Why sports?
Why not the opera? Or theater? Or movies? What’s so terrific
about sports that anyone should care about them?
Although those other diversions are certainly wonderful in
their own right, sports is the ultimate theater, the
ultimate reality show, the ultimate cliffhanger with
an ending no one can predict. There is a myth out there that
gay men do not care about sports (many lesbians, on the
other hand, are allegedly born with the sports gene
instilled in them). Although there are some truths in every
stereotype, gay men can be just as fanatical about sports as
their straight brethren. The success of Outsports
attests to that. This chapter, however, is designed for
those men and women who wonder what all the fuss is about.
Sports Theater at Its Best
Picture it. January 2006. The Indianapolis Colts are playing
the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL playoffs. In Los Angeles,
three gay men are watching at the home of David Kopay, the
former NFL player who made history in the 1970s by coming
out of the closet. His 1977 coming-out autobiography,
The David Kopay Story, has inspired gay men and lesbians for
more than thirty years with its unflinching and honest
account of the shackles of living a lie. But on this day,
Kopay is just another fan.
In one chair sits Kopay, Outsports contributor Jim Allen is
in another, and Jim Buzinski is in a third. All three are
passionately rooting for the Colts. Buzinski has been a
Colts fan, off and on, since he was a kid growing up in
northeastern Pennsylvania in the 1960s. Allen is a fan
because he thinks the Colts have some of the hottest guys in
professional football. Kopay is a fan because Colts
quarterback Peyton Manning is the son of one of his former
teammates, Archie Manning, and he fondly remembers Archie
and his wife taking him in for Thanksgiving dinner in New
Orleans in the 1970s.
Shockingly, the favored Colts are losing to the Steelers,
21–3, entering the fourth quarter. But then the Colts
strike. Peyton Manning throws a touchdown pass to tight end
Dallas Clark. It’s 21–10. He then throws an interception,
which a referee’s review surprisingly overturns, keeping the
Colts alive. A few plays later, the Colts score another
touchdown, and suddenly the score is Pittsburgh 21,
Indianapolis 18. The three fans in Kopay’s house are on the
edge of their chairs, hoping they are watching a miracle
occur.
The miracle apparently ends when the Steelers stop the Colts
and get the ball deep in Indianapolis territory with less
than two minutes remaining. All Pittsburgh has to do is run
a few plays, and the game is over. The three begin looking
at menus to order food, resigned to the fact that all is
lost. But then something happens that literally causes
millions of Americans to leap from their chairs screaming.
Sure-handed Pittsburgh running back Jerome Bettis gets the
ball and heads toward the end zone. He is met at the line of
scrimmage by a Colts linebacker whose helmet hits the ball,
causing it to pop up into the air. Fumble!
A Colts defensive player scoops up the loose ball and begins
running toward the Pittsburgh end zone. You’ve never seen
three grown men bolt from their chairs in such unison,
yelling as if they’d just won the lottery, as you would have
at Kopay’s house. In New York City, three thousand miles
away, Buzinski’s brother Paul, a huge Steelers fan, is
screaming but for another reason: he is watching his beloved
team’s season slip away. In Pittsburgh, one Steelers fan
literally has a heart attack as the Indianapolis defender is
running the ball back.
As the ball carrier tries to make a move around midfield,
Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger reaches out in
desperation, and his arm trips up the Indianapolis defender,
who falls to the ground. “Do you believe this?!” CBS
announcer Dick Enberg screams.
The Colts, with new life, begin their drive for what will
either be the game-winning touchdown or a field goal that
will send the game into overtime. The fans in Kopay’s house
have forgotten all about ordering food and instead have
found religion, praying that the Colts can somehow pull it
out. On the last play of the game, Colts kicker Mike
Vanderjagt, the most accurate kicker in the history of the
NFL, lines up to attempt a forty-six-yard field goal that
will tie the game. CBS flashes a statistic that shows
Vanderjagt has not missed a field goal at home all season.
His kick never has a chance, veering wide right, heading
toward Muncie. Pittsburgh hangs on, Colts fans are crushed,
Steelers backers are elated, and the fan with a heart attack
awakens to hear that his beloved Steelers will live to play
another day.
Had this been a movie, someone would have known the ending
-- the screenwriter, the producers, the director, the
actors, the grips, and anyone else associated with
production. Even many moviegoers would have somehow found
out what had happened. There would be suspense certainly,
but very much of an artificial type.
