Miami Herald (MH) - Sunday, May 10, 1998
Steve Rothaus; Herald Staff Writer

Happiness eludes the gold-medal diving champ, now 38 and on the road again, this time promoting his new video, Looking to the Light , a sequel of sorts to the book.

"Am I happy? It's something I'm working on. I'm more content," said Louganis, who stopped in South Florida this week for appearances in Fort Lauderdale and South Beach.

Breaking the Surface chronicles Louganis' early life, from growing up gay to becoming the world's greatest Olympic diver. Along the way, he had low self-esteem, abusive relationships and contracted HIV.

Not your typical all-American sports legend.

Looking to the Light is a "video diary" of Louganis' life after the book, he said.

The video at times is excruciatingly personal, including an episode shortly after the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, when Louganis appeared to a cheering, standing ovation led by President and Mrs. Clinton.

Weeks later, Louganis had gone on a drinking binge and tearfully checked himself into a clinic to dry out. All his anguish is captured on videotape.

"Patterns are hard to break," Louganis said. "Last year was really kind of bizarre. There were a number of triggers I did not recognize at first. I went back to old behaviors.

"You're thinking to yourself, `Haven't I learned that lesson yet?' But that's what patterns are."

Revealing his life story -- first through the book and then in a highly rated, made-for-television movie -- has been a double-edged sword, Louganis said.

"On the one hand, it was very freeing," he said. "On the other hand, it was very difficult. When people came up to me and said, `Oh, you're Greg Louganis . . .' and the recognition was there, I felt invisible. They weren't wanting to see a person. They saw an image. And images are impossible to live up to. I'm just human."

Personal relationships have been difficult for him, such as the boyfriend who told Louganis, "I never dated anybody who came with a manual."

"A manual?" Louganis recounts, still incredulous. "Three hundred twenty-five pages don't define me."

Louganis' life is complicated.

"I'm back in therapy," he said. "Before I even started the book, I lost two ex-lovers to complications from AIDS. Then, four months later, I lost my dad. Through that time, I was in therapy.

"I've always wanted to make a difference. In some ways, the book did. It gave people permission to talk about loss."

It also cast Louganis as a role model for young gay men and lesbians, and people with HIV. That makes him proud, but somewhat uncomfortable.

"If someone asks my advice . . . I kind of throw it back out. I tell them they have to do what's right for them, what's in their heart. Like coming out. The first person you have to come out to is yourself. We all have our own time frames for doing things.

"You never know what kind of effect you're going to have on [young people]. I was doing a video signing in Seattle and this young girl got up to the microphone and said, `After several suicide attempts I . . .'

"At the signing afterward, she came up to me and said `You probably don't remember me.' I said, `Of course I remember you.' "

Young gay people across America look up to Louganis.

"He's great. He's a great role model," said Doug Rees, 28, of North Bay Village. "It's great that he came out and said he is HIV positive. More people should be role models like that.

"He's a very big role model for the HIV community. I'm a nurse and know a lot of people with HIV," said Rees, who works at Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.

Rees hopes that being out has helped Louganis with his own struggles.

"He paid the price when he was silent," Rees said. "Now that he's open about it, he's probably been set free."

Not quite. But Louganis is stillworking on it.

"I feel the pendulum has swung, keeping secrets and then letting go of secrets. Sharing patterns that are hard to break," Louganis said.

The hardest pattern to break?

"Probably the notion of someone taking care of me. Playing that role: `Rescue me, rescue me.' It's not attractive, No. 1. That was the big one.

"I'm understanding that now. We're kind of raised with the whole Cinderella fantasy, that someone will take care of you: No, you need to take care of yourself."

Youth conference

The Sixth Annual Sun Conference is set for Thursday through next Sunday at Florida International University's North Miami campus. The event, which is open to the public, is sponsored by the Broward Gay & Lesbian Youth Group, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth of Miami and FIU's Pride Coalition.

The conference will help teach survival skills for GLBT youth, and deal with issues including sexual orientation, gender identity, coming out, AIDS and gay activism.

A leadership course will be given Thursday. Dan Renzi, director of the Kansas City AIDS Project and a Real World television cast member, will be keynote speaker at a dinner Saturday.

Registration costs $30, including the dinner. On-campus housing is available Thursday through Saturday for $30 a night. Call (954) 384-4060 or (305) 892-0057 for more information.

CAPTION: photo: Greg Louganis (a)
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