This comment from Bill was submitted in response to “If I Don’t Watch Sports, Am I Still a Man?” by Tom Ley
Two profiles of courage:
1) During World War II, Swedish businessman Raoul Wallenberg is sent by his government under diplomatic cover to conduct rescue operations in Hungary to save the lives of Jews from the Holocaust. Instead of sitting behind a desk, he repeatedly risks his life to save the lives of others, often coming into contact with Nazi SS officers and Hungarian fascist thugs. Surviving several assassination attempts, he is forced to sleep in a different location every night. He manages to save the lives of more than 10,000 people. When the Red Army drives the Germans out of Hungary, Wallenburg is abducted by agents of Stalin’s brutal secret police to Moscow, where he disappears in the notorious Lubianka prison and is never seen again as a free man. Solzhenitsyn claims he refused to bargain with his captors to secure his freedom and may have languished for years in the Soviet gulag before he eventually died. By the way, Wallenberg was a slightly built man who shunned sports.
2) At Penn State University, Coach Mike McQueary witnesses the (alleged) anal rape of a ten-year-old boy by Coach Jerry Sandusky in the athletic showers on the Penn State campus. Instead of physically intervening to stop the rape from continuing, he leaves the young boy at Sandusky’s mercy and goes home to tell his father. By the way, McQueary is a big, strapping guy who had played football at Penn State.
Which of these two individuals was a “real man”? Was McQueary a hero? Was Wallenberg a wimp?
For generations in this country with its sports-saturated culture, nonathletic boys have been negatively stereotyped in the worst way. When I was young, they were called sissies. They were forced to take “sports only” P.E. classes — which provided no exercise programs for them and usually didn’t even provide any instruction in the sports themselves, as if every boy were an aspiring athlete. Nothing has changed. Today they are called wimps and fags. As were those of previous generations, nonathletic boys are likely to be bullied for no other reason than they simply are not interested in sports, as if this were a crime against nature. Before they even reach their early teens, nonathletic boys receive messages from others (actually, from the culture itself) that they are unmanly and inferior. If such boys don’t receive strong support to provide emotional reinforcement, they are likely to internalize this stigmatization and end up with self-hatred in their lives. And what is particularly aggravating is that this denigration is based upon assumptions that are demonstrably false. That means they are easily disproven, but no one cares. No one speaks up for nonathletic boys in our society. Certainly not anyone of significant social stature that I’m aware of.
As for me, don’t even attempt to stereotype me as being sedentary. For several years I’ve been working out at a local health club on a bodybuilding program. I don’t need sports to get into shape. I have no problem with anyone having an interest in ball games either as a spectator or as an athlete, as long as they are not unreasonable and intolerant about it. I respect athletic participation; but I will never accept the denigration of nonathletic boys, which is nothing less than a fom of pointless bigotry.
–
photo by achoice / flickr
About the Editors
What a darn good comment.
I abhor jocks and have low tolerance for men who a fanatics of sports. It’s one thing to play in them and another thing to be all decked out in your fan’s sports gear, paint your face in patriotic team colours and waving your number 1 fan paraphernalia. This fan obsession is similar to teenage girls who are star struck with Justin Bieiber …same feverish excitement, complete devotion and loyalty. But girls grow up and grow out of this phase – they get married and become devoted and loyal to husband and family instead.
Why not just say that some men like sports, whereas others don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with either?
This is 2012. People come in all shapes, sizes, and interests. We have this new-fangled thing called diversity now. Why the demonization of sports and men who like them?
“Wallenberg was a slightly built man who shunned sports.”
Sure about that?
He shunned bike riding? Swimming? Running? Jumping rope? Canoeing? Horse-back riding? Virtually all aerobics involve sports of some sort.
Are you not aware that we have a crisis of childhood obesity in this country because of children not participating in sports (aerobics) as much as they used to? As a result, they are fatter and sicker younger than their parents’ generation.
I have no idea what generation and country you are from but non-athletic boys are not stereotyped, unless they are fat or otherwise physically unhealthy because of lack of aerobics, which more and more are. Most boys aren’t on a team, and aren’t bullied as a result..
See, there are lots of boys who are gamers, computer geeks, debaters, musicians, steppers (if you don’t know, ask a black person), and others who aren’t on any sports team, but neither do they necessarily “shun” sports (as if the church would excommunicate you if you were found to playing a sport), anymore than athletes “shun” computers or music.
I was not aware my post could become an OP for another blog at this website. My intention was not to call attention to myself. Aside from the possibility of receiving a comment from another poster or two, I had thought nothing else would come out of this.
For your information, Eric, I’m a 61-year-old man who grew up in this country. I’ve lived most of my life in the state of Texas, where I was born. I believe I have more experience than you.
