Bob Knight whipped a chair across the basketball court at Indiana University, where he was the beloved, longtime men's basketball coach.
Larry Bird and Magic Johnson battled for supremacy in the NBA, and it was the Johnson-led Los Angeles Lakers who claimed the championship in six games.
The upstart USFL ended its run, while the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Miami Dolphins in January after the 1984 season. And by September, the 1985 NFL season was all Chicago, as the city's beloved Bears shuffled to a Super Bowl title, won in January, 1986.
The baseball world met a Doc, aka, Dwight Gooden, the power pitcher for the New York Metsand it was the Kansas City Royals who toppled their intra-state rival, the St. Louis Cardinals, in seven games to claim the World Series championship.
Hulkamania was running wild, as Hulk Hogan was the WWF World Heavyweight Championand a Sports Illustrated cover boy in July.
Olympic sensations Michael Phelps and Sarah Hughes ... well, they were born in 1985.
Welcome back in time, 30 years. For the record, Sept. 23, 1985 was 10,957 days ago from when this issue was printedthat's 1,565 weeks and two days. During that stretch, it's spanned 262,968 hoursand countless sporting memories. Some good, some really good. Some bad, some really bad. And everything in between.
As far as out LGBT professional athletes nationally, there were very few. That list included football's Dave Kopay; tennis stars Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King and Renee Richards; and baseball's Glenn Burke. Former Olympic athlete Dr. Tom Waddell also was out, and founded the Gay Games in San Francisco in 1982.
What was happening with other noteworthy LGBT athletes and officials? Let's see:
Billy Bean didn't make his Major League Baseball debut until April 25, 1987.
Brittney Griner and Michael Sam were both born in 1990.
Rosie Jones finished second in the 1984 U.S. Women's Open.
Greg Louganis captured gold medals at both the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics, but came out in 1996.
Baseball umpire Dave Pallone was the home plate umpire in 1985 when Pete Rose tied Ty Cobb for the most hits ( 4192 ).
Baseball umpire Dale Scott made his Major League Baseball debut on Aug. 19, 1985and is still calling balls and strikes this season.
Olympian Blake Skjellerup was born in 1985and he's now happily married.
Chicago's LGBT sports scene, meanwhile, was so much different 30 years ago from what it is today. The most organized sports were softball, volleyball and bowling. Softball then was the 16-inch, no-glove, Chicago-tradition style, though the women also had 12-inch leagues. Bowling was a five night-a-week event, including a mid-week afternoon league for local bartenders.
"It's hard to believe it was 30 years ago," Marcia Hill said, reflecting on the local sporting scene of 1985. "Heck, I founded the women's football league in 1988before many of today's players were even born."
Men's flag football didn't arrive here for another 10 years or so.
Hill, now 57, is one of the strongest links to history, particularly Chicago's LGBT sporting scene, then dominated by the Gay Athletic Association ( GAA ). It wasn't until 1986 that the Metropolitan Sports Association ( MSA ) was foundand it is now a wildly successful, popular, ever-expanding organization of multiple sports, leagues, legends and more, known as the Chicago Metropolitan Sports Association ( CMSA ).
Hill is now just a referee in flag football and a softball umpire.
Bobby Nicholson also is a softball umpire nowand he too is a tie to gay softball games of the mid-1980s. He is even one of 14 members of the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance ( NAGAAA ) Hall of Fame with ties to Chicago softball of the 1980s.
NAGAAA runs the annual Gay Softball World Series, which dates back to 1977.
Others from that illustrious list of 14 who had ties to the Chicago softball scene of the 1980s include Jack McGowan, elected in 1997; Jim Flint ( class of 2000 ), Frank Bostic ( 2001 ), John Cieplak ( 2001 ) and Don Welsh ( 2002 ). Art Johnston of Sidetrack fame was elected to the NAGAAA Hall of Fame in 2003, while Buck Bachman entered in 2005 and Will Hartman in 2007.
Nicholson was elected in 2009, alongside fellow Chicagoans Sam Coady and Phil Runions.
