Like many a loyal Old Blue, I eagerly anticipated the Cal-Tennessee football game that was played on Saturday. Though I have little use for the NFL (and in many ways, would rather watch “soccer” than American football), I am a long-standing Golden Bear fan. After a disappointing and painful loss to Tennessee at the start of the 2006 campaign, Cal supporters were eager for redemption. We got it in splendid fashion two days ago, and to my wife’s great amusement, I offered several renditions of the happy dance over the course of the game.
Yesterday, I read half-a-dozen news accounts of the game. This one by Olin Buchanan, from the respected Rivals.com site, annoyed me immensely:
Last year Cal was branded soft and overrated after a 35-18 season-opening ambush in Knoxville, which wasn’t nearly that close. Then, before kickoff on Saturday night a propeller-powered plane circled high above the stadium towing a banner that read: SEC RULES, PAC-10 DROOLS.
Apparently, that perceived drooling was actually the 12th-ranked Bears’ mouths watering for a chance to prove they were more talented, more competitive and more masculine than they showed a year ago.
Thirty-five years after the advent of Title IX, and we’ve still got neanderthals like Buchanan associating toughness with masculinity? What’s the implication, Olin? That “soft and overrated” is somehow a particularly feminine quality?
For decades, sociologists of sport have had fun with the language of American football. The language of “scoring”, “penetrating the defense”, “getting in the end zone”, and even — Lord help us — the “tight end” is certainly suggestive. And a great many “old school” coaches (I’ve known one or fifty) played on the sexual anxieties of their young athletes by associating defeat with allowing oneself to be feminized by the opposing team.
When I was a student at Cal in the mid-80’s (the fun but mediocre Joe Kapp era), practices at Memorial Stadium were open to the public. I often went and sat in the bleachers, did my homework, and watched. I remember an assistant coach yelling at a group of linemen doing drills: “tighten it up or you’re gonna get fucked like a bunch of bitches come Saturday.” I was aghast. (Let me be clear, I never heard that language from dear Coach Kapp.) I hadn’t even started taking women’s studies classes yet, but I was still disheartened by the brutally sexist language I heard from this coach (and from many of the players.)
Some say that the violent game of American football is inherently misogynistic; the sport, for some, is beyond redemption. The cynics say that young men will only play with maximum passion and intensity when this language of sexual warfare is employed. But as a fan of this most popular of American games, I’m convinced otherwise. And fortunately, I can look to the likes of Joe Ehrmann, about whom I’ve written a couple of times — at greatest length here.
Ehrmann, a former star defensive lineman for the Baltimore Colts, now coaches the enormously successful Gilman (Maryland) high school football team. This is how he preps his team for a game:
“What is our job as coaches?” Ehrmann asks.
“To love us!” the Gilman boys yell back in unison.
“What is your job?” Ehrmann shouts back.
“To love each other!” the boys respond.
The words are spoken with the commitment of an oath, the enthusiasm of a pep rally.
This is football?
It is with Ehrmann. It is when the whole purpose of being here is to totally redefine what it means to be a man.
Joe Ehrmann knows what authentic masculinity is, and it has nothing, nothing to do with athletic prowess. His teams win state titles regularly (while he enforces his “no cut rule”, meaning everyone plays). For those of us who love competitive sports but who are often dismayed by the ugly cultural rules around those sports, men like Ehrmann are vital role models. (His biography is compelling.)
From the first day of practice through the last day of the season, Ehrmann and his best friend, Head Coach Biff Poggi, bombard their players with stories and lessons about being a man built for others.
They stress that Gilman football is all about living in a community. It is about fostering relationships. It is about learning the importance of serving others. While coaches elsewhere scream endlessly about being tough, Ehrmann and Poggi teach concepts such as empathy, inclusion and integrity. They emphasize Ehrmann’s code of conduct for manhood: accepting responsibility, leading courageously, enacting justice on behalf of others…
Olin Buchanan, take note. Go Bears.
