“Listen folks, if you want your son to grow up to be a man, don’t have him run around on a field kicking a ball, get him wrestling.” –Ben Askren
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If you are like me you have been closely following the World Cup this year. It never ceases to amaze me the athleticism of soccer players. I played soccer on a small co-ed community team until I was 15 and just that used to exhaust me. I cannot imagine playing in a World Cup game without at least a nap at half-time or something. But apparently not everybody who watches soccer has these same thoughts.
Ben Askren, a Bellator welterweight champion (mixed martial arts), is just not a soccer fan. In the video below, Askren talked about how he was incredibly appalled at all the “faking it” soccer players were doing:
“There’s no honor in faking an injury. There is no integrity because you are lying about it. And there’s no toughness because you are in front of millions of people, and you’re rolling around on the field, crying – CRYING – about a fake injury that never happened.”
He continued in this unfortunate huff to say that,
“When I’m thinking of sports, when I’m thinking of a boy growing up and being a man, I’m thinking of three things – honor, integrity, and toughness. And a grown man, faking an injury, rolling around on the field fails all three of those tests. Listen folks, if you want your son to grow up to be a man, don’t have him run around on a field kicking a ball, get him wrestling.”
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Whaaaat?
First of all those men are doing ninety minutes of non stop sprinting up and down a 110-120 yard field. The average player runs seven miles a game. That is about the amount of the average baseball player, tennis player, football player and basketball player combined. That is insane!
So let me pull out a few things for us to consider from this rant, “being a man,” “toughness,” “CRYING.” Askren very clearly lays out what he thinks is acceptable behavior for young boys. And showing emotion is not one of them.
My father played college soccer for Bethany Lutheran College and semi-pro ball for the Minnesota Strikers. And he also tears up at a good chick flick. He is still able to run circles around me on the ball field (although I’ve never publicly admitted that!). But just the other day we had a discussion about how more men need to embrace their emotions and how the stigma of men crying is bullshit.
Those things add up to being a man to me.
Whatever Askren described is just another version of unhealthy masculinity, holding men up to ideals that lead to disappointment. How dare men CRY when they are hurt! Or not be tough ALL THE TIME.
Ben Askren if you want YOUR son to be a man someday you will drop this notion of manhood. Let him cry when he’s hurt, do not tell him to toughen up, do not confine him to what activist Tony Porter calls the Man Box.
Help guide him to be a strong fully formed human being capable of experiencing emotion, perhaps even call himself a feminist. And for goodness sake let him play soccer, because he will be one hell of an athlete, just ask my dad.
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–Originally published on carlypuch.wordpress.com
–Photo: AP
In all fairness to the author, she is a Women’s Studies major as noted, and is thusly compelled to root out toxic masculinity, and even from places where it does not exist. It’s not easy when you have a toxic masculinity quota to fill.
I suggest hitting up Bob Marley’s “No Woman, no cry” for a quick quota relief hit….
I’m thinking of three things – honor, integrity, and toughness. And a grown man, faking an injury, rolling around on the field fails all three of those tests. over the decades the discussions on this point from british football (soccer) analysts who now live aboard or foreign analysts is this: in some cultures that is correct. in other cultures, honour and especially integrity is perceived differently. using guile/cunning/street smarts to advance your position, having the ability to con the authority figure are valuable life or even survival skills, and so are seen as virtues in the culture. so doing whatever… Read more »
and i forgot to mention i also played a ton of soccer as a kid and would happily encourage any child of mine to pick it up.
i don’t think you really understood what he was saying. he was speaking directly to the fact that many players take dives and pantomime fake illegal hits and then to help sell their lie they will sometimes cry fake tears over a fake injury. from what i see he is not attacking the players athleticism or the actual act of crying. he is however, emphasizing that these men are not only lying but then using a device that is designed to evoke empathy as a cheap way to basically cheat. in that regard i completely agree with him that that… Read more »
Agreed. Askern wasn’t condemning men crying per say. Just those who ‘take a dive’ and then try to sell it with phony tears. The qualities he speaks of , Honor, Integrity, and toughness, these are LIFE qualities you want your child to develop! As someone who grew up playing sports as well as coaching youth sports (Both boys and Girls) I can tell you that no matter what sport, skill level, or gender, you get so much more out of it personally when you follow those 3 qualities than those who follow the ‘Winning is Everything’ school of thought ever… Read more »