Real Boys

by William Pollack

“I’m not sure I’d be here anymore if it wasn’t for the league,” added Tom. “For a long time I couldn’t deal with things. Now I’ve got a place to go.”

  Tom and Phillip show us there are many ways in which sports can change things for boys, and I have found that there are at least four major areas in which sports are often transformational for boys: they free boys up to express a broad array of emotions; they allow boys to show their love and affection in a shame-free environment; they boost self-esteem; and they teach boys how to be flexible in difficult situations, how to deal with losing and loss in general. Because each of these areas has been so under-explored in the literature available to parents, I would like to discuss each of them in turn.

  SPORTS AND TRANSFORMATION: EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION

  The first area of transformation is that of emotional expression. Sports can be a forum where boys learn how to deal openly with feelings of failure, shame, sadness, and the simple realities of human limitations.

  Whether it’s football, basketball, baseball, or golf, almost all sports provoke tremendous swings of emotion, highs and lows. Sometimes our victories and defeats are personal—for instance, when we win a game of one-on-one tennis, fall down when we’re skiing, or score substantially below par in a round of golf; and sometimes they are communal—a basketball team’s defense gets clumsy in the third quarter, a baseball team rallies to hit a string of home runs in the final inning of a home game. But whether we experience them individually or as a team, these ups and downs encompass a plethora of emotions: joy, despair, pride, embarrassment, anger, triumph, humility. Sports help boys handle these feelings, much in the way that fathers, as we saw in Chapter 6, teach young boys how to handle intense emotions through rough-and-tumble play.

  Indeed on the court and in the field, boys—if they are not discouraged from doing so—often seem impressively capable of sharing these kinds of feelings, free of the masks they usually feel pressured to wear:

  “Normally, I would never cry in front of my friends,” explains Josh, the seventeen-year-old quarterback of his high school football team, “but when we lose a game—especially if it’s really close—I’ve seen a lot of guys cry. Sometimes you just can’t hold it back.”

  “We almost made it to the state finals,” said fifteen-year-old Peter, lamenting his track team’s recent lost match to another local team. “At our last meet, when we lost in pole vaulting and then in the five-hundred-meter run, our captain was so fed up he just got all choked up and started to cry.”

  “Football’s a pretty rough sport,” seventeen-year-old Willis explained, “and a few weeks ago one of our guys got really badly injured and they had to take him away in an ambulance. There was this really long time-out, so our whole team got together, went into a huddle, and started praying for him. Some of the guys were really shaken up by it.”

  For many boys, sports is the one place where they sense it’s all right to show what they really feel and who they really are. Because the source of their feelings is external and obvious—a missed goal, a great shot, a huge win, a narrow loss—the shame they usually experience if they show these feelings can sometimes fall away. Especially with a coach who does not humiliate them for their mistakes and who instead encourages them despite how they perform, boys can come to feel less inhibited, freed to share their feelings honestly, without fear of embarrassment. Sports help boys break out from behind the silence of the mask, and allow them to assert sides of themselves they ordinarily feel pressured to hide.

  SPORTS AND TRANSFORMATION: FRIENDSHIP

  AND AFFECTION—TEACHING CONNECTIONS

  Through sports boys can also transform themselves by ending their isolation and discovering comfortable ways to share the caring and affection they feel for their peers. And in this sharing, sports may lead boys toward friendships with girls and other boys, friendships with their own physical vocabulary and their own disciplines of love.

  Lionel, the sixteen-year-old captain of his highly touted high school basketball team, spoke to me about the kind of sharing he appreciates from his teammates. “When we win, we just get all together in a group huddle and start hugging each other, patting each other on the back. When we won against this undefeated team the other day, one guy on my team came up behind me and just grabbed me. For a second I thought he was going to tackle me. But actually he was just giving me this huge hug. He couldn’t believe we won!”

  For some boys, sports offer opportunities for emotional closeness too often lacking in other areas of their lives. Sports allow boys to feel a dedication to others, to experience feelings of love and commonality within comfortable bounds. In fact, boys often feel more comfortable caring about and nurturing one another in the context of playing sports than in almost any other area of life—so long as the caring and nurturing is expressed in the team concept and channeled toward a task, toward the external goals of the game. Because they feel that they are part of a higher mission beyond the self, boys feel a kinship and a freedom to show affection that they don’t tend to feel comfortable about in other contexts. Boys show these feelings sometimes by using words—“Nice going,” “Don’t worry about it,” “Hey, are you all right?”—and perhaps most often through physical gestures, such as a pat on the back, an embrace, a congratulatory slap on the buttocks, or thumbs up. For many boys, their most affectionate, intimate experiences take place when they are part of a group with a clear common objective, to which deep feelings can legitimately be linked.

  In Mark Harris’s baseball novel Bang the Drum Slowly, one ballplayer expresses his feelings this way: “[Y]ou felt warm toward them, and you looked at them, and them at you, and you were both alive, and you might as well have said, ‘Ain’t it something? Being alive, I mean! Ain’t it really a great thing at that?’ And if they would of been a girl you would of kissed them, though you never said such a thing out loud but only went on about your business.”

