Breaking The Surface
The Autobiography of Greg Louganis
Greg Louganis with Eric Marcus
Random House
1995
"Gut-wrenching and brutally frank." -Los Angeles Times
From Eric Marcus:
I will never forget the moment I met Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis. We had spoken only briefly by phone to make an appointment to get together to talk about his autobiography. He had a story to tell and one of our mutual friends suggested he talk to me about writing it.
The plan was to meet in the lobby of my apartment building. Greg arrived a little early, so he was waiting for me when I got off the elevator. I had followed Greg's career since he first competed in the Olympics in 1976 and won a silver medal in 10-meter platform diving. Even at that young age it was clear that Greg would be one of the greatest athletes of all time. And, needless to say, he was a pleasure to watch.
Greg would go on to win four more Olympic medals, all gold, and win the hearts of people all over the world when he hit his head on the three-meter diving board during a qualifying round in the 1988 Olympics and came back to win the gold. What no one knew at the time was that Greg was on high doses of an anti-viral drug to combat HIV.
So the day I met Greg in the lobby of my building, I had assumed the book we would be writing would end with Greg's decision to come forward and confirm what many of us had assumed or suspected, that he was gay. But I soon learned that there was a lot more story than that to tell, a complex story that was far more painful and ultimately triumphant than I could have imagined.
Looking back, it's a little hard to remember how different attitudes were back then towards HIV/AIDS and people who had AIDS. These were the days when AIDS was still a virtual death sentence and an Olympic athlete's HIV status was national news.
The publication of Breaking the Surface and the media storm that followed catapulted the book to number one on the New York Times bestseller list (for five weeks). The day we got the news about the bestseller list was the day we were on our way to the White House to meet President Bill Clinton. For Greg, who had met several presidents, a trip to the White House was no big deal. Needless to say, it was a very big deal for me.
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