"Of course, now I understand that it was precisely my parents’ hard work and sacrifice that allowed me the luxury of questioning the value of hard work. The big wheel keeps on turning.)" - these words made me choke. Some big realisations happening in me there. Thank you for saying this.
CTE in sport is a very difficult topic. "A growing body of research has linked heading the ball in soccer to the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), caused by repetitive impacts to the brain." Will soccer need to ban heading the ball from the game in the future?
As far as brutality, soccer seems tame compared to football, and both seem tame compared to MMA fighting, where the goal is to hurt one's opponent more than they hurt you. My partner's young son is into MMA, and it makes me sad, as if our culture has failed him, because he doesn't have a better outlet for his masculinity than watching other men hurt each other. Unlike football and soccer, you don't even see the inter-tribal love. You do get the intra-tribal hatred and the primal high/flow state that comes from brutality. More chimp than bonobo. More Thanatos than Eros. If Eros is thwarted, Thanatos expresses itself more.
There is much data on how our chimp-like, Tanathophilic culture values the lives of women more than men. I asked him how he would feel if there were women fighting. He admitted he didn't like it. I was going to ask him how he would feel if his mother or sisters were getting brutally beaten (but with their consent), but I decided that was too much to venture for our fragile connection. So this is another part of how we might want our culture to be different: to value the lives of men as much as women. To feel empathy for men getting hurt, instead of seeing them as disposable and getting a high from them getting brutally pummeled. Of course there are evolutionary, biological reasons for this asymmetry, still, I wonder if it's culturally universal to see men as disposable and not feel as much empathy for them.
Previous to this post, I thought I had already developed a pretty deep and healthy relationship to watching (and playing) sports. I shed the silly habits I learned from my father, older brother, and peers a long time ago. I just love a good game, I love an underdog, I appreciate the camaraderie that it brings players and fans (even across the aisle), and I am conscious of the many many fucked up realities of the sports-industrial-complex.
But after this post Chris, my complex love for sports has grown deeper. Thank you.
"It's just a game," they say. But they don't know.
"Just a game, hey Tweeds," delivered with a wink and a little smile. He knows. Flashback 15 years ago both of us sobbing in each other's arms after a narrow defeat in the dying moments of a grand final. The pain no less real now after two winning premierships and a decade and a half of time having passed. Just a game.
Maybe it's jealousy. Maybe it's ignorance. Maybe it's just simple disbelief that a bunch of Neanderthals can find meaning in kicking a possum skin around, and build and entire community around it.
It's not exaggerating to say we fought for each other, we bled, we cried, we laughed we sang. It's a genuine brotherly love.
What else can it be? When you've seen each other in your most vulnerable moment, physical, mental, spiritual. All the ugliness on display. And you still love them. Even 20 years on.
"Tweeds!" And a big bear hug. Five years away from the club because of life. "So good to see you mate." Nowhere else do I get that welcome. And that year when Mum suddenly died. It was the boys that rallied around me.
As you get older you begin to realise to focus more on the people that are in the rooms after a loss than those in the rooms after a win. Those are the ones you know will be there no matter what, that stick by you in the tough times.
Now I'm one of the veterans, watching from the balcony with a beer in hand, great mates all around me, talking, or is it bullshitting about the glory days and shared history. I know, through conversations that the playing group look at us with envy. "I'd give anything to have a premiership medal like you."
Ha! Even they don't know yet.
I know, through conversations that this group of ex players look at the playing group with envy.
"I'd give anything to be able to play again like you."
This is a poignant post Chris. I attended scores of football games in high school because I was in the band, and we played several times before and during games. I have no problem with the bumps and grinds becuase the players seem to enjoy them so much, not to mention the fans. But I am concerned about football and soccer for kids; their bodies are not quite resilient enough to guard against concussions. The day will come when grade school footbll, soccer, and boxing are banned. On the other hand, the books IN THE ZONE and THE PSYCHIC SIDE OF SPORTS provide excellent surveys of the positive and often uncanny events that accompany sports and athletics.
Lovely piece. There is something so primal about sports for men...fathers and sons.
My father—a Holocaust survivor—had been a soccer star in the old country (now Ukraine). When I wanted to have a catch with him, he'd "head" the ball. When he came to watch me play HS football, he asked afterward if we were "praying" in the huddle. He didn't follow sports at all.
Playing HS football was a very formative experience for me.
Interesting coincidence—I just published a personal essay on Medium about it.
"My Football & Sex Saga"
Will the “life lesson” I learned playing high school football help me inspire a change in how society views sex?
Very well said. As a Cowboy fan, I remember the 70’s Steelers very well, unfortunately. lol. I remember watching football with my father. Thanks for bringing back the memories Chris, as I’m watching football on this Saturday afternoon.
I am not a fan of team sports, other than a brief period of loving hockey, only because I had played as a youth. I do however feel the kinship of watching with my father, he was a die hard Broncos fan and we too would sit and faithfully watch ever Sunday with dad, he passed a couple of years ago and every now and then I will watch a little of the game just to feel his presence in a way only watching football can bring about. Thank you for this beautiful gift on a cold morning in Colorado 😊🥶
One of your best posts ever. Thank you Chris. A lot of us feel the same way. There is something transcendent about sports that gives us both distraction and hope.
