April 13, 2012
The Maile Gaze (Delayed); Tebowmania Talk in the Midwest Before discussing the significance/history/symbolism of uniforms and how sports fans talk about unis, I have to address a slightly more pressing matter. In two weeks I am going to Rockford College, a private liberal arts college outside of Chicago, to talk about the rhetoric of religion in Tebowmania and the Penn State scandal. Here’s the extended abstract:  With God on the Sideline: The Rhetoric of Faith and Football in Tebowmania and the Penn State Scandal             Perhaps the two biggest sports stories of 2011 have concerned college and professional football respectively: the first being the allegations of child rape against former defensive coordinator for Pennsylvania State University’s Nittany Lions, Jerry Sandusky, the second being the media frenzy brought about by the play and public persona of Tim Tebow, quarterback for the Denver Broncos. What connects the two is not merely the sharing of a particular moment in American sports history, but how religion and religious rhetoric have been at the forefront of both. After the Sandusky case began making national headlines, NBC’s Brian Williams made a statement, which at least in sentiment if not exact terms, had also been expressed in The New York Times. Williams asserted that a “lot of people watching this scandal unfold at Penn State, watching the human damage pile up, watching an institution get badly soiled, can’t help but think of the scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in America.” While this analogy is born from the way a powerful institution was complicit in covering up the abuse of young boys by a respected and prominent figure in the local community, this is not where the religious rhetoric ends. The other central figure in the case, former head coach Joe Paterno, has been rhetorically positioned as a fallen deity; in a Sports Illustrated article about the scandal, an alum mentioned a run-in with Paterno where she felt like she had been “scolded by God.” (Paterno’s nickname, “Pa,” also has a religious connotation that is difficult to ignore.)             At the same time as the Sandusky case unfolds and provides ongoing material for media punditry, Tebowmania, shorthand for the incredible amount of attention given to Tim Tebow, shared the media landscape with the Penn State case. Ever since his rise to national prominence as a Heisman Trophy and national championship-winning quarterback at the University of Florida, Tebow’s religious faith has been part of not only his own rhetoric—he famously had Bible verses on his eye black during games—but is also central to his polarizing effect on audiences. Although his incredible popularity could be due to leading a spate of dramatic comeback wins for the Denver Broncos, it also has to do with his constant and prominent profession of faith, the kind of rhetoric that has appealed to a wide spectrum of Americans. Yet Tebow’s references to his faith have not been universally endorsed: responding to Tebow’s pronouncements, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs said that, “with all due respect, we don’t need God on our sideline.” This paper puts Tebowmania and the Penn State scandal in conversation via the religious rhetoric present in both, and explores how this is part of a larger intersection between sport, faith, and American identity.             In The Holy Trinity of American Sports (2007) Craig A. Forney argues that football, baseball, and basketball “produce a daily way of life and provide acts of nonstop guidance, particularly by way of devotion to spoken and written words. Beyond the everyday, the game action inspires gathering of fans at certain times in the week, congregating actions in expression of common faith” (25). What Forney calls the “devotion to spoken and written words” is the central element of this paper, particularly as these words reflect the fan’s identity and his or her relationship to other fans. Moreover, sport generates a wide-ranging and sophisticated discourse that goes far beyond the discussion of the game and its minutiae of points scored, penalties given, and winners and losers identified. While this paper focuses on what (for want of a better term) I will refer to as case studies that demonstrate interconnected rhetoric of faith and football and how this rhetoric consists of much more than what occurs on the gridiron, this chapter is also an attempt to speak to the wider interplay of faith, sports, and fanaticism in the United States.  —————————————————— There are a number of issues I will address: * Fanaticism, of course, and how it played out in both the phenomenon of Tebowmania and the allegations against Jerry Sandusky. How much is too much? (A silly question, perhaps, but one that pertains to both cases.) Tebowmania, after all, was as much about those who looked at his public pronouncements of faith with distaste as delight. How did Tebow go “too far”? Aaron Rodgers is a quarterback who is vocal and open about his Christian faith, but he has few (if any) critics on this matter. Perhaps we can locate the disdain felt by many observers in the way that it was part of the Tebow commodification: that Tebowing, for example, was part of the larger “sales drive” of the Tebow brand. (I am sure I am not the only one to think this, but if only Roland Barthes could write an essay on those devoted “Tebowers,” captured by digital photography in a pose that has no fixed meaning.)    As for the Penn State scandal, another question that was part of its discourse is “what’s too much?” In this case, I think the question of degree concerns what, for want of a better term, one could call “the line”: How do we read the actions of the students who rioted (gently in that good night) over Paterno’s dismissal? Acolytes who are unleashing anger and dismay after the deposition of a beloved, divinely-appointed monarch? Or acts of devotees who are willing to forget/wilfully ignore the effect such visible support for Paterno might have on those who were (allegedly) raped by a member of Paterno’s royal family? More later.      

The Maile Gaze (Delayed); Tebowmania Talk in the Midwest

Before discussing the significance/history/symbolism of uniforms and how sports fans talk about unis, I have to address a slightly more pressing matter. In two weeks I am going to Rockford College, a private liberal arts college outside of Chicago, to talk about the rhetoric of religion in Tebowmania and the Penn State scandal. Here’s the extended abstract: 

With God on the Sideline:

The Rhetoric of Faith and Football in Tebowmania and the Penn State Scandal

            Perhaps the two biggest sports stories of 2011 have concerned college and professional football respectively: the first being the allegations of child rape against former defensive coordinator for Pennsylvania State University’s Nittany Lions, Jerry Sandusky, the second being the media frenzy brought about by the play and public persona of Tim Tebow, quarterback for the Denver Broncos. What connects the two is not merely the sharing of a particular moment in American sports history, but how religion and religious rhetoric have been at the forefront of both. After the Sandusky case began making national headlines, NBC’s Brian Williams made a statement, which at least in sentiment if not exact terms, had also been expressed in The New York Times. Williams asserted that a “lot of people watching this scandal unfold at Penn State, watching the human damage pile up, watching an institution get badly soiled, can’t help but think of the scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in America.” While this analogy is born from the way a powerful institution was complicit in covering up the abuse of young boys by a respected and prominent figure in the local community, this is not where the religious rhetoric ends. The other central figure in the case, former head coach Joe Paterno, has been rhetorically positioned as a fallen deity; in a Sports Illustrated article about the scandal, an alum mentioned a run-in with Paterno where she felt like she had been “scolded by God.” (Paterno’s nickname, “Pa,” also has a religious connotation that is difficult to ignore.)