In contrast, no one knew what was going to happen in
Indianapolis, not the coaches, players, league commissioner,
or the guy selling the overpriced beer. The true suspense
riveted football fans across the nation. The Bettis fumble
would go down in NFL lore as one of the most stunning turn
of events in league history. And it was all unscripted.
That’s one of the beauties of sport -- its total
unpredictability, its ability to see the story line change
in such a way that even a fiction writer wouldn’t dare
suggest. It’s just like life itself -- it unfolds one
minute, one play, one drama at a time. It’s why most
Hollywood sports movies can never live up to the real thing.
For anyone who is tired of so much in
the world being scripted, sports offers the ultimate “Can
you believe this?” experience.
The Wonderful Power of Community
Studies
have shown that for rabid sports fans, the thrill of
watching their favorite team in action can rival a sexual
experience. No joke. For many, it’s even better than sex. As
the New York Times reports: “Some researchers have found
that fervent fans become so tied to their teams that they
experience hormonal surges and other physiological changes
while watching games, much as the athletes do. The
self-esteem of some male and female fans also rises and
falls with a game’s outcome, with losses affecting their
optimism about everything from getting a date to winning at
darts, one study showed.”
Any true sports fan will know that this research rings true.
For better or worse, a lot of sports fans live and die with
their teams. In places like Pittsburgh, where the Steelers
are a civic religion, the whole city can go into mourning
after a tough loss or into euphoria after an exciting win.
It’s even more extreme in soccer, where the psyche of entire
nations is affected by how their national heroes perform.
Wars have broken out over contentious soccer matches, and,
sadly, people have died.
No one would suggest that this is entirely healthy, and in
fact there’s a reason the word fan is derived from fanatic.
Some people take it way too seriously, as if their essence
is somehow tied to their team winning or losing. The same
New York Times article discusses a study in Georgia that
showed that “testosterone levels in male fans rise markedly
after a victory and drop just as sharply after a defeat.”
One researcher told the paper that “the results suggest fans
empathize with the competitors to such a degree that they
mentally project themselves into the game and experience the
same hormonal surges
athletes do. The contest, however, must be an important one,
like a playoff game. We really are tribal creatures,” he
said.
The word tribe is an interesting one and reflects the
communal nature of sports. It allows fans to feel they are
part of something, part of a larger team. This is well
reflected on any university campus, where students, faculty,
and alumni identify with their school’s sports teams.
Customs, traditions, chants, and cheers are passed down from
one generation of
students to the next. An eighteen-year-old student and
seventy-year-old Florida State alum would appear to have
very little in common, but when they hear the Seminole fight
song, they become brothers in tomahawk-chopping arms.
In many ways, people carry their school and team identity
throughout their lives. For many gay people, who often feel
shunned by the larger world, this identity can be a bridge
in finding common ground with others. On the Outsports
Discussion Board,
when alums from the same school find each other, it’s akin
to discovering a new family member. As with any group
identity, everyone feels his customs and traditions are
clearly superior to any other. Texas fans say that no one
tailgates like they do, but try telling that to people who
went to Penn State, Michigan, Georgia, Nebraska, or any of a
hundred other universities.
The tribal nature certainly also extends to professional
sports. In Boston, they refer to fans of the local baseball
team as part of Red Sox Nation. Until 2004, Red Sox fans
wore their eighty-six years of World Series futility as a
perverse badge of honor. And when the Sox finally won the
World Series in October 2004, whole generations celebrated,
and some elderly fans even joked that God might as well take
them now since life on earth could not possibly get any
better. Boston fans were in love that year with long-haired
outfielder Johnny Damon, who had he decided to run for mayor
would have won in a landslide. However, two years later,
when Damon decided to sign a free-agent contract with the
hated New York Yankees, he quickly became the “enemy.”
When it comes to the National Football League, entire social
calendars are built around the release of the NFL schedule.
Woe unto any unsuspecting bride in Green Bay, Wisconsin, who
decides to get married the weekend of a Packers home game.
Season tickets in Green Bay and in many other NFL cities are
handed down from generation to generation as priceless
heirlooms. They even factor into divorce settlements, with
access to tickets worth more to some people than a set of
expensive china.
