Real Boys

by William Pollack

  A coach who ensures that sports are an inclusive activity—one who cheerfully embraces boys at all different skill levels (and who makes sure the other boys do too)—can help each boy feel that he is able, skilled, and important, that he really matters to the team. This kind of coaching helps a boy not only to overcome his sense of loneliness and isolation—substituting connection for more removed autonomy—but also to boost his feelings of self-esteem. By contrast, a coach who derides or humiliates boys when they make mistakes, who pushes boys beyond their natural skill levels, or who offers words of encouragement only when the boys actually win, may cause our sons to feel ashamed, harden themselves in the ways we’ve already discussed, and hide behind a mask of false self-confidence.

  Likewise, a coach who teaches the value of balanced disciplined effort—“a personal best”—rather than stressing fierce competition and winning as the crux of a game, can play a vital mentoring role that encourages boys to see sports as an opportunity for physical and emotional self-transformation rather than as an outright test of his masculinity.

  “Mr. Hanks is a great coach,” one fifteen-year-old reported about the coach of his high school football team. “Before we begin scrimmaging, he leads our team through an hour of calisthenics. We have to do about one hundred sit-ups, push-ups, deep knee-bends, jumping jacks, and a whole bunch of exercises. But Coach Hanks doesn’t just shout out orders at us. He’s yelling out what to do while he’s doing it too! He’s real demanding, but he puts himself through the training with us.”

  Another boy of the same age offered a similar sentiment about Mr. Hanks: “He’s great because he pushes you hard but has a good attitude about it. Like he tells us that if we don’t feel up to practice one day, we have to show up, but we can tell him we’re tired and, for that day, he’ll give us a lighter, separate routine to do. Some coaches would just yell at you or push you harder. Mr. Hanks is realistic. He never tries to harass you or make you feel bad if you can’t do something. He just seems to want to help us do the best we can.”

  Coaches can convey a moral stance, one that is not rigid, punitive, or unyielding, but rather derives from establishing a loving sense of connection with the boys and acting as an important adult role model. As one boy told me about his soccer coach, “His golden rule is don’t ever tell anybody what they can or can’t do—just smile and show them what you can do. Nobody’s perfect and the only thing you can really control is your own game. Our coach is always real nice and friendly, sort of like a camp counselor or something. He tells us that if you do good, other people will be inspired and then they’ll do good too.”

  “What’s great about Mr. Schroeder,” said another boy about the same coach, “is that when we win a match, he takes us out for doughnuts and we celebrate. And when we lose a match, we still go out for doughnuts—we’re just a little less rowdy.”

  As the boy’s mentor, the coach is in many respects a stand-in for mother and father. Even a boy with two very loving parents may find his afternoons filled with the voice of his coach rather than the voices of his parents. Especially for the adolescent boy who may find himself somewhat distanced or detached from his parents at times, the coach may be one of the few adults to whom he will look for guidance, support, and encouragement.

  “Mr. Jensen helped me through some hard times,” offered seventeen-year-old Glenn about his basketball coach. “I had to go through a bunch of surgeries to correct my eyesight. I had a lot of problems seeing, and kids made fun of me because one of my eyes looked funny. Coach Jensen told the other kids that anybody that made fun of me would be kicked off the team and that a lot of pro players had eye problems too. He let me play in a lot of games and didn’t yell at me when I fouled. Everybody loves Mr. Jensen. He’s just a great guy.”

  A coach has a unique opportunity to help boys feel good about themselves. By setting up sports in such a way that boys can achieve personal mastery, by staying away from shaming words, and by inspiring all boys—no matter what their relative skill levels—to feel they can develop athletic skills and contribute to the team, coaches help boys to avoid seeing sports as a cult of competition or narcissistic aggrandizement; and instead make sports a place for personal growth.

  COACHES WHO TEACH SHAME

  But, regrettably, not all coaches have a positive, nurturing attitude, and many have limited interest in structuring sports creatively to embrace boys’ varying degrees of skill. Far from helping and reassuring the boys they mentor, some coaches instead resort to shame, exhorting boys to “play with your pain,” “get your butt going,” and not “act like a girl.” Eighteen-year-old Michael D’Amico recalled one such traumatizing lacrosse coach: “He acted like an army officer or something—a total drill sergeant. He would shout out your last name and then just tell you off, like ‘D’ Amico—you’re doing push-ups like a little sissy. Now get your ass in gear!’ or ‘D’Amico—what the hell are you doing? Can’t you see the damn goal? Which side are you playing for anyway?’ ”

  A coach who manipulates his players to win at any cost, or models unrestrained anger, communicates the soul-denying harshness of sheer competition, where the essential element of play within sports has been removed, and with it much of the chance for personal growth. Parents need to know their sons’ coaches, and to make sure they are men or women who see sports as play, who project the kind of warmth and understanding that enables boys to cope with winning and losing, and who encourage boys no matter what their relative skill level. Just as parents should not put up with teachers who shame their sons, parents should be sure their sons are mentored in sports by nurturing, empathic people.