            At the same time as the Sandusky case unfolds and provides ongoing material for media punditry, Tebowmania, shorthand for the incredible amount of attention given to Tim Tebow, shared the media landscape with the Penn State case. Ever since his rise to national prominence as a Heisman Trophy and national championship-winning quarterback at the University of Florida, Tebow’s religious faith has been part of not only his own rhetoric—he famously had Bible verses on his eye black during games—but is also central to his polarizing effect on audiences. Although his incredible popularity could be due to leading a spate of dramatic comeback wins for the Denver Broncos, it also has to do with his constant and prominent profession of faith, the kind of rhetoric that has appealed to a wide spectrum of Americans. Yet Tebow’s references to his faith have not been universally endorsed: responding to Tebow’s pronouncements, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs said that, “with all due respect, we don’t need God on our sideline.” This paper puts Tebowmania and the Penn State scandal in conversation via the religious rhetoric present in both, and explores how this is part of a larger intersection between sport, faith, and American identity.

            In The Holy Trinity of American Sports (2007) Craig A. Forney argues that football, baseball, and basketball “produce a daily way of life and provide acts of nonstop guidance, particularly by way of devotion to spoken and written words. Beyond the everyday, the game action inspires gathering of fans at certain times in the week, congregating actions in expression of common faith” (25). What Forney calls the “devotion to spoken and written words” is the central element of this paper, particularly as these words reflect the fan’s identity and his or her relationship to other fans. Moreover, sport generates a wide-ranging and sophisticated discourse that goes far beyond the discussion of the game and its minutiae of points scored, penalties given, and winners and losers identified. While this paper focuses on what (for want of a better term) I will refer to as case studies that demonstrate interconnected rhetoric of faith and football and how this rhetoric consists of much more than what occurs on the gridiron, this chapter is also an attempt to speak to the wider interplay of faith, sports, and fanaticism in the United States. 

——————————————————

There are a number of issues I will address:

* Fanaticism, of course, and how it played out in both the phenomenon of Tebowmania and the allegations against Jerry Sandusky. How much is too much? (A silly question, perhaps, but one that pertains to both cases.) Tebowmania, after all, was as much about those who looked at his public pronouncements of faith with distaste as delight. How did Tebow go “too far”? Aaron Rodgers is a quarterback who is vocal and open about his Christian faith, but he has few (if any) critics on this matter. Perhaps we can locate the disdain felt by many observers in the way that it was part of the Tebow commodification: that Tebowing, for example, was part of the larger “sales drive” of the Tebow brand. (I am sure I am not the only one to think this, but if only Roland Barthes could write an essay on those devoted “Tebowers,” captured by digital photography in a pose that has no fixed meaning.)   

As for the Penn State scandal, another question that was part of its discourse is “what’s too much?” In this case, I think the question of degree concerns what, for want of a better term, one could call “the line”: How do we read the actions of the students who rioted (gently in that good night) over Paterno’s dismissal? Acolytes who are unleashing anger and dismay after the deposition of a beloved, divinely-appointed monarch? Or acts of devotees who are willing to forget/wilfully ignore the effect such visible support for Paterno might have on those who were (allegedly) raped by a member of Paterno’s royal family?

More later.      

4:47pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zr13mvJc6oTB
April 12, 2012
The Maile Gaze A fellow fanatic sent me a maxim today that he thought could be interesting when considering football. The maxim reads “Virtus Lorica Fidelis,” translated in Old English to the following: True Vertue is a Coat of Maile / ‘Gainst which, no Weapons can prevail.” My fellow fanatic noted that the meaning of Virtus is somewhat slippery: it  “is also translated variously as “strength/power,” “courage/bravery,” and “worth/manliness/virtue/character/excellence.”” Although all the various definitions of Virtus are directly related to the (often hackneyed) rhetoric of coaches (Coach-speak), I thought the “Coat of Maile” is an integral part of the commerce of contemporary sports: the uniform. The University of Oregon athletic program, which in no small part is sponsored by Nike founder Phil Knight, has turned the football uniform into an art. My next posts are going to relate to the language of the uniform, and how fans talk about the significance of the uniform.

The Maile Gaze

A fellow fanatic sent me a maxim today that he thought could be interesting when considering football. The maxim reads “Virtus Lorica Fidelis,” translated in Old English to the following: True Vertue is a Coat of Maile / ‘Gainst which, no Weapons can prevail.” My fellow fanatic noted that the meaning of Virtus is somewhat slippery: it  “is also translated variously as “strength/power,” “courage/bravery,” and “worth/manliness/virtue/character/excellence.””

Although all the various definitions of Virtus are directly related to the (often hackneyed) rhetoric of coaches (Coach-speak), I thought the “Coat of Maile” is an integral part of the commerce of contemporary sports: the uniform. The University of Oregon athletic program, which in no small part is sponsored by Nike founder Phil Knight, has turned the football uniform into an art. My next posts are going to relate to the language of the uniform, and how fans talk about the significance of the uniform.

