My Interview with Demarco Majors (Bleu Magazine)

Bright Nights, Basketball and the Bible: Two Days with MTV/LOGOs breakout star Demarco Majors
Over the course of two nights, Bleu Magazine picks the brain of an all-star basketball player and gets the scoop on his life before the fame, his faith, his love life and how he ever had the strength to live with a bunch of jocks for a month and a half.
Words by Marcus Scott

For some, the game of basketball is merely a pastime, but for Bay Area marvel Demarco Majors, it’s a way of life. While most men walk to work in a suit and tie, Majors, 31, is captain of San Francisco’s Castro Rockdogs, winners of the 2006 Chicago Gay Games championship. He is also a bonafide “overnight celebrity,” reprising his role with the team as point guard on MTV Logo’s critically-acclaimed “Shirts & Skins.”
The show, documenting a grueling month and a half in the lives of some of San Francisco’s most athletically-inclined as they march to victory, became a sensation for the network. And why not? A team of striking and strapping masculine men working up a sweat sounds like a cloud nine get-away. Plus, with tensions between teammates and coaches, the moxie to overcome adversity as a team of openly out gay men, not to mention the teams’ quest for victory at thus year’s Gay Games, offered enough drama and tension to a make a successful season.
But there’s more than meets the eye about Demarco Majors, who would later become the first pro-mens basketball player to come out, playing with the American Basketball Association. He’s sharp, eloquent, carries himself like a soldier on a battlefield, and has a passion in his voice that speaks volumes even in his silences. As the preacher-turned-basketball captain speaks from a cellular phone, in various locations, Majors opens up and gets personal, as if sharing a testimony to the masses.
Day 1
Talking to Demarco Majors at nightfall via phone, as he sits, sipping a cup of Joe in a vociferous Manhattan Starbucks, the strident acoustics braying through the airwaves was at first disorienting. The earsplitting roar of the room cutting up dialogue could be disheartening to someone merely trying to pick the brain of a young scholar like Majors. But, he’s a man who makes himself heard: His smooth vocals just as easily rap softly at the eardrum and all that background noise fades out.
He must be used to all the racket by now, playing a sport that’s allowed him a chance to travel all over the world to hundreds of thousands of people. Known now internationally as an “out” basketball player, Majors made the Out 100 among other accolades, however it’s not to say he hasn’t been affected by bad press. In 2002, being apart of the San Francisco Rock Dogs, Majors became the subject of a story by a reporter for the Gay News hurting his chances of playing pro-ball on more “mainstream” teams.
“Thank God, I only lost a handful of contacts of people who wouldn’t answer my calls or talk to me anymore. But once the ABA came around, I was able to throw that to the side and instead of telling people who I am, I just went to the try-outs and worked hard and made the team.”
As being an athlete with the San Francisco Rock Dogs, Majors was never hindered from playing professional basketball, playing in various countries in several continents. Playing in Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, and Fuji, amongst other platforms, Majors thrived in the sport. The hard work paid off very well, as he celebrates victories closer to home, for example, with his teammates in Chicago after winning the 2006 Gay Games. “When you’re an import player and you’re American, especially African-American, you have to come out and perform or they show your visa, or [trade] you to another team, or you’re off the team. So, playing in the Gay Games with all my friends and my cousin, close to my hometown in Evansville, Indiana, was extremely, extremely special for me,” Majors clarified.
He’s talented and experienced ballplayer, with the potential of selling sports drinks, has the sex appeal to market high fashion clothing and a face made for a spot on a Wheaties cereal box. Nonetheless, it can be argued that playing in the Gay Games affected some of his platforms in sports entertainment, like his chances working with the National Basketball Association, for example. Being an athlete and gay, aren’t exactly classified as common in sports.
“However when it comes to playing on a level of the NBA, there were things I couldn’t play if I truly knew I could play because of that fear. I’ve gone to try-outs before and I have made it so close and then when people start to hear about your story, and where you’re from and people start to talk to you, you start to pull yourself away from the crowd because of that fear because of what people knew. Growing up, there was no one I could look up to. As an openly professional gay athlete, there’s never been anyone I could go and ask any questions to or to just get that information for myself. The only thing I’ve ever had was some of my friends, but it would be me there, doing what I thought I needed to do. So, it’s that fear that’s what hindered me,” Majors explained.
Born September 6, 1977, to a disadvantaged family in Evansville, IN, Majors began in the parks dribbling a ball, and not the tangerine and black orb he’d learn to master in his later life, but a soccer ball. “People might say we were lower class, but we were poor! Sometimes, my mom would come home and we’d eat bread or go to sleep hungry because mom [couldn’t] effort to put food on the table.”