Runions, who is straight, is still a CMSA softball umpire and others from his family play in the predominantly gay league, including his daughter, who also is straight.
Peter Meyer was honored by NAGAAA in 2010; Mike Travers was elected in 2011; John Skoubis went in in 2012.
Gay softball nowadays is played with gloves and 12-inch balls.
"A lot of guys were afraid of breaking their fingers [in 1985], and a lot of guys did break their fingers," Hill said with a laugh. "There were some really good players [back then] and there were some really bad players."
In 1985, there were eight women's softball teams and about 10 men's softball teams. There were about 20 volleyball teamseight women and 12 men.
Bowling was king then, anchored by the late Dick Uyvari.
"The big thing in bowling at the time was, making sure you had a good scorekeeper," Hill said, reflecting on the technology changes that have spanned 30 years.
At the time, for instance, players and potential players had to go to the gay bars to see flyers, to learn what was going on. The gay weekly newspapers were vital at the time, Hill said. League commissioners would call in their sports scores and standings every Monday morning to Windy City Times.
Today, in comparison, athletes canand doupdate the world seconds after a softball at-bat whether they smacked a home run or struck out. Welcome to Twitter, Facebook and the rest of the social media scene.
The competition level then was high, for all sports, Hill said. "There were some good athletes then," Hill said. "We really cared if we won a game."
Hill, Uyvari, Flint and Johnston were local sporting legends from that era, and certainly Sam Molinaro, too. In 1979, Molinaro was named the first president when the Gay Athletic Association ( GAA ) was incorporated. The rich history in gay Chicago sports, circa 1985, also includes the late Peg Grey, Rich Essig, Jackie Fabbri and others.
MSA back in the day produced a quarterly newsletter, which Molinaro would print. He'd then fold the newsletter, stuff into envelopes, and he and his mom would address envelopes, add stamps and then mail.
Notes at GAA/MSA meetings were done by hand at the time. The association's secretary then would go home and make copies of those notes. They'd mail out the minutes from meetings for approval before the next meeting.
The Windy City Athletic Association ( now the Athletic Alliance of Chicago ), founded in 1979, also was a prominent player on the gay sports scene in 1985. Flint, best known as the owner of the Baton Show Lounge, was one of the founding members of the WCAA and was its commissioner on multiple occasions. Flint was involved in softball, basketball, volleyball, darts, bowling, and hockey over the years.
WCAA and GAA/MSA feuded off and on, each wanting to reign supreme on the scene.
Pre-dating those leagues, and still on the scene today, are the Lincoln Park Lagooners, which offered both sports as well as recreational efforts. They launched in the 1970s.
In 1982, after the success of an event called the Gay and Lesbian Pride Run, a local chapter of the international Frontrunners group was launched by Peg Grey, Rob Williams and Jim White. The Frontrunners/Frontwalkers group is still going strong today; since the 1990s they have operated the Proud to Run race that Grey founded.
There have been other leagues that have come and gone, such as the Women's Sports Association, and many organizations formed to focus on a specific sport, such as rowing or rugby. And certainly some of the women's sports teams that played in mainstream leagues, including rugby, have always have had a strong participation from lesbians.
"It was a time of great growth and excitement [in 1985] as more and more people became involved [in gay sports], particularly softball," Johnston said.
Also in 1985, Chicagoans were planning for Gay Games II, which was to be held in August 1996 in San Francisco. The week-long event was twice as large as the inaugural Games in 1982, attracting about 3,500 athletes from 17 countries for 18 sports.
Chicagoans went to the 1986 Games for softball, volleyball and bowlers mostly.
"That was the first Gay Games that a lot of [Chicagoans] participated in," Hill said.
Another memory from 1985, seen in photos from those days, was … the back of people's heads. Yep, to disguise who they were since many were not out, they'd take pictures facing away from the camera. "We had to watch who you took pictures with because people could lose their jobs," for being gay, Hill said. "A lot of Catholic school teachers, and others, were afraid of losing their jobs."