9:16pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zr13mvJZafcn
April 11, 2012
The Specter of Context; or, “Our Hitler” The furor over Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen’s comments continues. As happens when a statement made by a figure in the sports world attracts attention from the wider realm of the general media, the sports media—namely, ESPN—has exhaustively mined the story, from the initial reports of the comments through Guillen’s public mea culpa and subsequent suspension. On Friday, April 6, Time published the following: “I love Fidel Castro,” Blurts Ozzie Guillen, the new manager of the Miami Marlins, in his Jupiter, Fla., spring-training office before an early-March team workout … After a second of reflection, the most unfiltered figure in baseball, if not sports, wants a do-over. “I respect Fidel Castro,” says Guillen, a Venezuela native who also says he respects Hugo Chavez. “You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that mother——— is still here.” If any well-known coach or manager in American sports mentioned that he or she loved and/or respected Fidel Castro, there would be reaction in the media. (Particularly in the Twitterverse Epoch.) But there are several key contextual elements to this statement that make it even “hotter”: first, he made the comment in South Florida, home to the largest Cuban population in the United States. Second, he is the coach of a team that recently switched from having a name that associated itself with the state as a whole “Florida Marlins” to a specific city “Miami Marlins.” According to a recent U.S. census, there are over 850,000 Cuban Americans in Miami alone. (On a somewhat side-note, I have always been fascinated by the syntax of cultural/national/ethnic identification. Does Cuban American denote an equal sharing of a particular heritage? Or is “Cuban” the adjective and “American” the noun? Or is the ordering one of importance or relevance? Cuban comes first, American comes second. In a conversation with Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens argues that Jewish organizations—American Jewish Historical Society, American Jewish World Service—are unique in the United States in the way that “American” is placed before “Jewish.” Does this mean that the label American, which is a matter of national rather than ethnic or religious identity, is put to the forefront? ) Guillen’s comments caused uproar because Miami is the center of the Cuban exile, and to be a professional baseball manager in Miami and praise the dictator who drove many of that city’s residents from the place of their birth—a legacy of fear, anger, and resentment related to the Castro regime that is passed down through Cuban American families—is, in simple terms, at least a slap in the face to a large portion of the fanbase. Of all the discussion that has come about through Guillen’s Time interview, it was Miami Herald writer and ESPN show host Dan Le Batard’s reaction. LeBatard, who is a Cuban American, quite reasonably stated that Guillen’s comments were “the worst possible thing that [he] could have said.” Le Batard followed with a more provocative statement: “For Cuban-Americans, he’s our Hitler. Without getting into a comparison shopping on atrocities, let that marinate for a second. For Cuban-Americans, Fidel Castro is our Hitler.” Perusing different articles that have addressed Le Batard’s article, more than one mentions how Le Batard’s reference evokes Godwin’s Law, an Internet adage attributed to one Mike Godwin in the early years of cyberspace. Godwin’s Law serves as a proverb: “If you mention Adolf Hitler or Nazis within a discussion thread, you’ve automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in.” While other articles have addressed the real numbers of those killed by the Castro regime or attempted to quantify/qualify just how “bad” a dictator Castro was in comparison to other ghastly “leaders” throughout the twentieth century, I was struck by one word (repeated twice) in Le Batard’s claim: “our.”  I heard rather than read Le Batard’s assertion—it was a clip that has been played numerous times on ESPN—and thus I took note of the way that Le Batard verbally emphasized the word “our.” Not that Castro is “like” Hitler to us, but that Castro is “our” Hitler. Perhaps I am pressing on something that’s not there, but I couldn’t help but think of the extension: Castro is “our” (meaning Cubano and Cubano estadounidense’s)tyrant, and Hitler is “yours” or “theirs.” Perhaps because both Hitler and Castro’s respective regimes took action that had both local (the targeting of particular people who inhabit said nation-state over which the dictator holds power) as well as international ramifications (a world war and systematic murder which, while largely focused on, was not restricted to European Jewry; in the case of Castro’s Cuba, a long-standing relationship with a Cold War antagonist), I took greater notice of the first person possessive plural pronoun. Yet perhaps this was simply another case of context being integral to Guillengate: South Florida has a large Jewish population, and Le Batard’s comments may have been intended to elicit pathos in a particular audience. However, I do wonder what Jewish Americans in Miami and around the country made of Le Batard’s comparison?  

The Specter of Context; or, “Our Hitler”

The furor over Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen’s comments continues. As happens when a statement made by a figure in the sports world attracts attention from the wider realm of the general media, the sports media—namely, ESPN—has exhaustively mined the story, from the initial reports of the comments through Guillen’s public mea culpa and subsequent suspension. On Friday, April 6, Time published the following:

“I love Fidel Castro,” Blurts Ozzie Guillen, the new manager of the Miami Marlins, in his Jupiter, Fla., spring-training office before an early-March team workout … After a second of reflection, the most unfiltered figure in baseball, if not sports, wants a do-over. “I respect Fidel Castro,” says Guillen, a Venezuela native who also says he respects Hugo Chavez. “You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that mother——— is still here.”

If any well-known coach or manager in American sports mentioned that he or she loved and/or respected Fidel Castro, there would be reaction in the media. (Particularly in the Twitterverse Epoch.) But there are several key contextual elements to this statement that make it even “hotter”: first, he made the comment in South Florida, home to the largest Cuban population in the United States. Second, he is the coach of a team that recently switched from having a name that associated itself with the state as a whole “Florida Marlins” to a specific city “Miami Marlins.” According to a recent U.S. census, there are over 850,000 Cuban Americans in Miami alone.

(On a somewhat side-note, I have always been fascinated by the syntax of cultural/national/ethnic identification. Does Cuban American denote an equal sharing of a particular heritage? Or is “Cuban” the adjective and “American” the noun? Or is the ordering one of importance or relevance? Cuban comes first, American comes second. In a conversation with Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens argues that Jewish organizations—American Jewish Historical Society, American Jewish World Service—are unique in the United States in the way that “American” is placed before “Jewish.” Does this mean that the label American, which is a matter of national rather than ethnic or religious identity, is put to the forefront? )

Guillen’s comments caused uproar because Miami is the center of the Cuban exile, and to be a professional baseball manager in Miami and praise the dictator who drove many of that city’s residents from the place of their birth—a legacy of fear, anger, and resentment related to the Castro regime that is passed down through Cuban American families—is, in simple terms, at least a slap in the face to a large portion of the fanbase. Of all the discussion that has come about through Guillen’s Time interview, it was Miami Herald writer and ESPN show host Dan Le Batard’s reaction. LeBatard, who is a Cuban American, quite reasonably stated that Guillen’s comments were “the worst possible thing that [he] could have said.” Le Batard followed with a more provocative statement: “For Cuban-Americans, he’s our Hitler. Without getting into a comparison shopping on atrocities, let that marinate for a second. For Cuban-Americans, Fidel Castro is our Hitler.”

Perusing different articles that have addressed Le Batard’s article, more than one mentions how Le Batard’s reference evokes Godwin’s Law, an Internet adage attributed to one Mike Godwin in the early years of cyberspace. Godwin’s Law serves as a proverb: “If you mention Adolf Hitler or Nazis within a discussion thread, you’ve automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in.” While other articles have addressed the real numbers of those killed by the Castro regime or attempted to quantify/qualify just how “bad” a dictator Castro was in comparison to other ghastly “leaders” throughout the twentieth century, I was struck by one word (repeated twice) in Le Batard’s claim: “our.” 

I heard rather than read Le Batard’s assertion—it was a clip that has been played numerous times on ESPN—and thus I took note of the way that Le Batard verbally emphasized the word “our.” Not that Castro is “like” Hitler to us, but that Castro is “our” Hitler. Perhaps I am pressing on something that’s not there, but I couldn’t help but think of the extension: Castro is “our” (meaning Cubano and Cubano estadounidense’s)tyrant, and Hitler is “yours” or “theirs.” Perhaps because both Hitler and Castro’s respective regimes took action that had both local (the targeting of particular people who inhabit said nation-state over which the dictator holds power) as well as international ramifications (a world war and systematic murder which, while largely focused on, was not restricted to European Jewry; in the case of Castro’s Cuba, a long-standing relationship with a Cold War antagonist), I took greater notice of the first person possessive plural pronoun.

