His work most recently took him to Los Angeles, where he was the main writer for NFL Network's flagship show, NFL GameDay Morning. He has also directed content or written for CNN, Village Voice Media (where he served as columnist at Houston Press), New York Daily News, and Modern Luxury Media, where he was editor of Houston's first men's magazine. \u003Cbr/>Passionate about promoting Houston as the next great global city, he also co-hosts and co-produces the weekly CultureMap television and streaming segments on ABC13.\u003C/p>","identifier":"22243373","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://houston.culturemap.com/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8zMzIyOTk0MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTc2MzE0MTEwM30.SpKsPMbbo_XonejubDrsNYFeJ1ekjyalB_TuhZ_jDiA/image.jpg?width=210"},"name":"Steven Devadanam","url":"https://houston.culturemap.com/u/stevendevadanam"},"dateModified":"2022-10-07T19:06:54Z","datePublished":"2011-05-27T20:40:00Z","description":"Beyond Pitchers and Catchers","headline":"Forget limp wrists: Gay volleyball championship spikes hard in Houston","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","height":600,"url":"https://houston.culturemap.com/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8zMTczMjk3OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTc0NTUwMzE0NX0.TijlKXhSuG32_EoXKtOZaTtJlSPyCqQurmTPsKfQTcg/image.png?width=210","width":1200},"keywords":["unspecified"],"mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https://houston.culturemap.com/news/sports/05-27-11-forget-limp-wrists-gay-volleyball-championships-spikes-hard-in-houston","@type":"WebPage"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://houston.culturemap.com/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8zMTczMjk3OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTc0NTUwMzE0NX0.TijlKXhSuG32_EoXKtOZaTtJlSPyCqQurmTPsKfQTcg/image.png?width=210"},"name":"CultureMap Houston"},"url":"https://houston.culturemap.com/news/sports/05-27-11-forget-limp-wrists-gay-volleyball-championships-spikes-hard-in-houston"}
Forget limp wrists: Gay volleyball championship spikes hard in Houston - CultureMap Houston
Beyond Pitchers and Catchers
Forget limp wrists: Gay volleyball championship spikes hard in Houston
F Bar packed more than 500 volleyballers on Thursday evening.
Photo by Steven Thomson
The games are rife with excitement.
Photo by Steven Thomson
The games are rife with excitement.
Photo by Steven Thomson
The games are rife with excitement.
Photo by Steven Thomson
The American Association of Museums Annual Meeting ended on Wednesday, but that doesn't mean that the George R. Brown Convention Center is suffering from a dearth of homosexual hubbub. That's because Friday marks the beginning of the North American Gay Volleyball Association (NAGVA) Championships XXIX.
It's a four day extravaganza of slick serves, ball-busting spikes and non-stop gay clubbing for 1,000 volleyballers from all 50 states, Canada and Puerto Rico.
The NAGVA championship goes down every Memorial Day. "Houston's advantage laid in the proximity of the convention center, the Hilton and The Grove," local tournament director Brian Crumby tells CultureMap.
Working with the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, a Houston crew made their pitch last year at the annual NAGVA board meeting during the Portland, Oregon-based championship. Houston also hosted the games in 1994 and '99.
Friday afternoon's "pool play" brought a slew of underhand, sky ball and topspin serves to Halls A and B at the convention center, which were recoated with special volleyball courts.
"This is the fifth nationals I've been to," said Jason Wong, who had flown in from LA and plays for the San Francisco Freeballers.
Why the city double play? "The way it works is, each team needs just four core players that have played in a NAGVA tournament together," explained Wong, who is also friends with "a lot" of the SF players. At NAGVA, team loyalty runs from deep to nonexistent, and city slutting is far from frowned upon.
Wong listed the tournaments in Portland and Denver as among his favorites, but added, "It ends up being about the teams you play on and how well you end up doing."
When CultureMap spoke with Crumby, he reported that his team, titled Houston That's Just Lazy, had won five games and lost three. A second round of pool play will be held on Saturday, with the actual championship launching that evening with an opening serve by councilwoman Sue Lovell and performance of the national anthem by Tye Blue.
Blue happens to be the resident host and entertainment director at the fledgling F Bar, where he welcomed 500 volleyballers Thursday night after a welcoming party at The Grove.
"I liked the music," Wong said. "But, honestly? Compared to LA clubs, it's a little small."
Contestants will decide whether or not size does really matter as they grind tonight at Guava Lamp and Vue, during a Saturday night Hilton Americas-Houston pool party and closing banquet on Sunday. That day has the reputation for the hardest partying — Crumby predicts that 70 to 80 percent of the 1,000 members will pile onto coach busses and head to the F Bar after-party.
The Gold Over America Tour cast performing on NBC's "America's Got Talent."
First came the gold medals, now comes the Gold Over America Tour, the gymnastics mega-show headlined by Simone Biles, currently touring 30 cities around the United States and coming to Houston’s Toyota Center on Saturday, October 19.
Joining Biles are fellow Paris Olympic champions Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera, along with bronze medal-winning men’s team members Paul Juda, Brody Malone, Asher Hong, and Fred Richard, plus other gymnastics superstars. Adding men to the G.O.A.T. showcase is a new twist; the 2021 tour, post-Tokyo Olympics, had a cast made up entirely of women.
