and put a padlock on the door so you’ll be safe when he comes back.” So that’s what we did. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. The next morning he let me out at 7 a.m. and then walked behind me so we were separated. It was terrible, but it made me realize how privileged I am — that I was able to come home to a country where I’m able to express my sexuality freely. I had a scary experience, but he lives that fear every day.
PGN: Worst line tried on you?
BB: “I’m really into black guys.” It bothers me because I don’t want to just be someone’s fantasy. I have to be protective of myself. I want someone to like me for me.
PGN: Pets?
BB: We always had dogs. My first dog was Boomer, named after the quarterback Boomer Esiason. Then we had Toby who was a former show dog, a shih tzu. I don’t know how that dog managed to get into our family! He was pampered his entire life until he got to us. He was such a prima donna and scandalous! He got the neighbor’s dog pregnant. But he was an awesome dog. Then my mom had a dog, Rufus, who disappeared and then came back and then disappeared and came back again! I think he had another family.
PGN: A dog polygamist!
BB: Yes! And now she has a dog, Dexter. She keeps sighing, “I guess this is the only grandchild I’m going to have.”
PGN: What can people expect at the flag football tournament?
BB: A lot of really cute guys from all over the country! No, it’s going to be a really competitive football tournament with top-level teams. I really want to encourage people to come out to the games. Flag football is fast-paced and exciting and the level of competition is going to be out of this world. It will also be a great chance to socialize with people from all over the country and even a few international teams. There are going to be a lot of events in addition to the games. There’s a huge opening party at the Field House Oct. 9 and we expect 800 or 900 players to be at that event! Tim Adams from Field House has been a huge supporter, same thing for Kim from Fire & Ice, where we will be holding our closing party. The tournament takes place during OutFest so there’s a lot going on. I am the volunteer coordinator and we still need plenty of volunteers. Anyone interested can go to our website. And volunteers will get into some of our events for free!
For more information, visit www.gaybowl2014.com.
To suggest a community member for Family Portrait, email [email protected].