If done in the spirit of fun and entertainment and with a
degree of moderation, being a sports fan is a wonderful way
to expand one’s social outlet. Many gay people have parties
to watch the Academy Awards, complete with pools to predict
everything from Best Picture to Best Costume Design. It’s
really no different from having a Super Bowl party or
playing fantasy football -- except in the case of sports,
the winners are determined on the field and not through some
highly politicized ballot procedure. If one can get into
three hours of lame jokes and dance numbers, it’s just as
easy to get into three hours of Monday Night Football.
Eye Candy
Outsports has debunked the myth that gays do not like
sports. It is probably true that a higher percentage of
gays, especially men, are not as outwardly interested in
sports as the rest of society. But for those who are sports
fans, the passion is no less intense than among straight
sports fans.
One could argue that, in one way, being a gay male sports
fan is more rewarding than being a straight male fan. It
comes down to what might be called the “eye-candy factor.”
Face it: men are visual creatures. There’s no mystery why
Sports Illustrated’s most popular issue each year is the one
chock-full of female swimsuit models. There’s no mystery why
most sports teams have cheerleaders, virtually all female.
There is no mystery why tennis star Anna Kournikova is more
recognized for her pinups than for her play. It’s all about
the eye candy.
For gay guys, watching sports played by men puts the eye
candy on display front and center. Fans needn’t wait for the
camera to give a passing sideline shot of a hot female
cheerleader -- the visuals appear on every play, from that
stud receiver making a catch to that lanky pitcher throwing
a strike to that amazingly muscular gymnast swinging pommel
horse.
Gay fans needn’t wait for Sports Illustrated to give one
issue a year of babes, babes, and more babes; they get that
fifty-two weeks a year in the magazine photos that are still
predominantly of men. Of course, straight guys and lesbians
can get their fi x watching women’s sports, but the reality,
for better or worse, is that men’s sports still get the
lion’s share of coverage. That’s a good thing if you’re a
gay male sports fan.
Each year, Outsports holds a contest called “King of the
Hardwood,” run by a devoted member who goes by the name
MarinerDuckGuy. The contest is a derivative of the NCAA
men’s basketball tournament, but instead of a bracket
featuring sixty-four teams, King of the Hardwood features
what our readers consider the hottest sixty-four athletes in
the world. Because most of these athletes have gotten
tremendous exposure, they are household names. People have
seen them in competition, in training, and giving
interviews; it makes for a very well-informed voting public.
At least among straight men, who do not watch women’s sports
at a high rate, people would be hard-pressed to come up with
sixty-four female athletes. This is again because of the
relative lack of exposure of most female athletes.
For two years running, football player and skier Jeremy
Bloom won the contest. He was gracious enough to give
Outsports an interview, in which he said he would rather be
praised for his personality than his looks. But it was not
his personality that won him the most votes. Bloom excels at
posing shirtless for magazines and on his web site. He has a
built-in fan base that has seen him baring his chest and
rippling abdominal muscles for years. There is little doubt
that Bloom is better known for his smooth pecs than
his smooth moves on the football field or the slopes.
This admiration of athletic bodies is not a recent
phenomenon. Go back and read accounts of the first Olympics
in the time of ancient Greece. Athletes then performed in
the nude, and champions were just as highly praised and
rewarded as they are now. People of the time took note of
the athletes’ physiques, from the burly or sinewy wrestlers
to the lean, streamlined runners. Being of sound body as
well as sound mind was very much a Greek ideal.
Today, of course, with the rise of ESPN and the Internet,
fans are awash in sports and athletic imagery. This has made
it much easier for the uninitiated to become a sports fan.
People see a hot jock, which can create a desire to see that
person perform, whether it be on the field, on the court, on
the links, in the pool, or on the track. This is something
very positive, and something seen regularly on Outsports:
people will hear others talk about an athlete and then check
out that person for themselves. This is not something
sexual. (Well, maybe it is in part.) But it’s also admiring
someone who has pushed his or her body to its highest level,
which is a beautiful thing in many ways. It’s the same as
watching the astounding athleticism on display at a ballet.
Studies
have shown that for rabid sports fans, the thrill of
watching their favorite team in action can rival a sexual
experience. No joke. For many, it’s even better than sex. As
the New York Times reports: “Some researchers have found
that fervent fans become so tied to their teams that they
experience hormonal surges and other physiological changes
while watching games, much as the athletes do. The
self-esteem of some male and female fans also rises and
falls with a game’s outcome, with losses affecting their
optimism about everything from getting a date to winning at
darts, one study showed.”