In his youth, Majors endured physical, emotional and sexual abuse—which he says, allowed his talk to people about his experiences—allowed him to push on. Basketball was his getaway. While Majors would strap his cleats in school and kick a ball, after school, he’d play b-ball with the neighborhood boys. Through stories, he was well-informed of his father, a great ballplayer, who later became a paraplegic by the time Majors turned four, passing away twenty years later when Majors was twenty-four. However, he learned to cope later in life with the abuse, as weel as the absence of his father, and talks openly about it.
“You always go to your source of power when you’re feeling down. Some people pray, some people mediate, some people write in their journals, some of us pick up a basketball and go to the basketball court because there’s a family, there’s a kinship, there’s camaraderie. Your family may not be great at home but you can always take up four [or five] other guys, get on the other basketball court together, cheer, slap hands, hug, encourage, lose together, win together and form a bonding friendship. That was always my sanctuary. It’s my place of mediation, where I can be myself or be out of myself. It’s my home,” Majors mediated.
This also allowed Majors to view men in a different light, allowing him to become the representation of what people see today. With no other men in his household, living with his mother and two sisters, Majors didn’t know who to look to for his positive example of a man.
“I didn’t know how to be any of these things because my mother could only raise me the best she could. She couldn’t raise me to be a man. So, when I went to the basketball court, those were the images I would look at. The only people that really take you in where older street kids that already knew how it felt or are seeing you go through these things. All the people I looked up were selling drugs because we were poor, we were living in the projects and the only way to take care of the small things they had, be it kids or helping their other or father out was to sell drugs,” Majors said.
Growing up, Majors had other intentions of becoming the man the public views today. A self-described ugly duckling, when he turned 18 years of age, Majors moved to California where he attended school, and met a church group. “The moment I was baptized, I was already out meeting people on the street talking to them, studying the bible. From there, I started leading campus ministries. Leading up until I was 23; that was all I ever wanted. I knew the bible pretty dog-on well. It was the best gift I could ever get besides basketball,” Majors reminiscences.
As fate would allow, he constantly prayed and talked with people about impure thoughts. Never preaching against homosexuality, or about same sex couples, but it all changed when he turned 23. Speaking to people in the church, it slowly became evident that the church did not support some of his beliefs, “I would see things people wouldn’t normally see and sometimes I’d say things I didn’t normally agree with because I was getting higher and higher in the church and surely, I found myself pushed myself away from the church,” Majors said.
In 2001, looking to make a closer connection with gay men who enjoyed basketball, Majors went to the Internet and searched gay basketball, and making the discovery that there had been gay gyms with basketball courts in San Francisco. Accompanying Majors to these gyms were his cousin, fellow Rockdogs player Jay White, whom he had tricked into coming to play.
“He would come to open gyms with me, and when we started playing, he started to realize that, “wait a minute… these people aren’t that straight.” So when you walk into the gym and your shorts are a little shorter and your tone of voice is not that deep, and it has a lisp here in there…,” Majors chuckled. “But those boys play hard ball. They maybe a queen off the court, but on the quarter they are all butch, all man.”
Getting the scoop from fellow players that local gyms held tournaments, Majors and White played future teammate Rory Ray, before meeting other players Francis Broome and Alex Herrera. “Once I [came to] California and got through college and the whole process, me and my cousin went to The Castro to just to play at an open gym and Tony Jasinski came out to talk to us after we’ve been around for about 4 or 5 months and talked to me about going and being on a traveling team. He said, “You know there used to be a team here called the Rockdogs and you guys should really think about creating a traveling team, and you know there’s another guy who can play very well, his name is Alex Herrera, he’s a really good player and really good coach and I think this will be very good for each of your lives,” Majors said.
Fresh out of college, Majors and White, who both had a desire to play in tournaments such as gay basketball, wanted something like this opportunity ever since they came out to one another. “Alex invited to his house, and this happened after my dad passed away. My mom told me not to stay in my hometown and that’s really how it happened,” Majors informed.
Often spending time with White, eventually there became an unsaid rift between Majors and his cousin. “Me and my cousin had been around each other for so long and seen had each other under so many different lights, and we had been around each other so much that our identities had become a lot of each other. In order to do some of the things we had to do in life and in order for him to do some of things he wanted to do in life—we both at the same time, even without talking—made the decision,” Majors said. “It’s been a little over the year, even though, in the show, we hung out quite a bit. There would be time where we’d sneak off with each other and just go have a drink like we used to—though it’s kind of different now.”
“So, when they found out that a certain part of me wasn’t as masculine in their vision as they are, the first thing it was, “You mean this faggot whooped my ass?” or “I just got dunked on by a gay dude?” Majors laughed. Then he paused, and as if his voice has be been fossilized in a gelled ice, he reflected: “But one of my friends, who was okay with it for a while, started having visions from God and he started going to church and said that it was just wrong. I lost one of my best friends, and for me it wasn’t really a lost because if you’re one my best friends, then you love me for who I am and for all that I am. That was at a time that I lost thirteen members in my family, I was in a relationship that was failing, I couldn’t go back and try-out for a professional basketball team, and just letting the smoke clear from getting some of these stories from the Internet erased so that I can focus and stay sane a work a job (many jobs), so I can compete and make end’s meet. It was like a hurricane, the wind kept blowing.”