The only point I was making in my comparison between Wallenberg and McQueary is that no correlation can be established between body build and being courageous. For generations in this country (and elsewhere), slightly built men have been dismissed as “wimps,” despite the fact that wimps (moral cowards, that is) come in all sizes and shapes. I was not demonizing athletes and sports, as you seem to imply. My best friend played football in high school.
By the way, aside from comments posted by powerless individuals who are prejudiced (sometimes for perfectly understandable reasons), where is this demonization you speak of taking place? The popular culture is saturated with sports. School athletes and coaches frequently are placed on pedestals instead of merely being given the respect to which they are entitled.
Wallenberg’s half-sister has been quoted as saying that Wallenberg “detested competitive team sports.” When I said he “shunned” sports, I simply meant he had no preference for them. So, your snide little comment about my use of the word “shunned” fails. I have no doubt if Wallenberg had been born in the U.S., he would have been bullied for not having an interest in sports.
Sports have been misused to define masculinity in this country for generations. In a public prayer he recited at the recent football game between Nebraska and Penn State, Nebraska’s Assistant Coach Ron Brown declared, “There are a lot of little boys around the country, today, who are watching this game, and they’re trying to figure out what the definition of manhood is all about. Father, this is it right here. I pray that this game will be a training ground of what manhood looks like.” Well, I guess boys who have no interest in football are nonpersons. They’re just left out in the cold. After all, something must be wrong with any boy who doesn’t like sports.
I agree with your opening statement there’s nothing wrong with liking or not liking sports. But do you really believe what you say? Last year a childhood friend of mine who played football in high school (and is still very much a football fan today) told me that most of his teammates had viewed the nonathletic guys at their school as being inferior. I also once read a comment posted by a high-school football player at another website that many of his teammates were referring to the nonathletic guys at their school as “fags.” I would suggest you address your comment regarding people’s personal preferences to them.
The comments I’ve made about the negative stereotyping of nonathletic boys are based upon my own personal experiences, buddy boy. Your claim that nonathletic boys are not negatively stereotyped today is simply outrageous. The stereotyping still goes on, and so does the bullying. I suggest you do some Google searches on bullying. Just as an example, do searches on “P.E. bullying” and “phys ed bullying.”
You fail to make a distinction between sports and exercise programs. A sport is a physical contest; an exercise program involves competition with no one, generally speaking. You also seem to be saying, well, playing video games and the rest of those activities and interests are fine, but the kids must be playing sports first.
The mandatory “sports only” P.E. of my generation was a disgrace, an exercise in hypocrisy (no pun intended). No exercise programs (such as bodybuilding) were provided for the nonathletes. Often no instruction in the sports themselves was provided, as if all boys already knew how to play the games; and there was no “Remedial P.E.” (The notion of there being Remedial P.E. just as there is Remedial Math, for example, is so far removed from reality that it sounds like a joke.) Nonathletic boys were often humiliated and bullied in P.E. This problem was ignored for generations. I’ve done some research and have discovered that nonathletic boys who went through the old “sports only” P.E. were actually DISCOURAGED from becoming physically active in their adult lives. So much for promoting physical fitness!
In recent years there’s been a movement to reform mandatory P.E. by providing genuine fitness programs instead of imposing team sports upon those who aren’t interested in them. Unfortunately, the old P.E. is still around (with its attendant miseries for nonathletic kids) in some school districts . (Incidentally, I favor the retention of the old P.E. as an elective.)
You say the reason why some kids are obese is because they haven’t been playing sports, as you would have them do. No, the reason is because they don’t get enough exercise. (I suspect Richard Simmons, who doesn’t support the old “sports only” P.E., knows a lot more than you about helping fat people to actually slim down. No, I’ve never been overweight.) Through my own personal experience, I’ve learned what works and what DOESN’T work for nonathletic kids. The fact of the matter is that I hardly got any exercise in the P.E. classes I was forced to take in school when I was a kid. Today I get more exercise in a single workout session with my personal trainer at my health club pumping iron than I ever did in an entire YEAR of mandatory P.E.
I mentioned the old P.E. is still around. If you don’t favor the reform of P.E. by supporting fitness programs instead of the old P.E., then you’re really not promoting fitness and wellness, despite your professed concern for physically unfit kids. You’re just part of the problem.
Your point that there is no connection between bodybuilding and courage is accurate; however, you said far more than that.
Mr. Bill, you have indeed lived longer than I have, and I have respect for my elders. However, you wrote in clear language and made clear blanket statements, which I believe to be incorrect. You very clearly stated something that is simply not true as a generalization: “For generations in this country with its sports-saturated culture, nonathletic boys have been negatively stereotyped in the worst way.”