  SPORTS AND TRANSFORMATION: A BOOST

  IN SELF-ESTEEM—A SENSE OF MASTERY

  When coaches and parents work hard to make sure that participating in sports does not become an emotionally damaging experience, the activity can also transform boys by offering them a chance to excel at something that comes naturally to many of them, to achieve a newfound sense of mastery, and thus to boost their self-esteem. Especially for boys who find it difficult to do well academically, sports may be one of the few contexts in which they receive praise. In team sports, boys may be able to feel a sense of success by making small contributions to the team’s victories—a good pass, a nice save, a skillful tackle. Even when they’re on the bench playing a very minor role in a particular game, boys can often derive a sense of vicarious pride and accomplishment through the athletic prowess and success of teammates.

  SEAN: SELF-ESTEEM THROUGH HOCKEY

  “I felt like there was nothing I could do the best,” Sean said. His older brother, Nick, was an outstanding artist who had won statewide competitions with his drawings. His oldest sister, Maura, had frequently impressed her parents and grandparents at her dance recitals. And Christina, the sister closest to Sean in age, was a top flutist in her junior high school band. Meanwhile Sean was just struggling in school and, by the age of thirteen was beginning to be angry and defiant at home, too.

  While Sean’s parents had always been convinced he was a bright child, Sean’s performance at school was consistently mediocre. One of Sean’s sixth-grade teachers was particularly perceptive. “She told us Sean simply wasn’t trying that hard,” his mother, Lynn O’Hanley, remembered. “He would be the first in the class to put down his pencil, even though he seemed capable of very good work. He was rushing through assignments. He always did his homework, but we could see that his homework was just ‘anything to get it over with.’ We really thought about having Sean tested for ADD, although when he was home playing with Lego blocks or something he liked, he could sit still for hours.”

  Sean’s father, John O’Hanley, had fond memories of playing ice hockey
as a boy, and suggested he introduce Sean to a sport to build his self-confidence. Mr. O’Hanley brought Sean to a series of sporting events—basketball, football, baseball, soccer, and his own childhood favorite, ice hockey—then gave Sean the opportunity to pick one to pursue. “I could see that Sean was enjoying just getting out alone with me, there aren’t as many chances for that in a large family,” says John. “And I could have talked his ear off—I love talking sports—but I bit my tongue, and just told a few stories about when I was a kid. I had decided not to give him any advice, but I admit I was pleased when Sean chose ice hockey.”

  John attended every hockey practice with Sean, cheering him on from the sidelines. “I made another pact with myself that I would never criticize Sean’s mistakes, only praise his efforts,” John explains. “There’s all this organized coaching now, even down to the baby levels, and it’s easy for parents to become little assistant coaches, but we didn’t have that. My parents came to the game and cheered, that’s all they ever said about hockey. I knew I couldn’t go to school with him every day, but this was something we could share together.”

  Sean soon became one of the strongest players on his team. “On the car rides back home, Sean would go over his best plays with me. I’d get tears in my eyes just to see him look so pleased with himself,” John says.

  By that spring, Sean’s grades had begun improving. “I’m the greatest hockey player in my family,” Sean now declares. “Even better than my dad used to be when he was my age!”

  “Ice hockey gave Sean a chance to try with all his might at something he loved,” John observes. “I had my doubts, getting him up to practice at weird hours so he could get some ice time, and making those long drives to games in other towns. But it gave the two of us an opportunity to get closer as well, and you can’t put a price on that.”

  As Sean’s story shows, if properly mentored, boys may find that sports provide them with a chance to apply skills that come easily to them, receive praise and attention they don’t get elsewhere, and thus significantly increase their feelings of self-worth.

  SPORTS AND TRANSFORMATION: LESSONS

  INRESILIENCE—FACING LOSS

  Finally, sports also transform boys by teaching them emotional resilience—how to overcome the fear of being shamed, a fear that can cause boys to toughen themselves up, especially when they become adolescents. Sports teach this capacity for resilience—a healthy ability to cope with shameful feelings openly and flexibly—through the inevitable experience of losing. Sports bring boys face-to-face with loss and allow them to express disappointment and grief they probably would not otherwise experience.

  To learn how to deal with defeat is also to come to terms with shame. One learns, as the poet A. E. Housman put it, that glory “withers quicker than the rose.” Unfortunately, parents and mentors may too often fail to teach sons about bearing such loss so that it then becomes something feared and is seen as catastrophic.

  If sports were only about glorious victory and humiliating one’s opponents (or one’s less capable teammates), they would not help a boy to confront his fears and vulnerabilities. They would not transform him. But sports in fact do involve loss. And sports do transform boys because of this.

  “It’s not so bad,” sixteen-year-old Martin told me when I asked him how he feels when his soccer team loses a game. “We get depressed sometimes . . . and if we play an ‘away game’ and lose, everybody is really quiet on the bus ride home. But there’s this real warm feeling you get. I don’t know how to explain it. Like we’re all in something together, and it’s even OK to lose.”