  WHEN THE BOY CODE COMES BACK INTO FORCE—THE

  RETURN OF SHAME AND HARDENING

  Yet even in the presence of a thoughtful coach, boys can become prone to following the old Boy Code rules that equate masculinity and “being a man” with athletic competence and success. These rules lead some boys who do well athletically to humiliate, even condemn, boys who do less well.

  I believe these Boy Code rules come back into force most often when boys are prodded into believing that performing well or winning—rather than playing for the fun of it—is the be-all and end-all of the game. When playing sports becomes about winning at any cost—and about humiliating anyone who loses or who contributes to your own loss—boys feel pressured not only to put on their emotional armor and act tough but to tease or rebuke other boys for showing any weakness or vulnerability.

  Thus as much as sports can create a positive space where boys are comfortable expressing their feelings, show their affection more freely, develop enhanced senses of self-esteem, and learn together about loss in a constructive way—the transformative experience of sports—they can also thrust boys into a universe of shame and humiliation where they come to feel very anxious about doing well yet know their feelings must be buried even deeper. Just about any parent who has sat through a high school baseball game has heard the cries of “He’s no batter! He’s no batter!” resounding throughout the ball field and has watched the teenage batter—instead of blushing, succumbing to tears, shouting back, or just giving up entirely—actually tighten up his face, concentrate intently on the oncoming pitches, and apparently ignore the humiliating epithets flying about him. And many parents have had to deal with a son who—less talented than some of his peers—has been put through the humiliation of being consistently picked last for gym-class teams or perhaps regularly taunted as being a “wimp,” a “loser,” when he’s attempted in vain to succeed at a particular sport. While some of these boys may try to avoid athletic activities altogether, others harden themselves against the pain of being persistently rejected and disgraced.

  TOMMY: THE LESSONS START YOUNG

  The first time I observed Tommy, he seemed rather lost on the large white ice-skating rink. I was taking my daughter to her skating lesson, and I noticed one of a very few five-year-old boys taking lessons among a majority of girls. Dressed in his miniature hockey uniform, To
mmy looked as if this was the last place on earth he wanted to be. Still, encouraged by the comments of his father on the sidelines, Tommy valiantly struggled to stay up on those skates, but his wobbly legs kept betraying him.

  After his fourth spill—this one drawing blood from his already battered knees—Tommy sought his father’s solace, near the visitors’ gallery. “No more today, Dad,” Tommy pleaded, “My knee really hurts!”

  “Nan . . . that doesn’t hurt too much,” his dad replied. “C’mon, keep going—you’re not going to let a bunch of girls beat you out of the competition, are you?”

  The shame on Tom’s face was painful to see; he didn’t want the whole world to think he was a “wimp,” less strong than even the girls. He barely held back his tears and slid away from his dad, back onto the ice.

  And then there was a loud crash. Before he could steady himself, Tommy was smashed by two teenage girls who collided with him simultaneously from opposite sides. Tommy fell to the ice, crushed both emotionally and physically.

  Tommy’s father helped him up, and asked, “Are you OK, kid?”

  The beleaguered little boy, looking like Mohammed Ali after too many rounds of too many fights, stammered, “I guess so.”

  “You’re OK. You’re fine,” his father said. “Don’t give up! I know just what will help—keep skating—it will loosen you up.” The little boy obediently turned around and continued skating . . . falling . . . skating . . . falling.

  About a year later I arrived at the rink when I noticed that a group of about twenty boys were scrimmaging in preparation for an upcoming hockey game. Donning a bright red helmet and matching uniform fitted over pads clearly too big for his frame, there was three-foot Tommy De Santis skating with the other boys and chasing after the puck.

  Within just minutes of observing the practice session, I saw an inevitable “repeat play” of what I had seen many months ago. As Tommy maneuvered the puck toward the opposing team’s goal, three much larger boys rammed into him from all angles. When Tommy began to lose his balance, one of the boys helped him finish the fall, shoving little Tommy onto the ice.

  If just months ago this might have left him immobilized and in tears, today Tommy got right back on to his feet, adjusted his helmet, and skated off after the boys. His skating now significantly improved, Tommy raced after the opponents with abandon. As he approached the kid who had pushed him, Tommy skated even faster. When their two bodies collided almost head-on, his opponent went flying against the side board with a forceful bang.

  “Thatta boy!” I heard a man shout from the bleachers just a few feet behind me. Mr. De Santis stood up, let out a loud whoop, and threw his two fists up into the air to salute his son. As if he couldn’t hear his father, Tommy kept his eyes squarely on the ice and skated off behind his teammates.

  I’ve told the story of Tommy to many parent groups, and I’ve learned a lot from the reactions it receives. Some people don’t see anything wrong with Tommy’s experience or his dad’s conduct. Tommy, they believe, will have to learn to “play rough with the big boys.” They see sports as a component—even as a positive component—in helping their sons learn how to act tough and endure pain silently, be fierce, quiet, and resilient, act “masculine” in the stereotypical sense of the term. They fear what it would mean if their sons were not willing to submit to this toughening process, dreading the humiliation that would follow for them and their sons. While they may not like the sight of Tommy crashing onto the ice or the sound of his coach—in this case, his father—spurring him on to be tough and retaliate against the other boys, many parents see these things as somehow necessary, part of “growing up,” of “being a boy.”