Yet perhaps this was simply another case of context being integral to Guillengate: South Florida has a large Jewish population, and Le Batard’s comments may have been intended to elicit pathos in a particular audience. However, I do wonder what Jewish Americans in Miami and around the country made of Le Batard’s comparison?  

10:46pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zr13mvJWMKh3
April 11, 2012
In the eighth edition of the Sociology of North American Sport D. Stanley Eitzen and George H. Sage include a chapter entitled “Sport and Religion.” I have regularly encountered the standard “sport is another means of displaying religious fervor and/or sports are another American religion” argument, but there is something about Eitzen and Sage’s chapter that caught my eye: the witchcraft section. Eitzen and Sage argue that magical “practices that are intended to bring misfortune on others are known as black magic, witchcraft, or sorcery. In sport, those who employ this form of magic believed that supernatural powers are being harnessed to harm or bring misfortune on opponents.” The authors then cite matches between at the 2002 African Cup of Nations, where a coach was banned for a year for “black magic.” My dismissive attitude towards “black magic + sport” might be because of how (this “black”) magical thinking is such a big part of the fanatics day-to-day interaction with the object of his affection. One defining characteristic of fanaticism is the belief, against any rational thought, is that arbitrary changes in one’s environment can affect the outcome of a game. “If I sit on this side of the couch,” one fanatic told me, “I feel like we  have a better chance of winning.” Engaging with (fellow) fanatics, I have tried to connect through the notion of the curse. As a Boston fan, the Red Sox curse fan is a wider context for any Boston team’s success: it’s always in spite or despite of this particular topos. But I realized that “our” curse is just a symptom of fanhood: the curse is the knowledge that loserdom is not the exception but the default. No magic.      

In the eighth edition of the Sociology of North American Sport D. Stanley Eitzen and George H. Sage include a chapter entitled “Sport and Religion.” I have regularly encountered the standard “sport is another means of displaying religious fervor and/or sports are another American religion” argument, but there is something about Eitzen and Sage’s chapter that caught my eye: the witchcraft section. Eitzen and Sage argue that magical “practices that are intended to bring misfortune on others are known as black magic, witchcraft, or sorcery. In sport, those who employ this form of magic believed that supernatural powers are being harnessed to harm or bring misfortune on opponents.” The authors then cite matches between at the 2002 African Cup of Nations, where a coach was banned for a year for “black magic.”

My dismissive attitude towards “black magic + sport” might be because of how (this “black”) magical thinking is such a big part of the fanatics day-to-day interaction with the object of his affection. One defining characteristic of fanaticism is the belief, against any rational thought, is that arbitrary changes in one’s environment can affect the outcome of a game. “If I sit on this side of the couch,” one fanatic told me, “I feel like we  have a better chance of winning.” Engaging with (fellow) fanatics, I have tried to connect through the notion of the curse. As a Boston fan, the Red Sox curse fan is a wider context for any Boston team’s success: it’s always in spite or despite of this particular topos. But I realized that “our” curse is just a symptom of fanhood: the curse is the knowledge that loserdom is not the exception but the default. No magic.      

2:43am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zr13mvJTMtyt
April 9, 2012
The Point of Fandom Part 2: Planet Stadium and Chorography Roger Rosenblatt likens a professional baseball stadium to “a carved-out bowl of a planet.” The word planet evokes a finite physical realm, suspended in space and surrounded by nothing (or, in fact, everything else). A stadium has the same effect of being a world into itself; on entering the hemisphere of Planet Stadium, fans are funneled into a communal space where the focus, while not exclusive, is upon the lifespan of a finite event (the game), but is also surrounded by a related culture and economy. On Planet Stadium, all the fan’s basic needs are provided. The ticket represents ownership, if only temporary, of a residence, a small abode that is also a marker of a fan’s socioeconomic class: courtside seats for those with the means and/or connections; nosebleed seats for fans who are unable or unwilling to live elsewhere. Stalls offering a variety of food and drink are unavoidable commercial islands for the fan moving through Planet Stadium. With food and shelter taken care of, the third basic human need can be found at stops all across Planet Stadium. Emblazoned with the home team’s name and/or logo, the (officially licensed) clothing available on Planet Stadium is another avenue for the fan to indicate and make public his citizenship. On going home to one’s seat, the jumbotron screens reinforce Planet Stadium’s interiority. The primary action on the screens—along with the ubiquitous advertising messages—is a live feed of the game or replays of key moments/highlights. Furthermore, a night game in a stadium without a roof further this feeling of inhabiting a planet; looking up past the lights at the top of the uppermost stands the darkened sky and rest of the universe. Greg Ulmer’s notion of chorography is a useful theoretical tool for considering Planet Stadium: chorogaphy, Ulmer contends, is “a rhetoric of invention concerned with the history of ‘place’ in relation to memory” (39). Planet Stadium provides an appealing case study of the relationship between the history of a place and memory. Planet Stadium is a place where the fan is witness to the contemporary moment of his team, but it is also where collective memory is emphasized through various physical, textual means. One example is the championship banner. No matter the play of the team today—the daily, measurable matrix of wins and losses—the memory of success or failure is signaled by the presence or absence of the banner. The banner displays only the year and title, but its meaning goes much further than that for the fan: the banner is testament to not merely the team’s, but also the fan’s, sense of success. For the fan the banners are a prompt to unifying memories, a way of understanding what it means to be an inhabitant of Planet Stadium. The topos of tradition/success is also expressed in this place through another genre of banner: the retired number. The retired jersey is both a deification of the star player and a contribution to writing the history of this place: this is where this great figure played, and this is part of our collective memory of this place. When teams move Planet Stadium from one street, neighborhood, or city  to another—due to financial, general maintenance, or any other issue—the history of the place is brought along through these signs (jersey numbers, the year of a championship-winning team). On Planet Stadium, the history of place is invoked by a memory of greatness as embodied by a number (year and/or jersey), last name, and specific victory. 

The Point of Fandom Part 2: Planet Stadium and Chorography

Roger Rosenblatt likens a professional baseball stadium to “a carved-out bowl of a planet.” The word planet evokes a finite physical realm, suspended in space and surrounded by nothing (or, in fact, everything else). A stadium has the same effect of being a world into itself; on entering the hemisphere of Planet Stadium, fans are funneled into a communal space where the focus, while not exclusive, is upon the lifespan of a finite event (the game), but is also surrounded by a related culture and economy.

