5 questions with Jere Becker
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Jere Becker works in sales and marketing for Worth Ross & Associates, Inc. He devotes his spare time to playing in and working for GLBT sports leagues. He founded the Texas Bulls gay flag football team last year and is working to bring the National Gay Flag Football League championship game to Dallas in October. Youth First Texas is the team’s beneficiary.
What does your job at Worth Ross & Associates involve?
We work with property owners, marketing their properties for lease and helping them find tenants, and we manage the properties once they have tenants. I am in sales and marketing, and my main responsibility is finding new properties for us to manage.
What did you do before you started working for the firm?
I used to work as a fitness trainer. I worked for the Centrum for about 10 years. Then I worked for Gold’s Gym for about six months before it closed. I spent the next couple of years working in sales for different companies before I came to work here last August.
What kind of events and organizations are you involved with in the GLBT community?
I have mainly been involved in different sports organizations. I played softball with the Pegasus SlowPitch Softball Association. I swam with Team Dallas Aquatics. I am going to Chicago this month to compete in my fourth Gay Games. I played softball at the Gay Games; I competed in bodybuilding, and I competed in the triathalon. This year I am competing in flag football.
How did you get involved in flag football?
I started the Texas Bulls team last September, but I played with the team from San Diego before that. I would go out and practice with them a few times, but I usually just showed up at the games to play. I have played in four championship games now. The league has 16 teams in 13 cities, and we hope to get a women’s league started soon.
Where did your love of sports come from?
My father played football in high school and college and my mom was a swimmer and a diver, so my four brothers and my sister and I all started sports at an early age. We never got musical instruments or something like that. We were just told to go find a game to play.
Soundout is a weekly column featuring people whose jobs and interests have an impact on the daily lives of members of the GLBT community. It features those who often go unnoticed by the press and community. If you’d like to recommend someone to cover in this column, contact staff writer Tammye Nash at nash@dallasvoice.com.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition, July 14, 2006.