My own relationship with sports is fading. I grew up playing lots of sports, mostly basketball. I made my high school varsity team my junior year but did not play my senior year. I couldn't handle the competitive coaches who seek to motivate by means of verbal abuse. I think I have always been on the sensitive side and a coach demeaning me in front of my peers every day for months of the year robbed me of my confidence on and off the court.
I also have always struggled to make male friendships. I don't know why. But when I quit basketball, I was able to work part-time and at least make some female friendships. I still enjoy watching some basketball now and then, but I always find myself envying the male friendships. My wife sometimes suggests I get some male friends but I honestly don't know how.
I grew up as a Florida boy out of water in the Midwest (St Louis). I spent half of every summer back in my home state with my grandparents and dreamed of the ocean when stuck in “Misery” aka Missouri the rest of the year. One of the highlights of being in St Louis was going to Busch Stadium 2 or three times a year to watch the Cardinals play baseball with my father. We would go to the annual picture day where you could get in early and get photos with legends like Bob Gisbson, Stan Musial, Lou Brock and later the Oz Ozzy Smith, Kenny Reitz, Keith Hernandez, Ted Simmons and the only other Dane I ever met until my mid-20’s 2nd baseman Dane Iorg. I remember waiting a few days that seemed like two weeks to get the developed photos back from Photomat (4”x4” prints with the small white borders on all sides) and then pouring over those pics with my father. He would always save newspapers of big historical events (moon landing, Kennedy assassination, first shuttle launch) including the Cardinals winning streak taking three of four Worlds Series during my stint in high school. Often when I would visit my parents who moved to Hilton Head SC to retire I would dig out those old photos and newspapers and go through those memories. Sadly much of these items were destroyed when my parents house flooded in 2016 during hurricane Matthew. Anyway, your piece brought back lots of memories of watching baseball games with my father. I don’t really follow professional sports these days, but anytime I see a Cardinals cap or Jersey a little grin crosses my face. Thanks for the reminder of good times.
Beautiful story, thank you for sharing
"Of course, now I understand that it was precisely my parents’ hard work and sacrifice that allowed me the luxury of questioning the value of hard work. The big wheel keeps on turning.)" - these words made me choke. Some big realisations happening in me there. Thank you for saying this.
What a beautiful piece about dad, football, memories, what ties us together and how viewpoints change over the years.
CTE in sport is a very difficult topic. "A growing body of research has linked heading the ball in soccer to the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), caused by repetitive impacts to the brain." Will soccer need to ban heading the ball from the game in the future?
As far as brutality, soccer seems tame compared to football, and both seem tame compared to MMA fighting, where the goal is to hurt one's opponent more than they hurt you. My partner's young son is into MMA, and it makes me sad, as if our culture has failed him, because he doesn't have a better outlet for his masculinity than watching other men hurt each other. Unlike football and soccer, you don't even see the inter-tribal love. You do get the intra-tribal hatred and the primal high/flow state that comes from brutality. More chimp than bonobo. More Thanatos than Eros. If Eros is thwarted, Thanatos expresses itself more.
There is much data on how our chimp-like, Tanathophilic culture values the lives of women more than men. I asked him how he would feel if there were women fighting. He admitted he didn't like it. I was going to ask him how he would feel if his mother or sisters were getting brutally beaten (but with their consent), but I decided that was too much to venture for our fragile connection. So this is another part of how we might want our culture to be different: to value the lives of men as much as women. To feel empathy for men getting hurt, instead of seeing them as disposable and getting a high from them getting brutally pummeled. Of course there are evolutionary, biological reasons for this asymmetry, still, I wonder if it's culturally universal to see men as disposable and not feel as much empathy for them.
Previous to this post, I thought I had already developed a pretty deep and healthy relationship to watching (and playing) sports. I shed the silly habits I learned from my father, older brother, and peers a long time ago. I just love a good game, I love an underdog, I appreciate the camaraderie that it brings players and fans (even across the aisle), and I am conscious of the many many fucked up realities of the sports-industrial-complex.
But after this post Chris, my complex love for sports has grown deeper. Thank you.
Interesting..
I find the whole industry of sports for pay very strange. The amounts of money time and focus is insane to me.
I understand team sport for those playing it. The bond between players the fun and joy.
However the industry of making money on young undeveloped bodies, having them Chase an dream of fame, seams unnecessary.
Life’s not lived for real, spend In front of the tv is crazy to me.
Not having conversations about the realness of people, but spending life watching others live full speed.
It’s strange to me.
"It's just a game," they say. But they don't know.
"Just a game, hey Tweeds," delivered with a wink and a little smile. He knows. Flashback 15 years ago both of us sobbing in each other's arms after a narrow defeat in the dying moments of a grand final. The pain no less real now after two winning premierships and a decade and a half of time having passed. Just a game.
Maybe it's jealousy. Maybe it's ignorance. Maybe it's just simple disbelief that a bunch of Neanderthals can find meaning in kicking a possum skin around, and build and entire community around it.