On Planet Stadium, all the fan’s basic needs are provided. The ticket represents ownership, if only temporary, of a residence, a small abode that is also a marker of a fan’s socioeconomic class: courtside seats for those with the means and/or connections; nosebleed seats for fans who are unable or unwilling to live elsewhere. Stalls offering a variety of food and drink are unavoidable commercial islands for the fan moving through Planet Stadium. With food and shelter taken care of, the third basic human need can be found at stops all across Planet Stadium. Emblazoned with the home team’s name and/or logo, the (officially licensed) clothing available on Planet Stadium is another avenue for the fan to indicate and make public his citizenship. On going home to one’s seat, the jumbotron screens reinforce Planet Stadium’s interiority. The primary action on the screens—along with the ubiquitous advertising messages—is a live feed of the game or replays of key moments/highlights. Furthermore, a night game in a stadium without a roof further this feeling of inhabiting a planet; looking up past the lights at the top of the uppermost stands the darkened sky and rest of the universe.

Greg Ulmer’s notion of chorography is a useful theoretical tool for considering Planet Stadium: chorogaphy, Ulmer contends, is “a rhetoric of invention concerned with the history of ‘place’ in relation to memory” (39). Planet Stadium provides an appealing case study of the relationship between the history of a place and memory. Planet Stadium is a place where the fan is witness to the contemporary moment of his team, but it is also where collective memory is emphasized through various physical, textual means. One example is the championship banner. No matter the play of the team today—the daily, measurable matrix of wins and losses—the memory of success or failure is signaled by the presence or absence of the banner. The banner displays only the year and title, but its meaning goes much further than that for the fan: the banner is testament to not merely the team’s, but also the fan’s, sense of success.

For the fan the banners are a prompt to unifying memories, a way of understanding what it means to be an inhabitant of Planet Stadium. The topos of tradition/success is also expressed in this place through another genre of banner: the retired number. The retired jersey is both a deification of the star player and a contribution to writing the history of this place: this is where this great figure played, and this is part of our collective memory of this place. When teams move Planet Stadium from one street, neighborhood, or city  to another—due to financial, general maintenance, or any other issue—the history of the place is brought along through these signs (jersey numbers, the year of a championship-winning team). On Planet Stadium, the history of place is invoked by a memory of greatness as embodied by a number (year and/or jersey), last name, and specific victory. 

10:12pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zr13mvJOvxOW
April 8, 2012

The Point(ilism) of Fandom Part 1

In his essay “Reflections: Why We Play the Game,” first published in the government journal U.S. Society & Values, Roger Rosenblatt considers why baseball, rather than football or basketball, is widely considered to be America’s national sport. One part of Rosenblatt’s argument considers the importance of the individual player in baseball, and how the baseball player has the agency and notion to complete specific plays: to steal a base, throw a pitch, field a hit. As Rosenblatt argues, “one doesn’t need to know what these things mean to recognize that they all test everyone’s ability to do a specific job, to make a personal decision, and to improvise.” Because the “game was designed to center on Americans in our individual strivings,” Rosenblatt suggests that baseball is in step with a national ideal: the individual enjoys the freedom to strive for greatness and success through individual action.

Extending his argument, Rosenblatt gives the example of an individual baseball play, par excellence: a Willie Mays catch, made on a “hit to the deepest part of one of the largest stadiums.” In the context of the discussion of the multi-layered meanings of the sporting arena, Rosenblatt’s conclusion to his description of Mays’ catch was particularly potent. He writes of the fans “who sat like Seurat’s pointillist dots in the stadium, in the carved-out bowl of a planet that shines pale in the daylight, bright purple and emerald at night.” There are two parts to this that I think are of particularly interest: the likening of fans to “pointillist dots” and the metaphor of stadium as planet, a world into itself. Pointillism relies on dots of different colors to make larger image; in some paintings the dot may have a fairly standard shape, but it can also be the small difference in shape and color that are part of the creation of, for example, the Eiffel Tower and the sky behind it. But the pointillist simile also suggests that the individual fan (the dot) makes a spectacle when viewed en masse, and that this spectacle comes by design.

The notion of the crowd as a spectacle to behold is notable particularly considering the setting of the stadium. Fans look down toward where the play occurs at ground level, but they also look out to see their brethren; decked out in the colors of their team do not necessarily represent anything apart from fandom (unlike Seurat’s pointillist approach, a form that can be employed to depict any number of things). This leads to self-regulation as the fans are acutely aware of their role as a dot in the larger image of fandom; to wear the correct colors, hold signs with pithy (if not always clever) text and images; and to cheer and despair in accordance with what occurs on the field. Televised broadcasts of sporting make this sense of role as dot in a bigger picture even more acute; the close-up shot of a fan (dot) is often followed by a wide-angle shot of the crowd as a whole. (A Google search of Seurat’s pointillism allows a similar comparison between a close-up section of a Seurat and the painting as a whole.)    

10:41pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zr13mvJLAWeV
April 7, 2012
The Chorography of the Swamp Part 2 The Swamp is the location where the Florida Gators play football, and it is the literal space where the fans of the Florida Gators gather to watch them play. However, the Swamp is also a metaphorical space, for it functions within the greater network of the Gator Nation, the imagined community of Florida fans. (Gator Nation is also a term employed by the University of Florida’s marketing division to describe the university’s current students and graduates.) One could read the Swamp as the locus of power in the network of the Gator Nation, but the Swamp is a space that embodies other shifting meanings: when the Gators have a disappointing season, the Swamp is less of a pit of triumph for “our” gladiators and more a mausoleum for the fanatic’s hopes and dreams; for non-fans, the Swamp is the eyesore placed next to buildings dedicated to learning. Moreover, the Swamp is itself part of other wider networks. For example, it is just one of many iconic stadiums in the Southeastern Conference, one of the richest and most successful leagues in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. But, as has been regularly discussed since a number of universities developed athletic programs and associations that earned millions of dollars in revenue, the Swamp also represents the disconnect between the labor of the players and the spoils of that labor. The Swamp is one of the places where the Florida Gator brand celebrates itself, like the Parisian runway seasons for Christian Dior: the lights are on, and the orange and blue is on full display. The Swamp is also where the wealthy football boosters sit high above the field in skyboxes, enjoying the literal space and figurative status of investors/management overlooking production. The juxtaposition of a university struggling for funding and a thriving booster and university athletic association-funded football program is brought into stark contrast by the fact that the Swamp is located on the University of Florida’s campus but is under the auspices of a separate entity. The Swamp signifies the importance of football in Florida, and this in turn connects the Swamp to the American South’s wider football culture; specifically, the size of the swamp reminds us of the desire for the game, as it is regularly filled with 90,000 fans who one way or another paid to watch and partake in the spectacle of an “amateur” sporting contest. (And there are countless fans across the SEC who do the same on these ritual-filled Saturdays.) In this way, when one looks at the Swamp, it is not only the subjective opinion (“the size and position of the Swamp shows that there is too much emphasis on athletics at this school”) that influences its meaning, but there are shifting, deviating contexts for understanding the Swamp. Rhetoric scholar Jeff Rice argues that public and private identity with specific spaces still dominate everyday perspectives. Indeed, studies of space have long proposed that spatial meanings cannot be contained in one place, but instead, must be considered as networks of shifting meanings influenced by competing and complimentary actors.  When we look at (or to) the Swamp, the actors at play —the University of Florida, the team, staff, and head coach, for example—have the ability to shift this specific space’s meaning. There is no single meaning to the Swamp; it is not merely the “home of the Florida Gators.” The Swamp is a divergent space, attached to and moving within various networks.   

