Michael Sam’s Gone Missing in the NFL, And This Matters

Leave a comment

Michael Sam’s Gone Missing From The NFL, And This Matters

By Erica Ewart

Absences are thematic at the beginning of this NFL season. The absence of Tom Brady due to missing air in footballs—we all know how that turned out. The absence of Kam Chancellor for the Seahawks, who now have surprising vacancies in the win column (thankfully he’s back). The absence of Leveon Bell and now Dez Bryant and Tony Romo. The missing Eagles offense and the Giants missing ability to finish a game. There is an epidemic of absences this year that are filling the airwaves of NFL chatter.

There is one very notable absence, however, that has yet to enter the mainstream dialogue. That’s the absence of Michael Sam.

It was a only year and a half ago that headlines were saturated in the ground-breaking, historical event of Sam being the first openly gay man to be drafted into the NFL. The first.

But this first openly gay man to be drafted into the NFL announced just last month that he was stepping away from the game of football, entirely. It took just three ‘tweets’ for All-American Michael Sam to end what should have been a ceiling-busting entrance into one of the most homophobic, violent, and popular sports in the United States (it’s not a coincidence that those categories go hand in hand). Sam’s reasoning for stepping away from the game was stated as,’mental health concerns’.

That’s deeply alarming. Even more so alarming because it is not at all surprising. And it seems that his proclamation and absence has managed to bounce off the surface of our social sports consciousness.

As a licensed mental health therapist, his alarming ‘tweets’ did not initially awaken me either. I must admit that I too had been seduced into the shallow pool of denial and apathy in regards to Michael Sam’s departure. I didn’t ask questions, nor did I stop to grieve his leaving, I instead conveniently accepted it and moved on. If not for a column by one of my favorite journalists, Kate Fagan, I may have ridden my fantasy football team all the way to kick-off without giving much thought to the void left by Michael Sam.

So, I want to give his absence some room for thought, and perhaps more importantly, room for

feeling.

To do so, I want to take us back to Ms Fagan’s article. In this article, she assesses Michael

Sam’s failed attempts to make an NFL roster, placing much blame on Sam himself. I don’t entirely agree, but it is fair and an important part of the story (completely victimizing Sam is actually disempowering of his selfhood and dismissive of his agency). In addition to this assessment, Fagan also places fault on the people around him who influenced his decisions and became accomplices to Sam’s downfall.

But where Fagan falls short in this article is in the confrontation of another factor, and that’s ‘us’. We all need to ask ourselves the question; what was our part in Sam walking away from the game he loves?

Mental health is not just an individual’s responsibility. Mental health is a co-created and collective responsibility.

From the moment Michael Sam made his announcement on ESPN he became exposed as a gay man entering the NFL draft. He knowingly stepped into the public realm, but like many people who find themselves suddenly in the spotlight he also unwittingly became a primary object of projection.

There were always going to be naysayers projecting their self contempt and homophobia onto Michael’s body, that’s something as a gay man he had already experienced and now certainly expected. This resistance surely added a barrier and a weighty dimension to his dreams of playing in the NFL. This weight, by the way, is called oppression. And the 40 yard dash is hard enough without the burden of oppression pushing your shoulders down while you run (and I’m only discussing Michael’s sexual orientation, we must also acknowledge the weight he carried running the 40 yard dash as a black gay man).

The burden of oppression was probably predictable for Sam. What I’m imagining, however, is that it was the weight from the rest of us he could not have anticipated. He became a symbol of hope for the LGBTQ community and it’s supporters. A symbol, however, doesn’t include subjectivity and I don’t believe Sam’s best interests were on the forefront of the ‘support’ he was garnering. A ‘gay professional NFL player’ became the object of interviews, photo ops, and Dancing with the Stars instead of the man and the football player being the subject of attention. Our interest, concern and compassion for Michael the man, the NFL dreamer, never seemed to be the pursuit.

What if the interest in his story stopped being about the pursuit of his dream, but instead became the pursuit of OUR dream?

