The Shawnee Mission East class of ’08 loves its gay homecoming king
On a cold February night, the Shawnee Mission East gym is packed. It’s Senior Night, and the boys’ basketball team is taking on the rival Shawnee Mission South Raiders. It’s a close game, and the excitement and tension threaten to sweep the crowd into a frenzy.
Well-dressed parents cluster together on the bleachers and the limited floor space. Hordes of younger siblings stroll around in packs, toting soda bottles, red licorice whips and popcorn from the snack bar. The student bleachers line one wall of the small gym. The East kids, a block of dark blue, are separated from their yellow-and-green-clad South counterparts by a doorway. The East fans boisterously cheer on their team. They sing the Olé-olé-olé-olé song and rhythmically clap en masse. At one point, they chant, bull-shit, bull-shit, to the dismay of the official-looking grown-up types who stand guard at the foot of the bleachers. A couple of beefy security guards also patrol the area, and several more are scattered throughout the gym.
Right above the student bleachers is a homemade sign in the East colors of blue, black and white. It reads: “Thank you SME senior cheerleaders.” The names of the squad members are listed, including Reagan, Haley, Matthew, Kirby, Morgan.
The cheerleaders split up into two groups that line up on either side of the basket. Matthew Pope — the tallest member of the squad as well as the only guy — takes a spot in the back row. The 17-year-old, who choreographs all the routines, is one of the three co-captains of the squad.
There’s another thing that makes Matthew stand out. He’s openly gay. At Shawnee Mission East, a school that’s often stereotyped as conservative and snobby.
On the court, Matthew is sporting his cheerleader uniform, which consists of black track-style pants and a short-sleeved polyester-blend top that says “SME.” His melodic tenor drifts above the din as he yells, “Here we go, Lancers, here we go.” During the free-throw shots, the squad members raise their hands; the girls shake their pompoms while Matthew wiggles his fingers. Later, he hoists a girl up so that she’s standing on his hands for a couple of seconds before jumping down. And the crowd goes nuts when he performs his signature move: a series of back flips across half the court.
With 3:06 to go before halftime, East scores and trails South by one point. The band starts playing “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” and the cheerleaders do high kicks while the students bellow, “Oi-oi-oi!” By halftime, the game is tied at 21.
The senior cheerleaders and drill team members, along with their parents, gather at one side of the gym to be presented to the crowd. Matthew stands in the middle of the group with his mom and older sister. The women receive small bouquets wrapped in blue tissue paper and cellophane. Then they all walk out and line up on the court. The announcer reads everyone’s names and college choice. For Matthew, it’s either Loyola in Chicago or the University of Oklahoma.
Right after his presentation, Matthew walks the short distance to the student section. He stretches both arms out at his sides in a “come on” gesture, then executes a back flip. The kids erupt in cheers and start chanting, “Pope! Pope! Pope! Pope!”
The game remains tight until the end. With 45 seconds left, East scores and pulls ahead, 43-42. The students start singing, “Na-na-na-na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.” South ties it up with 0.4 seconds left. “Come on, let’s go!” yells Matthew, who does another back flip.
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The game goes into overtime. Halfway through, an East player is called for a foul, and the crowd boos. Seventeen seconds later, South is ahead by a point and the East kids start chanting, “You are aw-ful, you are aw-ful.” The teacher types at the bottom of the student bleachers try to shush them, and the cheerleaders counter with “Here we go, Lancers, here we go.” East gains the lead, 50-49, with 33 seconds left. South answers with a basket near the 5-second mark. Then an East player fouls out, and South gets a free throw with 4.5 seconds left. The South player makes the basket, and the Raiders win, 52-50.
When the buzzer sounds, the South kids rush the floor. Some of the East students rush in, along with some concerned parents. Matthew takes several steps out onto the floor and motions for people on East’s side of the gym to stay back from the scrum. Then the guards move in quickly to break things up and herd everyone toward the doors. The band starts playing the school song, and many of the East kids put their arms around one another’s shoulders to sway and sing. The song ends with the kids stomping their feet and yelling, “SME!” The gym finally clears out, its floor littered with iridescent pompom strands and spilled popcorn kernels.
Afterward, Matthew is still pumped up from the excitement. As he’s gathering his stuff on the side of the gym, some students come over to say hi. A couple of moms stop by to hug him and one consoles him on the loss. “We got state,” he says. “We’ll prove it there. We still got state.”
He explains the near melee in a rush of words, recalling a game during his freshman year. The Lancers played at South that night and won by something like 20 points. The East students rushed the floor and chaos erupted — he had to pull a cheerleader away while trying to protect his squadmates. “I saw it [happening] again, and said, Not senior year.”
As it turned out, Matthew’s senior year has been nothing like his freshman one.
At the homecoming dance last October, Matthew stood on the platform stage in the East gym. He was nervous and excited. His friend Sarah Jones, whom he knew from cheerleading, stood by his side and gripped his hand tightly. The gym was hot, and the lights shone brightly onto the homecoming king and queen candidates.
Matthew sported black tux pants, a black button-down shirt and his brother’s bright-pink tie. A mass of people crowded the stage as if they were at a concert. He waved to friends. His mom, Teri, a nurse at Olathe Medical Center, stood to one side. He spotted two of his best friends, Serena Verden and Jessica Perbeck, in the middle of the crowd. His boyfriend, James Castle, was resplendent in a black Armani suit and a red tie.
The theme of the dance was “A Knight in Hollywood” — a play on East’s Lancer mascot. Balloons and streamers in the school colors hung from the ceiling and on the walls of the gym and in the hallway. Pictures of celebrities lined the walls, and a red carpet created a path from the school’s doorway into the gym.
Matthew had been dreaming of this moment since his freshman year. To him, it represented a level of acceptance by his peers. In previous years, friends lost out on the crown because they were into theater or choir. He believed, though, that the students in all four grades accepted him for being a theater person and a singer in the choir — and for being gay.
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When Matthew came out at the beginning of his freshman year, he was terrified that he’d lose longtime friends or be harassed. He got a few nasty comments during freshman and sophomore years, and he got into a fight at a Shawnee Mission North homecoming after-party over being gay. But he found, to his surprise, that his experience coming out was generally really cool.
A lot of things are “really cool” to Matthew. He has a sweet demeanor and a friendly face to match. He’s the guy who says hi to you in the hallways, which helped him win votes for homecoming king. “A lot of people came up to me and said, ‘Oh, I nominated you because you said hi to me that one time — you’re just so nice,'” he says. “I say hi to everyone. I want people to feel nice when they’re walking … I think it’s good for people to be, like, acknowledged instead of just kind of pushed away.”
He first started questioning his sexuality in eighth grade. Before that, he loved girls. “I was all for the girls,” he said. But then he started to ask himself, “Am I?” And at the end of the school year, he realized, “Yeah, I am.”
After that, he didn’t want to waste any time trying to hide it. “It’s hard not to talk about it or be who you are, so I’m going to go right out and say it,” he told himself. He started coming out to close friends and their families, and the mom of a good friend suggested that it was time to tell his own family — especially his mom. “She needs to know. She needs to find out from you,” his friend’s mom said as she held his hand.
Matthew and his family are extremely close. He grew up in Fairway, the youngest of three. His brother, Michael, was a senior when Matthew was a freshman. Matthew was friends with a lot of older kids. He had to grow up fast — his parents had to work long hours — and he had a level of independence that the other kids didn’t. He recalls that when he was 5 years old, he was allowed to ride his bike to the Prairie Village Shops by himself.
Five years older than Matthew, Katie is the big sister who’s also a best friend. She was also the first family member he came out to. He didn’t know her views on homosexuality, and he was scared that he would disappoint her.
After his friend’s mom suggested that he tell his family, Matthew called Katie and asked for a ride. He got into her little silver car, and before they even left the friend’s driveway, he started weeping. “I have to tell you something,” he said.
Katie thought something horrible had happened. He told her, and Katie burst into tears.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she cried. “Why would you think that would change how I feel about you? You’re my brother. I love you.”
After recovering a bit, she even managed to make a joke. “Now I have someone to go shopping with!”
Back onstage at the homecoming dance, time had slowed down in Matthew’s mind, and as a teacher read the homecoming queen candidates’ names, he wondered how he should react when the teacher announced the king. He was elated that he was nominated alongside many of his good friends. He and about half the court had gone to dinner at J. Gilbert’s before the dance. Also that night, his mom had met James — it was the first time he had introduced her to a boyfriend.
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Sarah kept squeezing his hand. “I know you got it. I know you won,” she repeated.
“Don’t say it! Don’t jinx it!” he replied.
One of the first people he came out to was his then-best friend, Hope Lowe. They’d known each other since kindergarten; her mother was like a second mom to him. Friends teasingly called her Hope Pope because she and Matthew hung out all the time. She and her family are religious, so he was nervous about talking to them.
He called Hope one afternoon and said, “I need to tell you something.” The drive to her house took about two minutes — not enough time to think too hard about what he was about to do but enough to be nervous. After arriving at her ranch-style house, he went with her to her room, and they perched on opposite edges of her canopy bed. “I have something really important to tell you,” he said.
