One of the most overlooked possibly LGBT sports heroes we have is Hobey Baker- the only person inducted into both the hockey and college football halls of fame. The captain of the Princeton football team where he was known as the "blonde Adonis of the gridiron", he also excelled at skating and is credited as being the first to develop skating backwards. He played for the burgeoning amateur hockey circuit as at the time it was considered gauche to play professionally. However this also caused him to feel adrift after college as he had nowhere left to go in the sporting world, and the grind of corporate life depressed him.
He received a reprieve by the US joining of World War I, he became a fighter pilot and was rejuvenated by it, at a time when it was one of the most dangerous things to do, period.
Despite having been a sports hero throughout college, it was said Hobey never let it go to his head and was down to earth and kind to everyone. Despite being a jock, he is not known to have had any romantic attachments at all. What he did have was a deep friendship with Percy Rivington Pyne, 2nd, a fellow Princeton graduate a decade older than him who put him up at his home on Madison Avenue in Manhattan after graduation.
Percy also set him up with a woman, introducing him to socialite Mimi Scott, to whom he became briefly and very publicly rngaged. It is said Hobey saw her as a surrogate mother in a way, as his own had divorced his father when he was a child. To Mimi it was a wartime amusement and broke his heart.
Just as the war ended, Hobey went up for a "last flight", even though he had already finished and was not required to. He tested out a plane that had recently been repaired but it crashed, killing him, on the day of Mimi's wedding to someone else. There have long been whispers of suicide, not least of all because he had felt he had nothing to live for or go back to with his repreive of the war being over.
His benefactor Pyne was a lifelong bachelor, and while it is very difficult a hundred years on to get the gossip on such figures, it is said he vwas gay. There are similar questions about Hobey. Looking at his relationship with Pyne, it isn't hard to see Pyne as an older benefactor in the vein of a "sugar daddy" relationship. Hobey came from what had been a well-to-do family that had fallen on hard times, in fact Hoby's brother had to forgo college as there was only enough money to send one of them. Meanwhile Percy came from an extremely affluent and notable family, Pyne Hall at Princeton is named for his ancestor.
Posting this here to share with you Hobey's story, or at least his beauty to appreciate. If anyone else is familiar with him or has speculation to add I would appreciate it!