As a lesbian, I, too, am guilty of projecting my own hopes onto Sam. I dreamed of him rushing through offensive lines with power, ferocity and ease. Imagined him crashing into quarterbacks while simultaneously ripping through the psychic barrier that has tightly woven an unbearable homophobic oppression within the culture of the NFL (and through all of sports). The notion of this day happening was a yearning desire of mine and I believe of our LGBTQ community. This desire was heavily placed on Sam. We wanted this barrier broken for our own healing of the oppression we have all endured.

Frankly, there is nothing wrong with this hope. It’s beautiful. However, when we don’t feel our own feelings about being oppressed, we must realize they are casted elsewhere and in this instance they landed upon this lone man’s body, which I think became dangerous for his career survival. It is a weight and a burden that no one person can possibly carry alone.

This split of projection that our culture incessantly lives within, by either idealizing or devaluing, results in dehumanizing. We were all a part of distorting Sam’s name. By either hating it, mocking it, or by putting it on our pedestal and using it to the point where the actual man became unrecognizeable—tragically, perhaps even to himself.

Michael Sam’s story is a painful one. It was hard to watch and even harder to feel. Despite this pain or perhaps even because of it, his story is worth reflection and conversation. It is worth the risk of feeling our own feelings around the scenario—the disappointment, the ache, the

sadness, and the anger. For if we don’t learn from what we feel, we will continue colluding with the narratives that are played out in his absence. Those that say he wasn’t physically gifted enough, that he doesn’t belong in the NFL, that he was distracted, or the narrative of silence telling us to sweep it under the rug.

Sports provide an arena of great inspiration, of powerful stories and epic tales. This includes the breaking of barriers, sometimes of historical proportions beyond our imaginations.

Michael Sam’s success in the NFL could have been one of those stories. If we do want great change to happen, if we want to be a part of this inspiring world of sports and a part of it’s powerful stories, we also need to collectively take an active role and responsibility for our participation in creating them.

The Most Devastating Call in Super Bowl History–And It’s Not Because We Lost

2 Comments

The Most Devastating Call in Super Bowl History—And It’s Not Because We Lost

By Erica Ewart

Are they actually passing the ball? Absolute disbelief and shock rushed through me as I watched Russell Wilson set up for a pass in an empty backfield. This is very very bad. An interception (and an incredible individual play) took place in the next few seconds as my mouth was left open and silenced by the stunning decision to not give the ball to arguably the best running back in the NFL, Marshawn Lynch. My mind quickly ran through every logical explanation I could grab onto in the attempt to soothe my stunned heart. A diehard 12, I felt completely numbed to what I just witnessed and was only able to access one question—why not Lynch?

In the past week I have searched for answers to that final play call and heard multitudes of arguments to explain what happened in the last sequence. What has shaken out in these debates are two different camps of thought. One is the football reasoning of defensive schemes, over-coaching, and clock management that resulted in the play call. The other, is dubbed as a “conspiracy theory”, that Pete Carroll, Darrell Bevel, and the NFL powers up top wanted Russell Wilson to be the hero of the game instead of Marshawn Lynch, hence the pass play. It feels like there is a choice to be made between the two debates, you’re either in one camp or the other.

But as we seek answers for what happened, what if we don’t dismiss either camp?

Both ways of making meaning of that last play are valuable ways of ‘knowing’. As a psychotherapist I spend every day in the realms of the conscious and unconscious processes of individual and societal feelings and behaviors. When I looked at the last play using this lens I no longer felt numb. I finally found where my sadness was located and the tears finally came.

To make sense of my tears I’ll take a couple steps back and look at the matchup in this Super Bowl. It could not have been a better set up for how the ending transpired. The New England Patriots (Patriots=Colonialism, yup) have been nothing short of a power house in the NFL. They were the program we ‘should’ all aspire to be, constantly receiving glowing reviews as the top ownership, top coach and top quarterback, the model and pinnacle of American success. Of course they have been plagued as a program with cheating scandals and for me they represented the ‘establishment’ (Wall street, anyone?). They were the privileged who had the audacity to ask for an apology after being investigated for allegedly breaking the rules (Yes, this is definitely Wall Street). The Patriots were my ‘bad guys’. I wanted them to topple unto a new system of the ‘good guys’ in the Seattle Seahawks.