Hope looked at him, wide-eyed. “Yeah, what are you going to tell me?”
“Well,” he said, pausing between each word as he delivered the news, “I’m gay.”
“Really?” she asked. Her face froze in shock. “Ooooohkay.” She started peppering him with questions: “Are you sure? Do you really know? When did you find out?” She also wanted to make sure that he was certain — she didn’t want him to come out and then change his mind. He told her he didn’t want to come out unless he was sure, and he knew by then that he was.
“Oh. Well, that’s good,” she responded.
At the end of their talk, she gave him a huge hug and told him, “You’re still my best friend. I still love you.” Then they went to tell her mom.
In the living room, Hope’s mom watched TV from a La-Z-Boy-style recliner with Hoosier, the family’s miniature dachshund. “We need to kind of talk to you,” Hope said. Her mom muted the TV. “So … Matthew’s gay,” Hope said.
Hope’s mom sat for a second then replied with, “Ooooh, OK. That’s cool!” Later, her mom told Hope’s by-the-Bible father, who seemed to take it in stride.
“I kind of changed their thought on homosexuality,” Matthew says now about Hope’s parents. “They realized I’m still the same kid they’ve known forever, and it wasn’t my choice to be this way; it’s how I’m made. I wouldn’t really want to choose to be in a minority group or choose to be put aside. And they realize that.”
Coming out to his parents wasn’t as easy.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Matthew and three of his best friends wolf down roast-beef sandwiches, wraps and curly fries at Arby’s. The Corinth Square location, near 84th Street and Mission, is a frequent pit stop for the group.
To his right sits 18-year-old Serena Verden, a slender brunette with intense blue eyes. She used to have a big crush on Matthew. Also at the table are 18-year-olds Jonathan Firth, a friendly blond, and Beau Atkinson, a quiet guy in madras shorts. In between eating and texting, they talk about driving around and getting lost, hanging out in Jonathan’s basement and decorating floats for Lancer Day. The talk soon turns to prom, which is coming up on May 10 at Union Station. Serena and Matthew went together last year.
“Prom was so much fun,” Serena says.
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Matthew agrees. “I’m excited for this year’s prom.”
“Me, too. I need to get a date,” Serena says. Matthew and Jonathan launch into how they went with older girls during their sophomore and freshman years.
“I want you to take me to prom! Because I’m not going to get a date!” Serena says to Matthew.
He assures her that she’ll find a date, then ponders his own situation.
“I’m going with … I don’t know.” He’s been dating James, whom he met online, for about nine months. Their relationship is on-again, off-again.
“Whatever,” Serena says.
They move on, discussing graduation parties and summer plans. Matthew, who has decided to go to the University of Oklahoma in the fall, will travel around the region to help coach cheerleading camps. Jonathan is taking a year off to work and will move into his grandmother’s former house. Matthew will be his roommate for the summer. The thought of moving into the house and fixing it up stresses them out.
“Maybe we should just go over there and start doing stuff,” Matthew says.
“We should,” Jonathan agrees. Matthew points out that Jonathan’s mom won’t mind. “She’ll be like, ‘Oh, Matthew.”
“They’re great people,” Jonathan says about his parents. “They accept a lot.”
“The reason why I love his family is they’re the most open-minded family you could ever have,” Matthew says. Jonathan’s dad, an ordained minister, is one of the four straight men in the Heartland Men’s Chorus, and two of their neighbors are gay couples.
Jonathan talks about how some people they know think the topic of sexual preference is weird. Matthew brings up a recent trip to Colorado with an all-male ultimate Frisbee team. No one even said anything about him being gay.
“Pope did such a good job with, like, how he came out. It’s just, like, he made it so comfortable to be like, ‘Oh, Pope’s gay. Let’s make fun of him about it — kind of,'” Jonathan explains.
“Not make fun about it, but making fun of how people could take it,” Matthew says.
“No one does. So we just kind of make fun. It’s better than doing it in a mean way,” Jonathan says. Speaking of mean ways, Matthew reminds his friends about the time he got rocks thrown at him. He went to the homecoming dance at Shawnee Mission North with a female friend, and at the after-party, two North guys instigated a fight. But then, he says, everyone else at the party broke it up and asked him if he was OK.
“They’re just North,” Jonathan says.
“Yeah, they’re North. They’re different,” Matthew replies.
“That’s all. That’s all it is,” Jonathan says.
During the summer before Matthew’s junior year, his dad died unexpectedly. His heart just stopped. Richard Pope had worked at Central Plains Steel in sales. He helped design their house, and he owned a restaurant. Matthew inherited his love of singing from his dad. In tribute, his mom paid for Matthew to get a tattoo when he turned 18 in March. His right shoulder blade bears a 2-inch banner that reads, “Dad.” It’s surrounded by music notes and is enclosed by a circle of dots. Their mutual love of music and singing now lives on in a pattern of dark ink.
