Field of teams: forget about bars; today many people are turning to a new social scene - sports teams.

When JC Cummings came out at 28 in 1984, he thought he would never again play soccer, his favorite sport. The only gay people he was familiar with were film characters who were either disgraced or suicidal. His discovery of a gay team in Washington, D.C., he recalls, was "literally life-saving. It kept me from self-destructive behavior."

Until an injury recently forced Mary Farmer, also of Washington, D.C., to retire from softball, she was a regular on the field. What she loved most, Farmer says, was the number of young lesbians wanting to play with "old dykes" like her.

This summer thousands of Americans will travel to Amsterdam to compete in Gay Games V. But for many more, athletics are not confined to the quadrennial Games. Like Cummings and Farmer, many gay men and lesbians engage in team sports on a regular basis. From softball to volleyball, ice hockey to bicycling, gay teams are springing up all over the country. More than just a chance for participants to hone their athletic skills, the teams also serve as meeting places, matchmakers, even surrogate families. Without attracting much attention, in many ways gay sports have taken over the role once played by bars as gay community centers.

"Most soccer players don't hang out in bars," says Cummings, an architect and president of the International Lesbian and Gay Football (Soccer) Association. "The sexual toxicity is frightening, and there's all that smoke. But teams are friendly and welcoming. There is camaraderie from playing together, then going out to dinner and parties with people you share so much with." Indeed, the teams often recognize their social component. For example, the "cruise director" of the Boston Strikers Soccer Club organizes one social event a month. The gathering can cover anything from brunches to World Cup parties to trips to pro games.

The teams often are the opportunity gay men and lesbians need to create the kind of community that they seek. When Charley Sullivan moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., for graduate school, he found the gay population to be largely inactive. So five years ago he decided to start a swim club, Ann Arbor Queer Aquatics. Within months he had the family atmosphere he sought. When he and teammate Rob Koplan held a commitment ceremony, most attendees were fellows swimmers--some from rival clubs. "Gay swimming is an alternative to bars, but it's not about sex," Sullivan says. "It's a way to create strong, important relationships with people who have more in common with you than just being gay."

Other athletes contend that teams represent a healthy advance from bars for gay men and lesbians. "Before the Gay Games, bars were a double-edged sword for me," says software engineer Gene Dermody, a coach with San Francisco's Golden Gate Wrestling Club. "They afforded the only social outlet and spiritually and commercially supported our closeted community. But they also reinforced the stereotypes of desperation and addictive behaviors. I appreciate their contribution to our past, but they are no longer the only alternative."

While many gay athletes may prefer the fresh air of the track or playing field to the confines of a bar, the teams often have a close relationship with the bars. In particular, men's softball teams are often outdoor franchises of bars, which sponsor teams and are where players often retire to for a postgame brew. A Connecticut-wide softball league is filled entirely with bar-sponsored teams, while in neighboring Rhode Island, a Providence bar called the Yukon Trading Company also sponsors a squad, the Mounties.

Still, for many, bars are at least one step removed from the teams, and many sports have little connection with bars at all, something that draws appreciation from some unexpected quarters. Although the Golden Gate Wrestling Club accepts no one younger than 18, several parents have pleaded with Dermody to accept their gay sons. They know their boys will hang out somewhere, and they prefer a wrestling room to a barroom.

In fact, notes triathlete Nick Gardner of Los Angeles, many people who are just coming out use sports as an introduction to gay life. This is particularly true of younger men and women who grew up as athletes and feel isolated from other gays. "Once they find a nice, organized team, they can make a smooth transition," he says. "And they see that we really are everywhere."

Even out lesbians and openly gay men find the teams offer them the chance to establish an athletic identity they never had. Cummings notes that many men were rejected athletically when they were young. Once they begin working out at the gym, they feel more comfortable. But because old macho attitudes remain, they gravitate to gay teams. That is why, he says, soccer, softball, volleyball, tennis, and swimming are especially popular with gay men. "You can join with a minimum amount of experience, and they have a minimum amount of machismo," he says.

Other athletes use sports to reclaim their past. Joe Gallagher, league director of the Volleyball Organization in Los Angeles, describes that feeling: "They might have been good athletes in high school, but inside they were a mess because they were closeted. Now they want to feel like athletes who are whole."

The experience for lesbians is different. Farmer says that sports have long figured prominently in lesbians' lives, even if those teams were not labeled "gay." As a result, gay men experience a burst of novelty with gay teams that many lesbians do not. Yet gay teams do often bring the sexes together; in many sports such as running, teams are coed.

The teams' emphasis is less on competition than on enjoying the sport. "You can take tennis up at any age, keep in shape, and you don't have to be great to have fun," says Karl Lott, membership director of the Los Angeles Tennis Association. "We've got everything from the queeniest men to the greatest athletes."

Whatever the reason for joining, teams become extended families. "The race is the least important thing," Sullivan says. "People feel good if they do their best. There's a lot of cheering and clapping people on the back. Your first gay swim meet is like your first pride march--except everyone around is just like you."

The one thing most gay sports teams discourage is casual sex. "We are not a pickup place," Dermody scoffs. "People who try that are usually very disappointed." That is not to say that romance does not happen. Heather Milton of Washington, D.C., is in a five-year relationship that began on the soccer field, and other athletes tell similar stories. The key, says Ed Brakus, president of the Blue Planet Divers scuba club in San Diego, is that sports organizations are not designed as cruising grounds. "The pressure of the bar is off, so people act completely different--more natural," he says. "They become really good friends first, couples second."

The community-building spirit within the teams often extends outside of them. Many teams consider charity work to be part of their mission. In Dallas soccer players serve as coaches and mentors. The 20 groups that make up the International Gay Rodeo Association (which grew out of a 1975 benefit for muscular dystrophy) now raise funds for gay community centers and groups fighting breast cancer and domestic violence.

While such contributions to gay causes mark the teams as important members of the gay community, perhaps their most noteworthy work is as emissaries to the rest of the world. By presenting lesbians and gay men in ways that challenge the usual stereotypes, the teams can change attitudes while allowing everyone to have a little fun in the process. Nowhere is that clearer than in Rhode Island. Last year the Mounties softball team played a charity game against the Providence Police Department. The Mounties won. This year the cops have asked for a rematch.

Woog is a Westport, Conn.,-based freelance writer and author of Jocks: True Stories of America's Gay Male Athletes.