In contrast to the Patriots, I was heading into this matchup beaming with pride for my Hawks. Two weeks prior they had helped me to again believe in perseverance, unity, belief, hope and the possibility that those characteristics could win out in the face of adversity—metaphorically, in the face of the establishment. They had spoken out, or not spoken, to the media communicating the truths taking place in the powerful, privileged and corrupt system of the NFL (oh yeah, the NFL is still considered a non-profit organization). The Seahawks were the courageously subversive anti-establishment. They represented hope that the powerful establishment could crumble unto a better system for all, and I couldn’t wait for that changing of the guard on Sunday.

On the the final play for the Seahawks that change was right there for the taking. And the anti-establishment passed.

We have all looked for an answer to that pass because lets be honest, every 12 is struggling to comprehend the explanation given to us. A pass play in the 3 downs they had left in that possession is understandable. But a slant pass in the middle of the field on 2nd and 1 is actually not that rational. You throw to the sides of the field where only your guy can get it—that’s rational. So I do not completely buy what I’m logically being sold.

However, there is value in listening to the ‘knowing’ of the first camp of thought as we consider what was consciously going on, the intent. I do believe that by using the rationale of football strategy, Pete Carroll and Darrell Bevell thought they were making a play call that would enhance their chances of winning. In that moment of defensive match-ups, high intensity and quick thinking, I do not buy into either one of them having a conscious thought “How can I make Russell a hero and take the power away from Lynch with this next play?”. The explanation of their play calling in that moment makes sense, but it also demonstrates illogical gaps of thinking. This is because logic alone is limited as a source of knowledge. ‘Logic’ lacks the nimbleness to delve into the human complexities of the unconscious where institutional oppressive power structures of privilege often lurk.

Institutional power structures are systems in society which function to perpetuate privilege at the expense of the oppressed. In the year 2015 these systems still function consciously and intentionally. However, these systems also function in our unconscious processes, and this has major influence over our conscious thoughts and behaviors.

Validating the concept of privileged power structures is hard because it’s painful. It’s also extremely important and necessary if we want to change as a society, or by using football terms, if we want to avoid throwing a slant pass on 2nd and 1 again when we have the amazing Marshawn Lynch on our team.

This brings me to the second camp of thought which is calling for a conspiracy, (the term conspiracy theory is often used to stigmatize thinking against the norm, norm being created by the power system). The ‘conspiracy theory’ is that the Seahawks wanted to make their popular and compliant golden boy, Russell Wilson, the hero and MVP of Super Bowl XLIX. Equally important, they wanted to keep the subversive Marshawn Lynch from claiming his rightful glory.

The week prior to the Super Bowl Marshawn Lynch stole the headlines with his bravado in pushing back against the media, and well before was known for pushing back against the authority of the NFL (he was also known for carrying the Seahawks on his back). This narrative was playing loudly for us all last week. We were salivating for the chance to see what would happen if Roger Goodell had to hand Lynch that MVP trophy. While on the other hand, Russell Wilson was a perfect fit for the face of the program. He knew how to say the ‘right’ thing, he minded his P’s and Q’s, and he complied with the system, a system that makes a lot of money off of using his subordination and charisma. So when I heard about the conspiracy theory regarding the last play call, let’s just say it didn’t ring untrue.