The Chorography of the Swamp Part 2

The Swamp is the location where the Florida Gators play football, and it is the literal space where the fans of the Florida Gators gather to watch them play. However, the Swamp is also a metaphorical space, for it functions within the greater network of the Gator Nation, the imagined community of Florida fans. (Gator Nation is also a term employed by the University of Florida’s marketing division to describe the university’s current students and graduates.) One could read the Swamp as the locus of power in the network of the Gator Nation, but the Swamp is a space that embodies other shifting meanings: when the Gators have a disappointing season, the Swamp is less of a pit of triumph for “our” gladiators and more a mausoleum for the fanatic’s hopes and dreams; for non-fans, the Swamp is the eyesore placed next to buildings dedicated to learning.

Moreover, the Swamp is itself part of other wider networks. For example, it is just one of many iconic stadiums in the Southeastern Conference, one of the richest and most successful leagues in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. But, as has been regularly discussed since a number of universities developed athletic programs and associations that earned millions of dollars in revenue, the Swamp also represents the disconnect between the labor of the players and the spoils of that labor. The Swamp is one of the places where the Florida Gator brand celebrates itself, like the Parisian runway seasons for Christian Dior: the lights are on, and the orange and blue is on full display. The Swamp is also where the wealthy football boosters sit high above the field in skyboxes, enjoying the literal space and figurative status of investors/management overlooking production. The juxtaposition of a university struggling for funding and a thriving booster and university athletic association-funded football program is brought into stark contrast by the fact that the Swamp is located on the University of Florida’s campus but is under the auspices of a separate entity.

The Swamp signifies the importance of football in Florida, and this in turn connects the Swamp to the American South’s wider football culture; specifically, the size of the swamp reminds us of the desire for the game, as it is regularly filled with 90,000 fans who one way or another paid to watch and partake in the spectacle of an “amateur” sporting contest. (And there are countless fans across the SEC who do the same on these ritual-filled Saturdays.) In this way, when one looks at the Swamp, it is not only the subjective opinion (“the size and position of the Swamp shows that there is too much emphasis on athletics at this school”) that influences its meaning, but there are shifting, deviating contexts for understanding the Swamp. Rhetoric scholar Jeff Rice argues that

public and private identity with specific spaces still dominate everyday perspectives. Indeed, studies of space have long proposed that spatial meanings cannot be contained in one place, but instead, must be considered as networks of shifting meanings influenced by competing and complimentary actors.

 When we look at (or to) the Swamp, the actors at play —the University of Florida, the team, staff, and head coach, for example—have the ability to shift this specific space’s meaning. There is no single meaning to the Swamp; it is not merely the “home of the Florida Gators.” The Swamp is a divergent space, attached to and moving within various networks.   

6:18pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zr13mvJGNYR6
April 7, 2012
The Chorography of the Swamp (Part 1) In an earlier post I touched upon why sticking to a comparison between sports and religion might foreclose further and new ways of theorizing the relationship between the rhetoric of sports, fanaticism, and American culture, I am going to use a local (for me) example to explore new sports theory. Earlier this evening I walked halfway around Ben Hill Griffin stadium on the campus of the University of Florida. The Florida Gators football team plays in this stadium; more precisely, the Gators play on Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin stadium. Florida’s spring is short, and the temperature has already broached 90 this week. But the evening was crisp, and walking past the stadium I felt it was fall again, an uncanny feeling. In the first part of his discussion of the uncanny, Freud argues that it “is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar.” Sports fans, I think, are in constant contact with the uncanny, the losing streaks and depressing storylines of opportunity turned to dust that so permeate through sports. Simply: you cannot win all the time, and it is this knowledge that haunts us so.   But I have only a few times heard people apply the names Florida Field or Ben Hill Griffin stadium to this location; this space is called “the Swamp,” an affectionate term popularized by Steve Spurrier, former head football coach and Heisman-winning quarterback for the Gators. The tagline for the swamp is “where only Gators get out alive.” Swamps, while not uniquely Floridian, are a prominent feature of the state, and thus Florida fans take pride in this nickname, especially given it was bestowed by a man whose bronze statue sits just outside the exterior walls of the stadium. Spurrier (in statue form) is a permanent fixture on the outskirts of the Swamp; fittingly, the edge of a swamp in Florida (and Louisiana) is a dangerous place to be if you don’t know a rather simple rule: don’t go to close to the water if there is the possibility of alligators living in said swamp and do not crouch down, thus appearing to be smaller prey, under any circumstances. In bronze form, Spurrier stands tall, poised as if he is standing tall in a pocket of space created by his offensive linemen, ready to deliver a pass downfield to a receiver. However, Bronze Spurrier was not created merely the celebration of a man who won the most famous individual award in collegiate athletics while representing the University of Florida, because Bronze Spurrier stands aside two other statues that are representations of other former Florida football players: Tim Tebow and Danny Wuerfell. Together, Bronze Spurrier, Bronze Tebow, and Bronze Wuerfell are posited as epochs in the historical narrative of Florida football. Bronze Spurrier is pre-history, in many ways: his terrific play never lead to a national championship, the marker of a Golden Era. But he was also the coach of Wuerfell, another Heisman winner who took Florida to the Promised Land. (It was difficult to avoid that religious reference, especially when it is Passover in Florida.) So, Bronze Spurier is both pre-history and, perhaps more importantly, the Renaissance; he symbolizes a return to greatness, even though Florida had never won a national championship during his time. This is an invented tradition, and Bronze Spurrier is a means in which Gator fans can measure just how far back the Gator tradition stretches. It reinforces a memory of success.   

