Before the U.S. men’s gymnastics team even clinched their surprise bronze medal in the Paris Olympics, something more unexpected happened.
We saw Asher Hong ferociously cheerleading from the sidelines and Frederick Richard corralling his teammates into huddles, more for inspiration than for strategy. By the end of the team competition, we saw stoic Brody Malone land his first toothy smile. During interviews Malone, raised to hide his emotions, shared about his teammates, “We’re all best friends … we love each other.” In another interview, this winner of seven NCAA individual event championships observed that one thing, above all else, motivated him and his Olympic teammates: “We’re competing for each other.”
This brand of emotional support, in actions and words, isn’t common in sports among boys and men. Yet if they are going to achieve the results they and their coaches seek, it needs to be.
There is still a prevailing stereotype that female athletes are far more emotional and need more emotional support. But it’s not because they are more emotional than male peers. Men experience the same roller coaster of emotions as frequently as women. Which means they, too, have deeper emotional needs when it comes to all parts of their lives, including sports.
A few years ago, my family and I were cross-country skiing in New Hampshire when I came upon the local high school ski team, all wearing their team jackets, practicing runs down a slope. They were holding an informal boy-versus-girl staggered competition. During the young woman’s run, she struggled a bit and nearly fell a few times. Her female teammates cheered her on, whooping and yelling such encouragements as “You’ve got this!” When she made it to the bottom they enveloped her with hugs, arms around her shoulders and high fives. The young man went next, and he experienced an equally wobbly run. His male teammates laughed, shouted playful barbs, such as “You’ve got this old man!” and met him with a mix of laughter, light-hearted shoves and pats on the head upon his finish.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with guys occasionally, playfully “jabbing” each other. Too often, though, one-upmanship becomes the norm for how boys maintain friendships and camaraderie — at a cost. It’s the reason, I’ve discovered in my own research, many boys, later men, don’t feel safe seeking emotional “safety nets” from other males. They do so at their own peril, because as research shows, women may experience more stress, but they turn to emotional support networks that help them develop greater resiliency.
When I work at boys’ schools, I often ask large groups of boys which form of support they would prefer from male teammates — the version that the female cross-country ski team provided or the male version. One-third to three-quarters of hands raise when I propose the “female” version.
This is important for two reasons. It shows that there are many young men out there who desire a form of support in their lives they clearly aren’t receiving from males they respect and depend upon. Second, when deeper social and emotional needs are met, athletes of all gendered identities experience greater mental health and well-being and perform more consistently at higher levels. Sports researchers refer to the ideal formula as the 3+1 Cs model, which, among other things, places at the center of a coach-athlete relationship the primacy of an emotional bond, which yields feelings of safety, mutual respect and trust. Researchers should focus on the same dynamic between athletes and teammates — surely, the outcome would be the same.
When this dynamic is absent, athletes and teams feel the effect. The coach of my son’s 11-12 baseball team preached independence among his players, which translated into the best players who occupied infield positions vocally supporting each other. This wasn’t extended to the outfielders, the realm of lesser-skilled players. One of my son’s teammates verbally bullied him whenever he made a mistake, and the “star” player threatened him for dropping pop flies to right field. When I approached the coach about this, he insisted the boys should “work this out by themselves” and that my son had to “prove himself to his teammates,” because this was how “teams get stronger.”
Like some of his fellow outfielders, my son grew scared and tentative and became isolated from the nucleus of his team. Not surprisingly, his performance plummeted, which was painful to watch.
If we want to see the results we seek in boys both on and off the field and court and that best serve them, then we need to reimagine and broaden our understanding of what real “support” and sportsmanship look like. The U.S. men’s gymnastics team is a great blueprint.
Andrew Reiner (areiner@towson.edu) teaches at Towson University and is the author of “Better Boys, Better Men: The New Masculinity That Creates Greater Courage and Emotional Resiliency.” (HarperOne, 2020).