It’s hard to place this theory in the conscious decision-making moment that lead up to the failed pass. It doesn’t add up considering all of the factors. But when placed in the unconscious processes that would inform a decision in that instance, I can’t help but feel a tremendous amount of grief as I come to grips with this theory. In the last sequence of plays Lynch received a 1st down carry when urgency to score was still present and Lynch was the best option to carry them to a win. But in those seconds between the time Marshawn Lynch dropped at the one and Russell Wilson threw that ill-fated pass, there was space and time for the conscious decision making to be influenced (there was also time before that one play call, refer back to media week and also to the colonizing histories of the United States). To put the ball in Russell’s hands made strategic sense to the coaches, but it was also propped up by the unconscious investments of Russell becoming the face of the program instead of Marshawn. They may not have realized it in that moment, yet, hiding somewhere below was the narrative telling them they had “a play to waste”. They weren’t desperate anymore at the half yard line, thus, they could give Russell a chance for glory first and then use Lynch if needed. It seemed like a win-win to take that risk. Rationale was unable to catch this mistake because the risky idea didn’t come from a purely logical and grounded place. That play call actually mirrored the grandiose thinking of a power structure.

And this answer to what happened in the final play of Super Bowl XLIX, sadly, rings very true to me. The institutionalized power structure which influenced the last play call is the real devastation of that pass play.

I didn’t shed a tear over the fact that we lost a football game. The Patriots beat us fair and square. The tears that finally did roll down my cheeks were the tears that realized the ‘bad guys’ weren’t just the Patriots, they were us too. We betrayed ourselves, we betrayed our identity (and in many ways Lynch) which had gotten us there in the first place. This betrayal did not necessarily happen consciously or intentionally, but good intention does not give us permission to dismiss the impact of our actions. There needs to be reflection and accountability here, not just a ‘logical’ explanation to justify and cover up the emotions that we’re feeling.

I believe if the Seahawks stay true to themselves and to their system they will grow to be an even stronger group. They have already created an inspiring culture of love, unity, belief, individual empowerment, and positive mindfulness that I absolutely love about this team. But they will have to use the most important characteristic of their system in order to heal from this loss—honesty. The best way to transform ourselves in the face of the ‘establishment’ is to be honest about our part in it.

I still love my Seahawks. But they aren’t perfect, just like the rest of us. Today I am beginning to heal from the disappointment of my beloved Hawks propping up the privileged power structures of the NFL. I’m also looking at myself for what work I still have to do in my own privilege. Because as my Hawks so harshly taught me that game, the work of dismantling oppressive institutions starts at home. I had a major blind spot in believing ‘my’ Hawks were impervious to the impacts of the power systems, and my stance was my own systemic privilege at work. I was dead wrong on my stance. I will still do my best to call out ‘the Patriots’ when I do see injustices, but I have to point a finger at ‘my Hawks’ and myself and remember that the system is functioning in us, too.

**Love and appreciation to the wonderful Kimberly George and Jacquie Gallaway who lent their conversational minds and editing assistance, helping to bring this piece together.

Follow the script

Leave a comment

Follow The Script

By Erica Ewart

It was a tight game between us four women and it was coming down to the throws of the last few discs.  I was standing on the opposite end of the shuffleboard table with my opponent as my partner carefully lined up her throw and then released.  It was coming towards us in a nice clean line, poised to give us the points we needed for the victory, when suddenly, the disc stopped.

A hand had jutted into our game and prevented us from ever knowing the full life of that disc. I was stunned. I had not predicted this in the trajectory of that seemingly perfect throw. As I came to and looked up to find out who belonged to the rest of the hand, my eyes slowly came to rest upon a man.  He was looking at me and my opponent, laughing, a smile on his face.  He was amused at himself for foiling the throw, looking to us for our delight and recognition of his interruption into our game.

However, without a response in sight he quickly released the disc and stepped back from the edge of the shuffleboard table, finding steadiness on the wooden paneled wall next to the restroom where I presumed he was seeking relief.

I did not want to give him any.

I could feel the poorly lit room tightening around me, the downstairs bar continuing to fill up with patrons out to celebrate the end of the workweek.  In my peripheral I could see them navigating their own interactions, women with revealing necklines and men dressed in casual and conservative collared attire. They were sitting around bar tables laughing, flirting, drinking down libations with ease and relief, annoyingly not aware of my urgent internal conflict.