“…accepting responsibility, leading courageously, enacting justice on behalf of others…”
My cynical heart says that this sounds not so much unlike other lessons about leadership and teamwork that happened to suffer alchemical transformation into lessons in obedience, but my curiousity prods me to ask what “enacting justice” means. “Enacting” is an odd verb to use in the context, but I’d speculate that the justice intended is less the one of authority and governance than equality, but I am more than slightly suspicious of sports teams’ pronouncements about equality of any kind.
Ehrmann wants his young men to be “change agents” in the broader community, particularly when it comes to carrying a message about what men are and what they aren’t. “Enacting justice” means an obligation to be responsible for positive change, and it means not falling into the habit of “just going along” with the guys.
As someone who played tight end, it is called so because the tight end lines up as a lineman, and is called on to do receiving duty as well - often to be the relief valve if the other receivers are covered. It’s a no glory position. Get slammed at the line, chucked by the linebacker, out seven yards, turn, catch, and be brutalized by every linebacker and what of the secondary can get their digs in too.
The split end is so called because they line up split away from the rest of the line, and is more often a fast and deep receiver. Of course, in my day the other wide receiver was called a “tailback” or “Flanker back” but they were still a receiving back as opposed to a running back.
The term “tight end” is often the butt of jokes by those woefully ignorant of football. For those who are in the know, it is possibly the most physically demanding in the game (Though fullbacks will argue this), and gets a lot of well deserved respect.
Gonz, I know my football quite well, thanks. I just enjoy the terminology!
Sorry - coached football for a couple years when I was a teacher.
I read Buchanan’s excerpt a few times, but I don’t see his use of the word “masculine” in that context as being the opposite of feminine. Buchanan’s language suggested to me that Cal matured as a team, developed a mental toughness that they showed this year against Tennessee that was lacking last year when the folded under similar circumstances. This year, they were not boys who couldn’t answer back to a very persistent, gritty team that forces opponents to play the game their way. They were men who could respond to adversity and adapt to whatever an opposing team could cook up.
There is a commercial that has been running during Chicago Cubs games that pushes a similar message. Amidst clips of Cubs batters hitting line drives and pitchers making people look foolish, it flashes the message, “Watch the boys of Summer become the men of Fall.” For the last 99 years, the Cubs have been what you call the Boys of Summer. A team that looks good and shows promise through June, July, and August while there is no pressure on them. Yet come September and October, they have folded at some point every year since 1908. But for the first time in a while, they have the looks of a team ready to prove themselves as men who are unwilling to go home with their tails between their legs unless they left everything they have in them on the field.
For those who are in the know, it is possibly the most physically demanding in the game (Though fullbacks will argue this), and gets a lot of well deserved respect.
It’s a tough call. I played fullback, but tight ends get my respect. It’s a very difficult position to play well.
Mike, then wouldn’t “mature” be the more appropriate term than “masculine”? I’ve never heard anyone associate masculine with “more mature”.
Indeed, Antigone.
It could be argued that the antonym for “man” is “boy” rather than “woman”. It is much harder to argue tthat the antonym for “masculine” is anything other than “feminine” or “effeminate”.
If I were the writer, I wouldn’t use “masculine” or “mature” in that context, I’d use something along the lines of “focused” or “tenacious.” In this case, I saw the antonym of “masculine” being “weak,” not “feminine.” If you changed the sentence to “for a chance to prove they were more talented, more competitive and ‘less feminine’ than they showed a year ago,” it wouldn’t make sense. It was poor choice of language, but I don’t see much beyond that. Although maybe I feel that way because I watched Michigan play like a bunch of high school boys instead of the cool, collected college football veterans that they are.
Mike, I feel your pain. That game was just … ugh.
I love football, but I have my moments of doubt about the physical impact on the players. The concussions . . .the broken bones . . . 19 year old linemen with huge guts . . . the ligament injuries . . . sometimes paralysis and death. Are all of these guys doing it out of their own free will or is societal pressure involved?