The Chorography of the Swamp (Part 1)

In an earlier post I touched upon why sticking to a comparison between sports and religion might foreclose further and new ways of theorizing the relationship between the rhetoric of sports, fanaticism, and American culture, I am going to use a local (for me) example to explore new sports theory. Earlier this evening I walked halfway around Ben Hill Griffin stadium on the campus of the University of Florida. The Florida Gators football team plays in this stadium; more precisely, the Gators play on Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin stadium. Florida’s spring is short, and the temperature has already broached 90 this week. But the evening was crisp, and walking past the stadium I felt it was fall again, an uncanny feeling. In the first part of his discussion of the uncanny, Freud argues that it “is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar.” Sports fans, I think, are in constant contact with the uncanny, the losing streaks and depressing storylines of opportunity turned to dust that so permeate through sports. Simply: you cannot win all the time, and it is this knowledge that haunts us so.  

But I have only a few times heard people apply the names Florida Field or Ben Hill Griffin stadium to this location; this space is called “the Swamp,” an affectionate term popularized by Steve Spurrier, former head football coach and Heisman-winning quarterback for the Gators. The tagline for the swamp is “where only Gators get out alive.” Swamps, while not uniquely Floridian, are a prominent feature of the state, and thus Florida fans take pride in this nickname, especially given it was bestowed by a man whose bronze statue sits just outside the exterior walls of the stadium. Spurrier (in statue form) is a permanent fixture on the outskirts of the Swamp; fittingly, the edge of a swamp in Florida (and Louisiana) is a dangerous place to be if you don’t know a rather simple rule: don’t go to close to the water if there is the possibility of alligators living in said swamp and do not crouch down, thus appearing to be smaller prey, under any circumstances. In bronze form, Spurrier stands tall, poised as if he is standing tall in a pocket of space created by his offensive linemen, ready to deliver a pass downfield to a receiver.

However, Bronze Spurrier was not created merely the celebration of a man who won the most famous individual award in collegiate athletics while representing the University of Florida, because Bronze Spurrier stands aside two other statues that are representations of other former Florida football players: Tim Tebow and Danny Wuerfell. Together, Bronze Spurrier, Bronze Tebow, and Bronze Wuerfell are posited as epochs in the historical narrative of Florida football. Bronze Spurrier is pre-history, in many ways: his terrific play never lead to a national championship, the marker of a Golden Era. But he was also the coach of Wuerfell, another Heisman winner who took Florida to the Promised Land. (It was difficult to avoid that religious reference, especially when it is Passover in Florida.) So, Bronze Spurier is both pre-history and, perhaps more importantly, the Renaissance; he symbolizes a return to greatness, even though Florida had never won a national championship during his time. This is an invented tradition, and Bronze Spurrier is a means in which Gator fans can measure just how far back the Gator tradition stretches. It reinforces a memory of success.   

12:00pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zr13mvJF8qtT
April 6, 2012
The Death of an Author I have only ever seen two images of Jesse Joe Hernandez, the sex offender and child murderer who shouted “Go Cowboys!” moments before the poison, which had been injected directly into one of his veins, killed him. One of the images accompanied the first news story I read about Hernandez. The imprisoned man stares directly at the camera; the shot is closely cropped at the bottom across his chin, while the top of the frame bisects the middle of his forehead.  His face appears squeezed into the image, and I couldn’t help but wonder if a web editor at the Associated Press had cropped the shot in such a way to make Hernandez, who according to the verdict of a jury of his peers had committed two of the most heinous crimes, appear uncomfortable and trapped, even in death. The other image is both the same image and a completely different image. It comes from the same moment, recorded by the same camera, and may have even circulated as the same digital file, posted online by the Associated Press before circulating through news outlets, blogs, and other sites. But this shot has not been cropped in the manner of the other image. In this image there is space around Hernandez’s head and shoulders, and by virtue of this he appears to have space to breath, no longer trapped in the frame. What is more, someone (I found it on a Google image search, and don’t know where it originated) had added a blue star to the corner of the image. For NFL fans, this blue star is the symbol of the Dallas Cowboys, a team that is often referred to as “America’s team.” So from two words yelled in the face of very imminent mortality, Hernandez pronounced his tribal identity, and somewhere in cyberspace someone juxtaposes an immensely popular professional sports team and a killer by adding a star to a portrait. In death Hernandez is linked with “his team” through a simple symbol (a blue star with white trim and a blue border) that means more than just a team that plays a game every Sunday for a certain amount of weeks every year. The star denotes the discourse of the Dallas Cowboys: not merely players past and present, the management, and the physical spaces where the Dallas Cowboys spectacle occurs (meaning the game and all the other Cowboys events/appearances), the Cowboys apparel (and thus related industry) where the star is regularly and so prominently affixed, but also that imagined community of the Cowboy nation. The imagined community consists of fans across the country (and around the world) who may have very little in common apart from an interest (to varying degrees) in what we might call Dallas Cowboydom.     When Hernandez yelled “Go Cowboys!” he was both showing his desire that his team succeed and wishing to be identified with Dallas Cowboydom, the discourse. “Go Cowboys!” is not merely a cheer meant to spur his team on; Hernandez was not watching a game at the time of his death. (It is the “dog days” of the off-season, too.) These two words constitute a text with various meanings that are open for interpretation. In “The Death of the Author” French theorist Roland Barthes asserts that We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture. “Go Cowboys!” has a million authors: there is no “Author-God” for this text, just a wide-ranging fan culture where “Go Cowboys!” is a quotation that appears in not only “innumerable centres” but innumerable contexts, a chamber designated for the extinguishment of the human subject being one of them. But how do we read this specific form of “Go Cowboys!”? For example, a non-sports fan might read Hernandez’s it as the ranting of a sick mind, the verbal confirmation that his sociopathic tendencies: Hernandez’s thoughts turn to sport rather than expressions of remorse or guilt before he “meets his maker.” But what of those other members of the imagined community to which Hernandez wished to be aligned with? A Cowboys fanatic, while being disgusted by the killer’s actions and satisfied by the justice delivered by the state of Texas, may recognize and even begrudgingly understand why Hernandez decided to yell “Go Cowboys!” moments before his death. Sport, we know, has the ability to disport, and perhaps that is all Hernandez wanted. To divert his thoughts from the machination of capital punishment and the vile acts that took him into its path. Regardless, Hernandez used that moment to signal his fanaticism and his membership in the Cowboy faithful. 

The Death of an Author

I have only ever seen two images of Jesse Joe Hernandez, the sex offender and child murderer who shouted “Go Cowboys!” moments before the poison, which had been injected directly into one of his veins, killed him. One of the images accompanied the first news story I read about Hernandez. The imprisoned man stares directly at the camera; the shot is closely cropped at the bottom across his chin, while the top of the frame bisects the middle of his forehead.  His face appears squeezed into the image, and I couldn’t help but wonder if a web editor at the Associated Press had cropped the shot in such a way to make Hernandez, who according to the verdict of a jury of his peers had committed two of the most heinous crimes, appear uncomfortable and trapped, even in death.