It’s a change that Biles hopes will help elevate men’s gymnastics around the country.
Juda, for one, couldn’t be more grateful. The Olympic medalist is still riding the wave of excitement from winning the first USA men’s team medal in 16 years, along with having achieved his own dream of competing in the Olympic individual all-around final.
We recently chatted with Juda, who took us behind the scenes of the G.O.A.T. show, the squad, and life on the tour bus as a college student missing classes to travel the country like a rock star.
CultureMap: At the Olympics this summer, the whole vibe of men’s and women’s USA gymnastics seemed happy and supportive of each other. How are you carrying that camaraderie into performing together as a troupe in the Gold Over America Tour?
Paul Juda: I think during the whole Olympic experience we just had a lot of joy. We had a lot of of fun outside of those two hours of competition. So the competition in and of itself was kind of like a "mission critical," and we were pretty focused, but we still tried to keep it light.
On this, there's no real competition; we’re here to put on the best show possible for the audience. And as long as we can kind of keep leaning in on each other like our support system, the shows are going to come easier because it's going to be a long tour. It's going to be hard, but fun together.
I can already see even just on the the two nights and three days that we've been here together, we've had a lot of fun. We're all best friends here, and we're going to bring that kind of energy to the stage.
CM: The last Gold Over America Tour was all women - and the theme was very much female empowerment, and girls as superheroes. Now that men are included, what can we expect from the show this time?
PJ: I think it's awesome (men are included) and I'm not even gonna lie, this tour just got, like, a million times better after making a medal. I'm really excited to get to do the show. It's going to be a lot of back and forth (between men and women). Yeah, we're doing some gymnastics; we're trying to learn a little bit of dancing. We've got lights, we've got a lot of songs, and we're bouncing off of each other's stories. There's going to be a lot of really fun, fun parts. (Note: Here's a preview.)
CM: Figure skating has shows like “Stars on Ice” and the old “Ice Capades” that they can join after the Olympics to perform for audiences. Would you like to see something like that for gymnasts, who often don’t get to really “entertain” audiences?
PJ: Yeah, (in gymnastics) we use the human body to all of its maximum capability, and (learning) dance moves, I enjoy using a different side of my brain. I'm a guy who would also enjoy a musical or a Broadway show or something like that, just for the element of like, “Wow. Look at the choreography and how they're able to add the music and the lights and everything in the whole production.”
And then you couple it with the fact that we have, like, extraordinary strength and flexibility and we can kind of do almost circus-like events, but then also add in a touch of difficulty - like hey, okay, they're not just acrobats; they also spent 20 years doing this sport.
I feel like it's the ultimate show. You know, it's some dance lights, some music, a storyline, you can watch your favorite athlete and then see him or her in a kind of different light. Now the athlete literally just gets to have fun out there. I wouldn't see why people wouldn't want to see more of this type of show.
CM: There’s so much buzz around gymnastics during the Olympics. How do you keep those fans interested the other three years in between, especially men’s gymnastics?
PJ: I'm hoping this tour does that, and I'm also confident, like anything that we do afterwards on the global stage (like "pommel horse guy" Stephen Nedoroscik competing on Dancing With the Stars), I hope people are like, "Oh yeah, I see them doing that. But I also remember they represent men's gymnastics."
Paul Juda on parallel bars for the University of Michigan team.Photo by John Cheng
Q: A lot of cast members are in college, including yourself (a graduate student), and you’re also captain of the University of Michigan Men’s Gymnastics team. How will you balance your studies and college athletics commitments while you’re on tour?
PJ: (He holds up a notebook with a calendar planner filled in.) This. I'm looking at my schedule today, I've got a weekly reflection. I've got a case to work on. I've got a data analytics assignment, a lecture to watch, and a reading quiz to do, so, it's a lot for sure. Hopefully after this tour I can come back and be in a really good place with my team. It's really bittersweet. (Teammate Fred Richard and I) we were able to have our only really big tailgate of the year for the Michigan football game last week. And I'm just so heartbroken because that that's like my favorite part of the year.
I think my team will be okay, though, and I've left some excellent people in charge … phenomenal captains, and I have no doubt that they'll keep the team on pace, and if they need anything from me, they'll text me.
And on top of that, in terms of school, I think honestly, if anything, it’ll just keep me doing the right things. I got to go to bed early to wake up early and get some homework done, that's probably for the best. I’ll try to do some lectures on the tour bus and stuff.
CM:The reception in Houston - hometown of Simone Biles and adopted hometown of Jordan Chiles - will be nuts, and of course Fort Worth is where the last National Championships was held this past summer. What cities are you most looking forward to?
PJ: Chicago and Detroit are going to be my two main places. I've got a lot of people coming for the Detroit show from University of Michigan, and then Chicago, that’s where I'm from. Every time that I've visited Texas, I really enjoy Texas. We'll have a lot of fun. I'm excited to see the Texans come out and specifically in that Austin area, we've got a lot of people there.
CM: Well, don’t forget your cowboy hat.
PJ: Alright!
Note: This interview was edited for clarity and brevity. The Gold Over America Tour, presented by Athleta, will take place at 7:30 pm October 19 at the Toyota Center in Houston. For tickets ($35-$500) and more information, visit the website.