  Other parents are far less comfortable with the hardening aspect of sports. They see Tommy as being taught an unattractive kind of ruthlessness—as being pushed to act in a way that does not actually come naturally to him. They see Tommy’s father’s behavior as abhorrent. Why, they ask, would a father encourage his child to put up with being hurt and cheer him on when he injures others? As one mother said, “I’m proud of my son when he does well at a sport, but being proud doesn’t feel worth it if he’s going to have to go through all of the cruelty that goes with it.” Or as another parent exclaimed, “I can understand what the boys sometimes do to each other. But the parents! I can’t stand those parents shouting out the meanest, competitive things from the sidelines. Don’t they realize they’re hurting and embarrassing our kids?”

  I have found that the majority of parents feel torn between wanting their boys to excel athletically—to be prepared for the rough aspect of sports and do whatever is necessary to be counted among the team—and wanting to protect their sons from the unnecessarily mean-spirited, cut-throat, emotionally sterile aspects of so many boys’ sporting activities. Many parents appear to regret the ways in which sports toughen up their boys emotionally and often wish that sports could be a more positive, uplifting, and confidence-building experience for their sons.

  As one father expressed to me, “When my son, Keith, was the last guy to strike out, I could see how bad he felt. The other boys were hardly talking to him and the coach wouldn’t even look at him, let alone say something to him. Keith was trying to act relaxed about it, but I could see he was miserable. I wished I could go up to him and tell him that he was a good kid and that he actually played very well—that the pitcher on the other side just happened to be pretty damn good. But I thought that maybe that would make him feel worse. I felt like I just wanted to go up to him and give him a big hug. But I knew he would be really embarrassed if I did that.”

  Like Keith’s father, many parents worry that if they step in and say or do something, they will only exacerbate their sons’ feelings of shame. But it is here that, in my view, so many parents miss out on an opportunity to help change things for the better. For as natural as it is not to want to “rock the boat” or make things worse, I believe that parents can make an enormous difference in what sports are about—without further humiliating their sons—by staying persistently involved in monitoring and overseeing what kinds of attitudes prevail on the court and in the field.

  In fact, I’ve known groups of parents who have attended referee schools, coaching workshops, and conflict-resolution seminars, and then woven together these skills into a manual that teaches a new approach to coaching boys’ teams. If their involvement is regular and inconspicuous, and if healthy attitudes come to pervade the game, parents can have a tremendously positive impact on how a sport is played and experienced, helping to decrease the shame ante for the whole team and to make sports transformational as we’ve seen they can be.

  THE UNNECESSARY BRUTALITY OF SPORTS

  In addition to pushing boys to taunt and reprimand one another for their mistakes and weaknesses as athletes, society’s rules about masculine behavior also sanction the sheer brutality that can sometimes creep into so many of boys’ games. While some sports, such as crew, tennis, golf, do not involve such brutality, many others—football, hockey, wrestling—are surprisingly ruthless. Even soccer—normally seen as a relatively easy, fluid game, less violent, and more forgiving of weakness than sports like football or rugby—can, in the wrong hands, become terribly violent.

  Listen, for instance, to seventeen-year-old James, the six-foot 145-pound designated enforcer of his high school soccer team:

  “Before, if someone did something to you, for the good of the team you wouldn’t retaliate. Now, if somebody gets you, you’re going to get them for the pride of the team. If I got hit, and one of the younger kids on my team saw me just back down and not retaliate, that would spread through the whole time. It would be like, you’re not a man.”

  James remembers how he almost started a fistfight with a superior player: “We both went up for a head ball and he nudged me in the back. I fell down pretty hard and that triggered something in me. So I swung around—my whole body—and I got up in his face and he said, ‘What the f–are you going to do?’ And I said, ‘What the
f–are you going to do?’ And we started bumping.”

  James added: “It used to be the old saying that it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose. I don’t think anybody lives like that anymore.”

  THE OBSESSIVE COMPETITIVE ASPECT OF SPORTS

  If cultural imperatives allow our sons to experience sports as an opportunity to exchange anger and act out hostile or violent feelings, sports can sometimes also become an arena where boys are pushed to become compulsive about doing well, making themselves strong, or beating the competition. This compulsive aspect of sports can lead boys to train themselves in an excessive way, mask or ignore serious injuries, or become overly zealous in how they play a particular sport.

  PETER: OBSESSED WITH ATHLETIC SUCCESS

  Peter Vincent, a senior at a highly competitive public high school, describes himself as someone who was “conceived with a purpose.” His parents’ marriage was failing, and they hoped a new baby would reconnect them somehow. Their first two children were already ten and fourteen, and perhaps a little one’s pressing needs and endearing quality would help bridge the widening gap between the parents.

  But the fact that Peter was a boy, he says, added a gender-specific tone to those expectations. “I felt the pressure to be a hero to my mother and father, even my brother and sister, from the earliest time I can remember. They wanted an academic genius and a stand-out athlete, and I’ve always tried with all my might to give them what they wanted.”