The other image is both the same image and a completely different image. It comes from the same moment, recorded by the same camera, and may have even circulated as the same digital file, posted online by the Associated Press before circulating through news outlets, blogs, and other sites. But this shot has not been cropped in the manner of the other image. In this image there is space around Hernandez’s head and shoulders, and by virtue of this he appears to have space to breath, no longer trapped in the frame. What is more, someone (I found it on a Google image search, and don’t know where it originated) had added a blue star to the corner of the image. For NFL fans, this blue star is the symbol of the Dallas Cowboys, a team that is often referred to as “America’s team.” So from two words yelled in the face of very imminent mortality, Hernandez pronounced his tribal identity, and somewhere in cyberspace someone juxtaposes an immensely popular professional sports team and a killer by adding a star to a portrait.

In death Hernandez is linked with “his team” through a simple symbol (a blue star with white trim and a blue border) that means more than just a team that plays a game every Sunday for a certain amount of weeks every year. The star denotes the discourse of the Dallas Cowboys: not merely players past and present, the management, and the physical spaces where the Dallas Cowboys spectacle occurs (meaning the game and all the other Cowboys events/appearances), the Cowboys apparel (and thus related industry) where the star is regularly and so prominently affixed, but also that imagined community of the Cowboy nation. The imagined community consists of fans across the country (and around the world) who may have very little in common apart from an interest (to varying degrees) in what we might call Dallas Cowboydom.    

When Hernandez yelled “Go Cowboys!” he was both showing his desire that his team succeed and wishing to be identified with Dallas Cowboydom, the discourse. “Go Cowboys!” is not merely a cheer meant to spur his team on; Hernandez was not watching a game at the time of his death. (It is the “dog days” of the off-season, too.) These two words constitute a text with various meanings that are open for interpretation. In “The Death of the Author” French theorist Roland Barthes asserts that

We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.

“Go Cowboys!” has a million authors: there is no “Author-God” for this text, just a wide-ranging fan culture where “Go Cowboys!” is a quotation that appears in not only “innumerable centres” but innumerable contexts, a chamber designated for the extinguishment of the human subject being one of them. But how do we read this specific form of “Go Cowboys!”? For example, a non-sports fan might read Hernandez’s it as the ranting of a sick mind, the verbal confirmation that his sociopathic tendencies: Hernandez’s thoughts turn to sport rather than expressions of remorse or guilt before he “meets his maker.”

But what of those other members of the imagined community to which Hernandez wished to be aligned with? A Cowboys fanatic, while being disgusted by the killer’s actions and satisfied by the justice delivered by the state of Texas, may recognize and even begrudgingly understand why Hernandez decided to yell “Go Cowboys!” moments before his death. Sport, we know, has the ability to disport, and perhaps that is all Hernandez wanted. To divert his thoughts from the machination of capital punishment and the vile acts that took him into its path. Regardless, Hernandez used that moment to signal his fanaticism and his membership in the Cowboy faithful. 

6:20pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zr13mvJChzJZ
April 5, 2012
Games of Life and Death What is the line between being a sports fan and being a sports fanatic? While this is not the only question I am attempting to answer in writing about sports culture, it is a question that in conversations with sports fans, media commentators, athletes, and other academics that keeps arising. I had a long conversation with Bob Ryan (“the quintessential American sportswriter”) recently, and he defined the line between the fan and the fanatic as being the willingness to behave violently. As I have stated in earlier posts, if one is to use the term violence to denote fanaticism, then the definition of violence is crucial to delineating between fan and fanatic. What has been fascinating about talking to American sports fans from a variety of backgrounds is that they will often compare American sports culture to football/soccer culture overseas. Ryan, for example, argues that, “in terms of passion for sport, and what sports represent in the lives of people as a focal point of a daily activity and an ongoing allegiance, there is nothing in America that compares to what they have in the rest of the world.” But is this really true? Take the case of Jesse Joe Hernandez, a convicted child sex offender who was sentenced to death for killing a 10-month old boy he was supposed to babysit. Hernandez, a Texas native who was on death row in Huntsville, “smiled and laughed at times before receiving a lethal injection.” He also spoke, and after telling those in attendance “to continue to walk with God,” he referenced that other Texas faith: football. According to news reports, moments before he passed away, Hernandez “shouted “Go Cowboys!” in honor of his favorite football team.” Much has been written about the rites and rituals of the last moments of those who are put to death by American justice system—the last meal, the meeting with a priest, the audience of family and the family’s victims—but this assertion of fan identity at the moment before death seems as fanatical as an football hooligan vandalizing property in honor of his team. Family, God, his team: that was what was on Hernandez’s mind at that fateful, final moment. 

Games of Life and Death

What is the line between being a sports fan and being a sports fanatic? While this is not the only question I am attempting to answer in writing about sports culture, it is a question that in conversations with sports fans, media commentators, athletes, and other academics that keeps arising. I had a long conversation with Bob Ryan (“the quintessential American sportswriter”) recently, and he defined the line between the fan and the fanatic as being the willingness to behave violently. As I have stated in earlier posts, if one is to use the term violence to denote fanaticism, then the definition of violence is crucial to delineating between fan and fanatic. What has been fascinating about talking to American sports fans from a variety of backgrounds is that they will often compare American sports culture to football/soccer culture overseas.

Ryan, for example, argues that, “in terms of passion for sport, and what sports represent in the lives of people as a focal point of a daily activity and an ongoing allegiance, there is nothing in America that compares to what they have in the rest of the world.” But is this really true? Take the case of Jesse Joe Hernandez, a convicted child sex offender who was sentenced to death for killing a 10-month old boy he was supposed to babysit. Hernandez, a Texas native who was on death row in Huntsville, “smiled and laughed at times before receiving a lethal injection.” He also spoke, and after telling those in attendance “to continue to walk with God,” he referenced that other Texas faith: football. According to news reports, moments before he passed away, Hernandez “shouted “Go Cowboys!” in honor of his favorite football team.”

Much has been written about the rites and rituals of the last moments of those who are put to death by American justice system—the last meal, the meeting with a priest, the audience of family and the family’s victims—but this assertion of fan identity at the moment before death seems as fanatical as an football hooligan vandalizing property in honor of his team. Family, God, his team: that was what was on Hernandez’s mind at that fateful, final moment. 

12:13pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zr13mvJ7lVHC