In returning my gaze back to myself I could feel my body tensing up under my t-shirt, the pressure mounting for a needed response. This tension hadn’t been created from a particularly uncommon scene or circumstance at a bar. In fact, I’ve been in this dilemma before. But something was exceedingly different for me on this night in this particular interaction with the man.

It felt like an instantaneous awakening, a sudden and shockingly clear awareness of my body’s gender performance and what it was to be “female” in response to “him” in that moment. For the first time I was intensely in tune with the narrative and script that was being read by my body which was prompting me to give the next line on the page.

My Script read: smile at him politely, maybe giggle at his flirtatious gesture, and then communicate coy delight. This is what a woman should do in order to reflect back to a man that his interruption was flattering, funny and of course that I ultimately wanted him to impose; even though I had not been showing any prior signs of requesting his presence—other than being a female.

There was a forceful, almost magnetic pull to respond according to this internalized gendered script. The script and it’s authors were coercing me to protect the man with my own subjugated response, to protect his sense of what it was to be a man. From my experiences this meant: “real men demand what they want and then take it”.  I felt the need to acknowledge his “manliness” through my behavior by mirroring back pleasure from his penetration into the game.

It was a sudden and horrifying awareness that my mind was grasping to understand, unnerving when it came to the realization “I have never actually made a conscience decision to sign my body up for this role”.

As my internal dialogue worked to make sense of “this” role, I managed to land on a tolerable response and proceeded to withdraw my eyes from the man with only a flash of recognition. I shook my head from side to side in annoyed bewilderment and sent the disc back to my partner for a re-throw, all the while with a slight discomfort and insecurity that his script was now telling him of me “what a bitch”.

This impossible bind and subsequent navigation through the thin narratives of subjugated “good” girl and dehumanized “bitch”, were however, not the only discomfort I had in those few moments of interaction.

For when I did look at the man another narrative was simultaneously present in me: I noticed that he was a man of color (from my perspective an Asian-American man).  I was aware of the script in our white supremacist culture that produces a hierarchy of “manliness” in which Asian features are scripted to be more effeminate and thus lesser.  After my response this script was playing for me as well. I do not consciously agree with the script, but that does not matter to the impact that my response may have had on him. I felt a sense of guilt, a wondering if I had just added to that painful narrative in my response. I wanted to tell him “I see you are a man (and it’s possible he doesn’t identify that way), I consider you a man, I just don’t want you thinking you need to enter my space to have me/you confirm that”.

Maybe that’s what I should have said. I honestly don’t know. That’s the complexity, that’s the important conversation. There are multiple narratives intersecting simultaneously, how do we find one another in discussion and relationship and not perpetuate these narratives in a harmful way?

What a conversation could have also unearthed is yet another narrative that was currently still tethered to our performances. Unbeknownst to the man, I was standing before him a lesbian woman. Just as he did not represent the idealized “man” in our white supremacist hetero-patriarchy, I did not represent the idealized cis-gendered “woman”.  We were face to face with my truth hidden amongst silence (he, unable to silence his difference), a truth that could have possibly brought us together in solidarity.

Looking back, it has a sad and painful irony that manifests everyday in our human interactions. The very scripts we perform to prop us up, that we follow to be “normal”, the ones that we are sold and believe will enter us into relationship (man intruding with dominance into a woman’s space to try to connect ) are actually the very narratives that keep us apart.

These complex and layered scripts are playing out every day. In this case, they were packed into a brief moment and the short life of a thwarted shuffleboard disc.

I sit here today asking many questions from this particular night’s interaction: what narratives are in my body and how are they intersecting with one another to create a performance?  Within these narratives, how do I participate in my body as a white woman, as a lesbian woman, as a cisgender woman, as a middle class U.S citizen?

I don’t have many answers to these questions, but I do know I want to slow down, to notice my body and my important role in perpetuating and protecting privilege.  I want to understand my body’s reaction to oppression.  I want to choose differently, to choose with consciousness, to not perpetuate but instead connect and create a different possibility for relationship.