Day 2
A hoarse and raspy vocal rings out through Major’s silken and glossy baritone over the phone. There is no howl from the city streets, no blaring car horns, and the reverberation of steam and blazing foamed milk doesn’t clutter the conversation. There are no cameras in his face and Shirts & Skins has rapped its last episode for the first season. A relaxed and rejuvenated Majors sits back, unfiltered and unplugged, with an unfastened poetry in his vocabulary. Now fresh from his victory with the Rockdogs in Washington, D.C., a more serene and uninhibited Majors took the gloves off and talked man to man.
“Living with guys was so much fun because I hadn’t been around them in a long time, but on the flipside now that I’m older, I’m used to being on my own, so it can be boring because it’s self-serving. I mean, I’m passing the torch to the guys that slept above—Mike and Jamel—and they’re swinging their heads, talking loud and dancing. I’m in the room below them, and I need at least 6 hours of sleep,” said Majors of his experience with boys. “I can’t believe that was me up there doing that and now I’m the old guy. So, when they have those boom microphones and cameras in your face at seven in morning, oh my God that was tough. I don’t know how many people I almost went off on.”
So, one can imagine why playing with the Castro Rockdogs is therapeutic for Majors. When Majors worked with the team in 2002, the team became highly disappointed losing by one point in the semi-finals. Four years later, in 2006, the team won gold, so coming back two years later to play ball with some familiar faces wasn’t as disarming as playing with and meeting new faces. However, there were some adjustments this time around. Now in 2008, with a tight schedule, working fully time to support his lifestyle, and coming to a home to a camera crew, Majors was in a different kind of world.
As if the show hadn’t enough characters in one place. When guest stars like former NBA star John Amaechi and Olympic basketball gold medalist Sheryl Swoops walked into the loft, these icons had an overwhelming affect on the team. Now close friends with Amaechi, Majors originally was apprehensive to the idea of his cameo on the show. Upon hearing that he was going make a guest appearance on the show, the group became afraid that the show’s focus would shift to Amaechi. It never changed, however, as captain, Majors said that the ordeal was hard at first not only because teammates where talking to Amaechi instead of Majors but because Amaechi was in the league and Major couldn’t because he was openly gay to begin with. The relationship shifted, as the open-eared Amaechi gave his input when asked and encouraged the team to do their best.
Finishing up the show, he’s still in the dark about a second season with Logo. But, with his defined body type and pastor personality, a mystique charismatic flair to Majors is as man, he’s become a full-blown sex symbol in the process. This is somewhat an honor to someone who’s only been in the gay community an average of eight years ago and losing his virginity at 24 years old.
“When I was growing up in high school, I never thought of those things. I was always afraid of what people thought of me. I was always very skinny, ugly kid. At least I thought I was. There were times that girls would hit on me, but because of that fear I would never take it that far. Plus, when I went to church I wanted to do everything before Christ. I wanted a girlfriend that become my wife and on that day, when we’re marred, we become one with each other. By the time I was 20, I was the example of other students that were already having sex, that would talk to me,” Majors confessed. “After 17 years of being the ugly duckling, for the next 18, I can deal with being a sex symbol. That is, until my moisturizer run’s out.”
With big names slapped on advertisements and making cameos, Majors stands a league of his own, slowly becoming a household name. Modeling for over a year now, Majors has made cameos in Beyoncé’s “Freakum Dress” music video, sexy Aussiebum ads, and even helped co-host “Blatino Oasis” in Miami. He also works with a company on marketing, financing and investments. In addition, Majors is planning to write an autobiography with celebrated writer James Earl Hardy of the “B-boy Blues” fame and a to star in a steamy calendar, Majors says is hot. The calendar will introduce two other models, Majors hints is on the show and is to have a launch date in early 2009.
He’s also working to create a non-profit working with suicidal and homeless teens in New York because he’s outraged that the LGBT community make up 8 percent of the homeless in the city alone, “That’s ridiculous, especially because we’re in a recession. So, I’m providing a forum for their needs, because I know what it feels like,” Majors empathized.
Majors is a product of his experiences—from growing up in the Midwest from ugly duckling to bronzed sex symbol, from living in sunny San Francisco to being homeless for a short while in New York City, from closeted church boy to openly gay sports icon and reality TV superman—Majors has made his landmark.
“You know what? I might have never gotten to play in the NBA, and get to go to Beijing or something like that, but in the community that I get to represent in front of the world… just for that opportunity; I was given the chance to represent my city, to represent my family and to represent my friends. What more could you ask for?”

If you are interested in seeing the edited interview in Bleu Magazine, go here: http://www.nxtbook.com/splash/bleu/?nxturl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nxtbook.com%2Fnxtbooks%2Fbleu%2F2009winter%2Findex.php