After coming out to his sister in her car, they drove home to tell their mom. After they got home, they went to the kitchen and put some ice cream in bowls — Katie’s suggestion, in case Matthew needed to focus on something if he couldn’t talk. Then they went into their parents’ room.
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“Matthew has something to tell you,” Katie told Teri, who sat up. Matthew stood in the doorway, practically hiding. He was unable to look at his mom. He picked through his ice cream and ate around the tiny peanut-butter cups.
Teri Pope’s first reaction was stunned silence. Then she said calmly, “How do you know? You’re too young. You don’t know.”
Matthew took this as the rejection he’d feared. He started crying, and everything went blurry. “I’m not too young,” he said. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe this. Why are you saying this? I’m not too young. I know I am.” He still tried to eat his ice cream.
Teri was just trying to understand. She had never met anyone who was openly gay; she grew up in a military family and was the product of Catholic schools. She wanted to understand and wanted him to explain more, but Matthew heard it as rejection.
Matthew slammed his bowl of ice cream on the bathroom counter. Matthew and Katie went to the basement, where their brother was working on his computer.
“Yeah, I already knew. I kind of go to the same school,” Michael replied. They all started laughing.
Teri told Matthew’s father, Richard Pope, who acted a little awkward with Matthew at first. One night not long after, it was just the two of them at home. KU was playing that night, and it was tradition for the family to watch it at Birdies. They’d take a bag full of KU paraphernalia to put on tables during the games — a little stuffed Jayhawk, pompoms, red and blue beads, and Richard’s old KU jacket. But Matthew wasn’t sure if his father would still ask him to go. But then his father said, “Let’s get the bag together.” In the car, they talked about school.
The rift with his mom took longer to heal. “We still had a relationship, but for me, it always felt a little part was just keeping us apart. It wasn’t fun,” he says. He admits that he wasn’t mature enough to understand where she was coming from and that he over-reacted and misinterpreted her questions and actions as being anti-gay. During his freshman year, he hung out a lot with juniors and seniors and sometimes sneaked out of the house to meet his friends. He took umbrage at his mom’s suggestions that he needed more friends his age as well as her attempts to enforce his curfew. “You never put these rules on Katie or Michael. I can’t believe you’re doing this to me!” he told her.
They finally mended their relationship right before Matthew’s senior year. He left a letter for her explaining that he didn’t want to have to conceal things from her and he wanted their relationship to go back to how it was when he was younger. He told her about James, whom he had just started dating, and how he wanted James to go to homecoming with him.
“We needed to get our cards on the table. And we did,” he said.
At the dance, the 12 homecoming king candidates were introduced, and the announcer started counting down the five runners-up.
After the first runner-up was announced, he realized, “Oh, I haven’t been called yet.” He looked around, trying to figure out which of the remaining candidates was going to be the next king. He conveyed this to Sarah, who assured him again, “You’re going to get it.”
He felt nervous and reminded himself to calm down.
When the announcer read his name, he stood there, shocked. His heart kept racing. “You won!” Sarah screamed over the uproar from the crowd. She started jumping up and down and grabbed him.
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There’s no way I’m homecoming king. No way, he thought. Sarah helped him walk to the middle of the stage, where Laura Wetzel, the queen, crowned him and gave him a big hug. “That’s awesome, Matthew!” she said.
Matthew’s cheeks were red, and his face hurt from smiling so much. Looking out, he waved to his mom, who was jumping up and down. He saw Serena, perched on someone’s shoulders, clapping and yelling loudly. He and Laura posed for pictures, and then they walked out of the gym with their court following.
Out in the hallway, he was mobbed by people congratulating him. His mom rushed up and started taking pictures. She knew how much he wanted to be nominated and how much his win meant. “I’m just so proud of you!” she said. He was a little surprised that she attended homecoming, but for the rest of senior year, she attended more events and games than before.
Matthew didn’t realize just how many people he knew until they all congratulated him after his victory. In the meantime, James was overwhelmed. After meeting at least 20 people, he said, “I cannot believe how many people you know.” After that night, he got a ton of Facebook.com friend requests.
Looking back, Matthew describes that night. “It was just,” he says and then pauses, searching for the right words, “all happy.”
Wherever he goes from here, the memory of homecoming will help carry him through: “It was the ultimate feeling of being accepted. I’ll be going on now for the rest of my life having that experience. Everyone accepted me, so it’s really cool.”
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