I'll tell you why we watch football -- or part of the reason we watch football --because grown men can show emotion, because grown men can hug and cry.
I've just watched a Championship game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Indianapolis Colts. At the end of a very emotional game they showed the coach and quarterback in a full frontal embrace. They were whispering into each others ears.
Part of the reason they were so close is that thousands are milling around them, photographing them, yelling. If they want to say something private they must whisper into each other's ears -- but two grown men in a full frontal embrace, hugging, whispering? It's wonderful. I love it. They love each other and they are showing it. The coach has brought the quarterback to the Super Bowl and the quarterback has just won the game, for himself, for the coach.
The scene will never leave my mind. When else can men show such open and physical emotion? Never. The word "fags" would be screamed at them if they were caught in a full frontal embrace. Let me explain full frontal embrace. Recently I left town for a year. When I returned many of my friends hugged me, but one young woman--whom I am fond of, who is married but who is fond of me, hugged me from the bottom of her feet to her neck -- up close and intimately personal. Nothing has ever happened between us -- nothing ever will, but that made me realize the difference between the way I hug people -- and the intimate way lovers hug.
And here were two men doing that, in front of millions. Grown men are allowed to do that at the end of emotional football games. They are even allowed to cry. Pittsburgh's coach -- Mr square jaw, Mr "no-show" emotion -- couldn't hold it. His face was literally cracking -- square jaw, but tears were streaming down his cheeks & you saw that sobs were being suppressed. The square jaw sagged, cracked, clearly under the influence of emotion it had trouble controlling.
We men need to see rock jaws crumbling. We need to see grown men crying, hugging. Fortunately, slow motion slows down the sequence for us. We wouldn't see tears, but slow motion makes us see the struggle taking place within the face. Slow motion is TV's finest invention.
For all the wrong reasons, I love to watch sports on TV, but there is one good thing about what sports show: sports show that men hugging each other is okay. How does one show emotion? Not by sticking out a paw. You engulf the human being. In baseball's World Series the image I see is of the catcher running to the mound, leaping on the pitcher, monkey like, wrapping his legs around him. I'm a baby, carry me.
Sports brings out the child in us, and when a child loves it embraces, when it loses it cries and sometimes when it wins it cries. You're not a girl, you're not a fag -- you're just an emotional human being allowing your emotions to show.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein