Leading up to the 2010 Gay Games in Cologne, Gerard Burley was traveling through Europe working as a model and competing in a low-level professional basketball league.
Burley met up with his basketball teammates from the D.C. Sentinels in Cologne and together, they won a bronze medal. It was Burley’s first Gay Games and looking back on it, he says all his focus was on winning. The D.C. Sentinels just wrapped up season two of the Washington, D.C. Gay Basketball League and used that momentum to claim the tournament title at the Coady Roundball Classic in Chicago earlier this month.
A Baltimore native, Burley’s sports background includes football, baseball and basketball. After competing on his high school’s baseball and basketball teams, he went on to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he played on the scrimmage team against the varsity players.