Every so often, Smallish World has a feature on a small, tiny, little, minor, miniature, or otherwise down-size phenomena in the real world.
Yesterday evening, I went over to my friend’s house.
My friend’s father sat lounging on the couch, watching none other than The Ohio State Buckeyes football team win against the Maryland Terrapins. The Buckeyes won 62 to 3.
In a game of football, I suppose this is both an unusual amount to win by and a stunning rout. It is amazing to see a team win by a factor of over 20.
But, I couldn’t quite join in the celebration. Not because I have anything against the Buckeyes, but because I can’t quite understand the game.
I don’t have the firm grasp of the mechanics, rules, and statistics that govern the popular sports of baseball, football and basketball here in the United States of America, and it goes even further into obscurity if you begin to talk about other sports that aren’t as popular, like hockey, soccer, and boxing.
I am a man. I don’t like sports. To a lot of people out there, then, I am an anomaly.
Why is it so unusual for a guy to not enjoy talking sports?
It is, after all, one of the most universal bonds of fellowship that a guy can talk about with another guy. More so than cars or women, sports are the bastion of straight, white male social activity. They offer a equal playing ground (which is, itself, a sports reference) wherein men can communicate freely and be mutually understood.
Beyond the purely cultural significance of sports talk, there are also roots in a biological system used by many other animals to communicate mating preferences and social desirability. This Time article discusses further:
Much of the answer is based on the phenomenon known as the spectator lek. Principally found in birds, but also in some species of insect and mammal, a lek involves males gathering in a single place…sometimes by engaging in mock—or not-so-mock—combat, while other members of the species observe…For male spectators, it has equal, if different, value [than for female spectators], allowing “nonparticipating males [to] monitor the performances so they can evaluate potential competitors and allies,” the researchers write.
The lek is described by the Encyclopedia Britannica as a courtship ritual, and as one that conveys a certain status to the successful males and to the observing females. To the females, it is sheer performance evaluation, but to the observing men, it’s more or less a “back off, I’m better” or a “I need to shape up” reflection on how they perceive themselves comparatively to their peers.
The Time article continues:
Social status matters too, and sports reliably confers it, enhancing both power and mating options for the participant. That’s a dividend exploited far more by male athletes than female.
And here, one must be cautious. Above, I made a blasé comment about how (straight) men will often have women as one of their primary topics of conversation: analysing, debating and ordering women based on their superficial qualities. This clearly excludes athletes who are not straight, but we see that the exposure of non-heterosexual orientation is still widely questioned in the realm of sports.
Take Michael Sam, an American football player who finished his college football career and then became the first openly gay drafted player in the NFL. Of course, then the surrounding media controversy meant he was removed from the St. Louis Rams roster shortly thereafter.
I think if I never would have came out, never would have said those words out to the public, I would still be currently in the NFL.
They aren’t words of regret, but words of condemnation to a non-inclusive sports industry, with values he perceives to mired in the past.
So it certainly isn’t that all male athletes use their social privilege to provide opportunities for sexual activity; there are gay male athletes and those straight male athletes who abstain. It’s a different world for them, assuredly.
But, there are reasons why sports would be of more interest to and of greater benefit to men, both biologically and socially.
So…then why don’t I like them as much as some others?
The answer is probably very simple:
Evolution provides for basic tendencies and drives that are common to human populations, but not necessarily human individuals. Also, my upbringing says nothing about yours and your upbringing is not necessarily indicative of mine. We can have socialized very differently, even if we were next-door neighbors.
So, when my lek tendency or my naturally competitive nature arises, I have been exposed to different avenues of interest or different ways of dealing with it than the participation in, or spectating of, mock war games.
It’s not that I don’t find value in physical fitnesss, or that I have no appreciation of the feats of physical agility and endurance that sports players have.
It’s just that I don’t find any value in the pageantry of it all.
I find it hideously unfair that professional athletes are paid sums larger than that of lawmakers and world leaders.
I find it supremely ridiculous how we find inspiration and hope in some of these icons who may be selling themselves or their images for even more money.
And I find it very uncomfortable to support some industries that not only mistreat players and fans, but also propagate racist, sexist or homophobic behavior (like those that Michael Sam faced).
In all, I can confidently say that my reasons for not enjoying sports as much as the next red-blooded male are good ones. But, in the presence of sports talk, and it being as omnipresent as it is, I can only hope for what Bill Swislow wrote in his essay, “Confession of a Sports Non-Lover“:
Mostly I just hope for a crumb of reciprocity. I don’t assume you want to hear my thoughts on, say, the use of bottle caps in folk art…so perhaps you could back off when your concern for some quarterback drains the life from my face.
Thanks, Bill!
And thank you for reading.
Smallish World 