I went to high school and college just as you did. I am raising children and physically go to the school every single day, and talk to my girls every single day. So, I have a very good idea what happened in school 20 and 30 years ago (albeit not 40 or 50), and what is happening today. And, I am simply making a clear statement that, despite your 61 years of life, your personal experience is of course valid but your generalization is not.
To be clear, the prayer you cited was said by one person. One. Sorry that doesn’t mean that he defines things for everyone. My girls go to school with all kinds of kids. Some unathletic who are huge, some athletic who are “slightly built.” Maybe back in the day everyone was expected to be an athlete, but that was not the case when I was in school in the 70s-90s, and is not the case today.
And, let me tell you that our biggest problem is not sports being forced on kids. Our biggest problem are obese sedentary kids. They are obese and sedentary both outside and inside school. Again, I am literally at the school 5 days a week and hear from my girls about the kids who can barely run, and who can’t keep up with the class, and who are permitted to sit around in gym rather than move.
With all due respect, sir, things have clearly changed quite a bit since the time kids were called “sissies.”
Hi, Eric. Thanks for being civil in your response.
Regarding my Wallenberg/McQueary comparison, I was referring to body build (physique), not bodybuilding (exercise program). Of course, I assume you’re referring to physique, just as I was.
I understand you honestly believe nonathletic boys are not negatively stereotyped today, but we differ in what we believe is the current reality. I can only guess why we have different perceptions. You mentioned you’re the father of daughters. (So am I, but that fact is not germane to our discussion here.) Perhaps if you had a nonathletic son, you would learn of problems he has that are not also shared by your daughters. Believe me, I’m not criticizing you. I’m just speculating.
There’s also the fact that local communities aren’t all the same. I spent my teenage years in an affluent district in which most of the parents were too busy acquiring wealth and engaged in social climbing to pay much attention to their children. The school district my daughters attended not only was in a different sort of community, but wasn’t even in the same city. So, perhaps in some communities, the moral climate might be healthier; and nonathletic boys might not be subjected to the sort of stigmatization I experienced along with my nonathletic friends. Perhaps there are differences among the states of the U.S. or smaller communities regarding how much emphasis is placed upon the more popular of the school sports. In communities where sports are elevated above all other extracurricular activities, the prevailing attitude might be that boys not involved in sports run against the norm and are devalued for that reason. In fact, in some communities (more than a few, as far as I’m concerned), teenagers TODAY have been making precisely that complaint.
The sports culture of the community where I spent my teenage years was oppressive to nonathletic boys. There was a social rift between athletic and nonathletic boys. I was made to feel ashamed simply for not having an interest in sports. For years I actually felt guilty for not being good at a sport, despite the fact that I had no interest whatsoever to participate in any sport.
Concerning mandatory P.E., every school day I dreaded the period when I had P.E. I’d wonder how I’d be humiliated that day. To this day I still remember the periods when I had P.E. in junior high school. In those years I never met a single P.E. teacher or coach who didn’t have an indifferent or contemptuous attitude towards nonathletic boys. I wish I could say otherwise.
And that wasn’t all. When I was in the eighth grade, my parents started sending me to a clinical psychologist because I was being picked on at school and my grades had fallen. Unfortunately, even though he had a good reputation, the psychologist turned out to be egregiously incomptent, at least as far as the way he dealt with me as a patient was concerned.
He decided he should send me to a dojo to take judo lessons. If he had done his job and conducted a thorough evaluation in order to discern why I lacked self-confidence, he would have discovered I was ashamed of being physically weak and not having a muscular build. With that bit of knowledge, he would have sent me to a gym to start working with a personal trainer; in other words, what I started doing just a few years ago.
Instead, he had me take judo, which is not a bodybuilding activity. And not only that. The judo instructor he chose was the worst possible choice for a sensitive nonathletic boy who desperately needed an adult male mentor — someone he could look up to, someone he knew was on his side. Instead, the psychologist sent me to a man who had played football at a university in the same city. A man who believed that only athletes and men in certain blue-collar professions were “real men.” I always felt like an outsider in his dojo. When he promoted me to brown belt, I felt like he was patronizing me and just viewing me as another source of income.
Tired of the pretense, I finally quit during my junior year in high school and wasn’t missed. I paid him a visit eight years after I had graduated from high school. I then learned of his bigoted view of nonathletic men, and I also heard him say that he had “saved” me from homosexuality! Say what?! See what I mean about the negative stereotyping? I wish I could have told him to soak his head, but he was a violent man.