  “There’s nothing like winning,” explained Hamilton, Martin’s seventeen-year-old teammate. “Losing sucks and you feel like you’re a complete dork. But on the team, nobody ever blames you because they know they could screw things up the next time. . . . Losing is just part of the game. It’s part of being on the team, so you learn how to deal with it.”

  “It makes you humble,” adds seventeen-year-old Benson.

  And sixteen-year-old Arthur opines: “It’s better than failing a test at school or something.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Well, on a test you’re all alone and if you do bad, you’re probably not gonna tell anyone. You’re just gonna sulk and try not to show it. But when you lose a match, it’s like, OK, everybody knows—and it’s all of us losing together. There’s no hiding it, and you just deal with it with all the other guys.”

  As these boys’ comments reflect, sports provide a community of support that somehow makes the disappointment of losing seem more bearable. In fact, I have found that if boys are coached properly, they may also discover, as did one high school football team I know, that this community includes not only their teammates and fans but their opponents as well.

  THE HAWKS: LEARNING FROM LOSING

  The Hawks are a talented group of high school football players from a middle-class suburb of a large northeastern city. Not only do these boys know how to play football but many of them excel academically too. Six feet tall, built like a linebacker, Coach Paul Santanello boasts cheerfully about his team: “If you make it through a season with me and the team, I’d say you’ve also got a good 99.9999% chance you’re headed for college.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I tell Paul, who seems to me he not only knows how to prepare his team athletically but also has a real knack for understanding the psychology behind sports.

  “I know how to get them psyched up for a game,” he explains to me, “and I know what to tell them about winning and losing.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Well, for example, about a month ago, we had to play against one of the city teams. So, before the other team arrived, I told the kids on my team a few key things. Number one, that the other team came from a school with different resources than our school has. So, no laughing or teasing them about their tattered uniforms, their broken helmets, or whatever. Number two, that this was one of the top teams in the state, so be prepared, and do the best you can. And number three, if you lose, don’t say anything bad to the other side—just shake hands with them and tell them that they played great.”

  “Sounds like superb advice,” I tell Paul.

  “Well, I don’t know about that. But when the game came around, the boys really handled themselves pretty well. They gave one hundred percent, did their best, although they got completely whomped by the other team. But nobody on my team said anything wrong to the other guys. There was complete respect, and when the game was over, my guys went over and congratulated the other team.”

  “That’s really something.”

  “My guys were so blown away by the other team,” Paul adds with a smile, “that they asked me if they could do some Saturday scrimmages against them. We’ve been doing these Saturday-morning things now for six weeks, and the kids seem to like them.”

  “Sounds like a good opportunity for the boys.”

  “Yeah, and not only that,” Paul says proudly. “I now hear that guys on my team are starting to help some of the guys on the other team actually write their college admissions essays. You know, they’ve actually become friends and are helping each other out. So, I’d say the kids on my team have learned a lot since losing that first game!”

  As the story of the Hawks reflects, good sports are about learning from loss, especially about the recognition of limits. Unlike what happens in much of the rest of life, in sports the limits are obvious and the consequences for ignoring them are tangible and immediate. As Phillip Isenberg, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist and former Harvard football-team captain, has pointed out, sports teach people that they have to live within the limits of the game and of their bodies, to realize their relative talents. No matter what one’s skill level, there’s almost always someone stronger, faster, or better coordinated. No matter how hard one tries to win, there’s also the role of chance—the injured star player, the distracting fan, the wind that carries the ball. And no matter ho
w unfair, losing is simply reality.

  And so this is the fourth important way in which sports transform boys. Sports take boys who thought they would always have to cover up their feelings of loss and vulnerability and show these boys that losing, and the pain that goes with it, are part of life, that one can be honest about one’s disappointments, and that all one can do is just get up again, head back into the field, and continue to do one’s best.

  THE EMOTIONAL IMPORTANCE OF THE COACH:

  A ROLE MODEL FOR ONE’S PERSONAL BEST

  My research shows that so much of what distinguishes what is good and “transformative” about sports from what is bad and destructive is what attitudes prevail among the people a boy plays with, and how he is treated when he succeeds or fails in playing; and crucial to each of these factors is the coach. The coach and the emotional environment he or she creates within the team are essential to developing boys’ sense of self-esteem and of connection to others. It is the role of the coach to encourage boys to play cooperatively while nudging them away from attitudes that may make them self-serving, overly aggressive, or even reckless.

  The coach may be an employee at the local school, a parent volunteering for an after-school program, or an older sibling leading younger kids in athletic play. When I refer to the coach, I mean anybody who supervises boys playing sports. So much of a boy’s experience with sports, I believe, depends on the coach: how aware and sensitive he or she is, whether he or she mentors the boy, how the coach deals with a boy’s strengths and weaknesses, his successes and failures.

  A coach is an emotionally important figure in a boy’s life. When he or she cheers on boys at all skill levels, models a sense of fairness, and exudes a sense of levity, fun, and fair play that transcends winning or losing, a coach can make playing sports the immensely positive transformative learning experience I’ve been speaking of. With the right coach, a boy is transformed from an isolated competitor into a bonded teammate, from someone who simply wants to beat the other guy to someone purely striving to do his personal best.