Couples marry below the breathtakingly alluring metropolis corridor dome every day. Straight couples. identical-sex couples. I once saw two guys, one dressed as Superman and one dressed as Aquaman, marry at the suitable of the grand staircase before embracing below the previous's crimson cape.
It's San Francisco. Rightly, when it involves love, anything goes.
but one marriage ceremony last week garnered consideration for breaking one of the vital final obstacles in this nation's long combat for marriage equality. Rick Welts, president of the Golden State Warriors, married Todd Gage, a Southwest flight attendant, in Room 200.
it is believed to be the primary time an government for an expert guys's sports team married his identical-intercourse companion. in accordance with the advocate, there are no out gamers in professional male sports and just a smattering of out executives and coaches. equal-sex weddings in the macho world of men's pro activities were unheard of — until now.
Mayor London Breed officiated the wedding of Welts, who turns sixty seven on Tuesday, and Gage, forty four, at eleven a.m. Jan. 10. She reported them "spouses for all times," popped champagne and served macarons within the group's shades, blue and gold.
national Basketball association Commissioner Adam Silver quipped on the league's subsequent annual revenue meeting in Miami that Welts became there on his honeymoon, garnering decent-natured laughs from other group executives.
almost all and sundry linked to the soldiers despatched Welts their congratulations. Even Kevin Durant, who left the crew in October beneath demanding instances, texted his former boss his premiere wishes for an extended and chuffed marriage.
"by no means in my lifetime might I even have imagined this," Welts informed me in a surprisingly very own interview. "It's been a really best, excellent experience."
The happiness is a far cry from the decades Welts spent hiding his sexuality, fearing popping out would endanger his career. He didn't ask his colleagues questions about their personal lives because he didn't want them to ask him the equal questions.
When his longtime accomplice, Arnie, died of problems related to AIDS in 1994, he took only a day or two off work. His secretary explained to callers that he'd misplaced an excellent chum; she didn't know the actuality about Arnie either.
A subsequent relationship of 14 years ended over Welts' refusal to convey his partner out of the shadows.
but his compartmentalized life begun to crack open in the summertime of 2009. Welts, then the president of the Phoenix Suns, boarded a Southwest flight returned to Arizona from Burbank. Passengers walked up a type of ancient-school rolling staircases to board the plane — and waiting on the good to greet them changed into Gage.
"You select your personal seat on Southwest, and as success would have it, I sat myself within the component to the airplane that he become serving," Welts recalled. "Our eyes met a couple of times. It does ascertain that there's this type of element as love initially sight. For me anyway."
"He was Mr. eight-F," Gage informed me, still recalling the seat his now-husband selected. "i tried to buy him a drink, however he simply had food regimen Coke. He swears that once I passed him his drink, I rubbed his hand, which I did not!"
The flight turned into short and packed, and the guys didn't have plenty time to have interaction. however Welts become decided to see Gage once again.
"I did what any red-blooded American boy would do, which is write my number on a Southwest serviette," Welts spoke of with a laugh.
Gage known as the quantity, however become scared off when he learned Mr. 8-F turned into now not most effective 23 years older than him, however also the president of knowledgeable basketball group. Gage explained that he lived a quiet lifestyles in Sacramento with two little ones from a old marriage to a woman and didn't feel their lives would mesh.
He observed he finally e-mailed Welts a 12 months later, apologizing for not giving him the advantage of the doubt and asking him out for a glass of wine. They clicked instantly.
but after a couple of months of dating, Gage nonetheless wasn't protected at principal professional movements attended through Welts. Welts stated he'd already lost one companion over now not coming out and "didn't are looking to make that mistake once more." He additionally secured the blessing to return out publicly from his aged mom who turned into demise of cancer.
At age 58, Welts become eventually able to tell his truth — and came out in a front web page story in the new york instances in might also, 2011.
"He went through that journey with me, which turned into somewhat harrowing, the entire long island media tour and the times article and every thing worried with that," Welts mentioned of Gage. "He changed into by using my aspect."
The popping out went easily, and Welts became relieved. The Golden State Warriors employed him as president later that 12 months.
He and Gage now break up their time between a home in Sacramento where Gage's 15-12 months-historical son is in high school and a apartment that's walking distance from the group's sparkling new Chase center. They determined over dinner final year to marry. It turned into mutual, with neither one popping the query.
"There turned into no on-the-knee moment," Welts defined.
Welts desired a big marriage ceremony, however Gage desired something small. Welts found a date closing fall when the soldiers had been at domestic but had a time without work, and the Fairmont inn turned into accessible. They started compiling a guest record, however soon grew to an unwieldy 400 people.
"It was me who eventually noted, 'Yeah, here is beginning to believe greater like a work function than a personal moment,'" Welts referred to. "We revised the date and the plan."
They chose Jan. 10, a date Gage's son and 18-year-historic daughter, a college freshman in Chicago, had been free. And Welts' more youthful sister, Nancy Schulte, and his niece were free, too. Breed, a longtime chum of the couple, became attainable to officiate.
Breed met the men as a supervisor when they all traveled to China on a Warriors commute in 2013. She has joked to the couple through the years that the first time she noticed the handsome Gage, no longer knowing he turned into paired up with Welts, she notion, "That's it — that's my future."
"She decided that if she couldn't have him, it might be awesome if I did," Welts mentioned with fun.
Breed said in a press release, "i used to be proud to operate the nuptials for 2 remarkable San Franciscans, Rick and Todd. Rick has also been a fantastic leader in a sports world which hasn't all the time been a welcoming vicinity for LGBT people to do anything so primary as be open about who they love, and i'm satisfied to have played a small half in celebrating his marriage."
It turned into just the household of six, the mayor and a photographer in the timber-paneled room under the seal of San Francisco as the guys spoke of, "I do." The household had lunch at Boulevard later on and celebrated with 20 pals that evening at Cavalier. Welts and Gage are planning a honeymoon in Spain after the soldiers' season is over, which, let's face it, is likely to be a ways sooner than in previous years.
Welts' sister warned me she'd beginning crying as she mentioned her brother getting married, and he or she changed into right.
"Twenty-five years in the past, Rick stood up for me at my wedding," she noted through tears. "i was simply so extremely joyful that now he can event that same classification of affection in his lifestyles."
again in the 1980s, when the siblings have been of their 20s, Welts sat his sister down on a bench in primary Park in new york metropolis and informed her he became losing friends to AIDS, she recalled.
"He observed, 'Do you have in mind what I'm making an attempt to let you know?' Of route I knew. It was a difficult thing to inform his little sister," she said, including popping out publicly has made her brother happier and extra carefree. "It's something he wished he could have carried out years and years ago. It just has been a sea alternate in his life."
the wedding made a splash in the gay media, with a photograph Welts shared on Twitter acting on a few LGBTQ news websites. Out journal ran it beneath a headline reading, "This history-Making gay NBA govt simply Married His partner."
In San Francisco, it seems like no massive deal. nonetheless it is.
"i used to be simply marrying the person i really like," Gage referred to. "but I guess we made historical past. How cool is that?"
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight looks Sundays and Tuesdays. e mail: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf Instagram: @heatherknightsf
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