Because what I do understand from this night, is that neither the man nor I benefitted (or connected) by following the dominant scripts that were written for that interaction.  And I suspect the writers of these narratives intend for just that very result.

A sports story about women

Leave a comment

A Sports Story About Women

By Erica Ewart

While making my usual rounds on several different sports sites yesterday, I happened to take note of the major absence of stories written about women. This seemingly random observation circumvented around the male authors who didn’t offer the spotlight to a single female athlete. Actually, women in these stories were not even welcomed to the stage. So, I sat down with my laptop determined to write a story about a female athlete. I had no particular agenda as to who the woman would be or from what era, but I wanted to put voice to a story because clearly women’s narratives in sports (and history in general) are shamefully lacking.

However, the dreaded “block” that occupies the territory of writing caught up to me. The piece apparently was meant to take root and flourish tomorrow.

So, I sit down again today determined to write a piece about a female athlete. But, again, I can’t seem to find energy around a story.  I wonder what’s wrong with me.  What kind of feminist am I?  What kind of athlete am I?  I’m a former college basketball player and have participated in sports from the time I could walk—I have a life long database of women athletes to write about.  So what’s wrong with me?  What’s “wrong” with me, I’m sensing, is that I’m not asking the right question.

I pull up ESPN’s website—the worldwide leader in sports—and I see stories written about basketball, football, soccer, baseball, high school football, a plethora of sports, but not one story about a woman. I scroll down and see a small box at the bottom right hand portion of the site labeled “ESPNW”, I click on the box.  It actually has stories about women; it even has a female athlete in the featured story. There are good, well-written, interesting stories posted on this site.

I wonder aloud, “Why aren’t they in the “normal” section of ESPN?”

How in the world, as a woman, is my “normal” the sports section that’s written about men?  The normality of my very question is disturbing.  I’ve played sport my entire life believing that this was an empowering arena for me. I believed I was gaining valuable confidence, strength and at times status, which on many levels was true. But I was also gaining a powerful and carefully scripted narrative that told me: men are more worthy, more capable, more important than you.

Stated simply: you are less valuable.

This sexist and patriarchal message was communicated to me in seemingly small ways, such as the boys basketball games getting the primetime spot after us girls played, or female tennis players competing in three sets compared to male participants competing in five (yes, this is still happening today).  It was also messaged to me overtly—need I go any further than the “you throw like a girl” insult?  This pejorative communication let me know my value and also my place, I am not in the center of my sports universe.  I should just be grateful to orbit around the men here (what I continue to painfully hear echoing in the resentful sentiments of Title IX).

These messages formed my role in the sports arena, which inevitably mirrored my understanding in the world arena.  It’s no surprise then that I sit down today and struggle to put a spotlight on women athletes.

It’s a foreign concept to put females in the center.

I continue to sift through the articles on ESPNW while weighing the magnitude and impact of these narratives. I can feel the lightness of the stories’ headlines in my body, fluffy, boring, uninteresting. Clearly, before even reading a word, I have already unconsciously placed lesser value on the pieces (perhaps the aforementioned columnists did too).

This raises the question, how can I write a story about a woman athlete if I don’t even value it?  I have been inundated with the patriarchal narrative right down to my unconscious core. The system has found its way into me, an empowered and strong, female athlete.

I am deeply saddened by this sexist conditioning. What a tragic personal loss and cultural loss. I have known that I was being sold a story that men’s athletics mattered more than women’s, I just didn’t realize I had bought it—now I’m left to wonder, how much did I pay for it?

This problem is a collective one. We are all a part of this message being sent to young girls and women. Not to mention, a message being sent to young boys and men teaching them to devalue females.

It’s a terrible bind. To obtain traction as a writer in the sports world I need to cover what people are interested in reading, and it’s clear it’s not a story about a female athlete. In order to survive the system, I fear I have to perpetuate the very problem existing in it.