It's not exaggerating to say we fought for each other, we bled, we cried, we laughed we sang. It's a genuine brotherly love.
What else can it be? When you've seen each other in your most vulnerable moment, physical, mental, spiritual. All the ugliness on display. And you still love them. Even 20 years on.
"Tweeds!" And a big bear hug. Five years away from the club because of life. "So good to see you mate." Nowhere else do I get that welcome. And that year when Mum suddenly died. It was the boys that rallied around me.
As you get older you begin to realise to focus more on the people that are in the rooms after a loss than those in the rooms after a win. Those are the ones you know will be there no matter what, that stick by you in the tough times.
Now I'm one of the veterans, watching from the balcony with a beer in hand, great mates all around me, talking, or is it bullshitting about the glory days and shared history. I know, through conversations that the playing group look at us with envy. "I'd give anything to have a premiership medal like you."
Ha! Even they don't know yet.
I know, through conversations that this group of ex players look at the playing group with envy.
"I'd give anything to be able to play again like you."
Just a game.
This is a poignant post Chris. I attended scores of football games in high school because I was in the band, and we played several times before and during games. I have no problem with the bumps and grinds becuase the players seem to enjoy them so much, not to mention the fans. But I am concerned about football and soccer for kids; their bodies are not quite resilient enough to guard against concussions. The day will come when grade school footbll, soccer, and boxing are banned. On the other hand, the books IN THE ZONE and THE PSYCHIC SIDE OF SPORTS provide excellent surveys of the positive and often uncanny events that accompany sports and athletics.
Lovely piece. There is something so primal about sports for men...fathers and sons.
My father—a Holocaust survivor—had been a soccer star in the old country (now Ukraine). When I wanted to have a catch with him, he'd "head" the ball. When he came to watch me play HS football, he asked afterward if we were "praying" in the huddle. He didn't follow sports at all.
Playing HS football was a very formative experience for me.
Interesting coincidence—I just published a personal essay on Medium about it.
"My Football & Sex Saga"
Will the “life lesson” I learned playing high school football help me inspire a change in how society views sex?
https://medium.com/@jerryiweinstock/my-football-sex-saga-e8a289d49475
Happy Holidays!
❤️
You wrote my thoughts..
The world is fucked up because our collective sexuality is fucked up by religion.
Beautiful story, Chris!
Very well said. As a Cowboy fan, I remember the 70’s Steelers very well, unfortunately. lol. I remember watching football with my father. Thanks for bringing back the memories Chris, as I’m watching football on this Saturday afternoon.
I am not a fan of team sports, other than a brief period of loving hockey, only because I had played as a youth. I do however feel the kinship of watching with my father, he was a die hard Broncos fan and we too would sit and faithfully watch ever Sunday with dad, he passed a couple of years ago and every now and then I will watch a little of the game just to feel his presence in a way only watching football can bring about. Thank you for this beautiful gift on a cold morning in Colorado 😊🥶
One of your best posts ever. Thank you Chris. A lot of us feel the same way. There is something transcendent about sports that gives us both distraction and hope.
My own relationship with sports is fading. I grew up playing lots of sports, mostly basketball. I made my high school varsity team my junior year but did not play my senior year. I couldn't handle the competitive coaches who seek to motivate by means of verbal abuse. I think I have always been on the sensitive side and a coach demeaning me in front of my peers every day for months of the year robbed me of my confidence on and off the court.
I also have always struggled to make male friendships. I don't know why. But when I quit basketball, I was able to work part-time and at least make some female friendships. I still enjoy watching some basketball now and then, but I always find myself envying the male friendships. My wife sometimes suggests I get some male friends but I honestly don't know how.
I grew up as a Florida boy out of water in the Midwest (St Louis). I spent half of every summer back in my home state with my grandparents and dreamed of the ocean when stuck in “Misery” aka Missouri the rest of the year. One of the highlights of being in St Louis was going to Busch Stadium 2 or three times a year to watch the Cardinals play baseball with my father. We would go to the annual picture day where you could get in early and get photos with legends like Bob Gisbson, Stan Musial, Lou Brock and later the Oz Ozzy Smith, Kenny Reitz, Keith Hernandez, Ted Simmons and the only other Dane I ever met until my mid-20’s 2nd baseman Dane Iorg. I remember waiting a few days that seemed like two weeks to get the developed photos back from Photomat (4”x4” prints with the small white borders on all sides) and then pouring over those pics with my father. He would always save newspapers of big historical events (moon landing, Kennedy assassination, first shuttle launch) including the Cardinals winning streak taking three of four Worlds Series during my stint in high school. Often when I would visit my parents who moved to Hilton Head SC to retire I would dig out those old photos and newspapers and go through those memories. Sadly much of these items were destroyed when my parents house flooded in 2016 during hurricane Matthew. Anyway, your piece brought back lots of memories of watching baseball games with my father. I don’t really follow professional sports these days, but anytime I see a Cardinals cap or Jersey a little grin crosses my face. Thanks for the reminder of good times.