Finally, I’m just as concerned about the health problems of children as you are. But I realize that mandatory “sports only” P.E. will never help these kids becoming healthier. To the contrary, when fat kids are bullied in “sports only” P.E., they turn to food for comfort and become even more obese! Believe me, I once saw that happen to a friend of mine in high school.
There’s also the fact that different kids have different physical fitness needs. That means they need to do different kinds of exercise. They need different exercise programs. For example, as Richard Simmons points out so often, fat people need to engage in constant movement. What exercise is a fat boy going to get playing baseball, for instance? (And I’m NOT knocking baseball here.) Just spends a lot of time standing out in the field.
There are certain programs that would benefit fat kids a great deal without subjecting them to the bullying that was (and is) so common in the old P.E. PE4Life, for example, is an excellent program, one that I strongly support.
Finally, a sports coach is going to have a different mindset. He’s going to be concerned about winning games. Actually, what would benefit physically unfit kids the most is working with a personal trainer, which is exactly what I’m doing now.
The point is that forcing nonathletic kids to participate in team games in the setting of a mandatory P.E. class (a situation that pits the more athletically inclined kids against the nonathletic ones, with bullying a frequent result) does not work. A new approach is needed.
Again, thanks for being civil to me, Eric.
Eric, you have accused me of making a blanket generalization, yet that is exactly what you have done yourself. This is my last post here. I’m not conceding defeat to you; I’m simplying facing the fact that trying to have a discussion with close-minded people is pointless. You can damn me all you want when I’ve left, but I couldn’t care less. I won’t be back to read anyone’s contents.
You can check out these links, if you’re intellectually curious.
http://americanmentalhealthfoundation.org/entry.php?id=135
http://marshallbrain.com/geek.htm
Perhaps someone, if not you, will learn something.
But you’re right. Nonathletic boys who have no interest in sports are not called sissies. Today they’re called wimps and fags.
Mr. Bill,
I understand that the way you were treated in your childhood caused psychological trauma, and am sorry for your painful experiences/memories. What was done to you was wrong on many levels. However, you are taking my points as a personal affront. They aren’t. I am simply expressing disagreement, trying to do so respectfully. As my wife tells me all the time, “You’re not bad, you’re jus wrong.
“Nonathletic boys who have no interest in sports are not called sissies. Today they’re called wimps and fags.”
To your point, have you not heard of boys who are gamers (as in cyber/computer games)? FYI, there are many, many millions of such boys. Are all those millions of boys called wimps and fags because they play cyber games and not an athletic sport?
What about the millions of would-be rappers and musicians? Are all of them called wimps and fags because they’re rapping and/or writing music rather than playing ball?
What about the boys in the ROTC who are also not on the football team? Are they all called wimps and fags?
What about my slightly built but brilliant nephew, who has little interest in sports? Why isn’t he called a wimp and fag in school? I happen to know that he’s not because I also have a niece who attends that same school, is in the same grade, and has some of the same classes.
Perhaps Texas is different but boys in major east and west coast cities have the flexbility to do things other than sports and not be bullied as a result.
The text of your latest post in this blog was e-mailed to me; so, I read it and decided to go back on my word and post again. I appreciated your message.
I understand you weren’t being personal, and the tone of your posts indicate you’re a gentleman. So, I have no complaint. To the contrary, it’s refreshing to communicate a difference of opinion online without having a flame war. Sometimes I get a bit emotional about certain issues.
I’m happy to learn that your nephew does not have to contend with the sort of problem I faced when I was his age. At the risk of sounding dumb, I am reminded of just how large our country is (in more ways than one). In terms of culture, there is a great deal of diversity and range. I have occasion to periodically visit family in northern California. Compared to most of Texas, northern California is like another country — geographically, politically, and culturally.
When all is said and done (another cliché), I really have no contention with you. I’m still a critic of the sports culture, but I have several close friends who played football when they were in high school. One of them even played football at the university where he earned his degree. I view athletes and coaches as individuals, and I’m quite active physically at this point in my life. Working with a personal trainer has actually been psychologically and emotionally therapeutic. I love working out! I only wish I’d started sooner. Amazingly enough, I’d not been aware that nonathletes could hire personal trainers to work with them at health clubs. Just my own ignorance.
My only point about Wallenberg’s dislike of sports was that I felt he served as a great role model for boys who have no interest in sports, boys who might feel alone in that regard. We all have a need for heroes. I’ve long been inspired by the heroism of the men and women who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust. Needless to say, Wallenberg’s story is all the more compelling because of the hideously unjust fate he suffered as a victim of another totalitarian regime. In my view, a similar sort of moral courage was shown by those principled white and black Americans who opposed Jim Crow before the 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted into law.
Peace and best wishes, Eric.