I am not a big sports fan, nor do I pretend to be one. I go to the football games as a member of the Marching Band, but that's usually it. This weekend was a little different, though. I went to watch the Big Green take on Brown University in the men's soccer game. After the game, I was a bit disturbed, not because Dartmouth lost, rather because of the behavior that I witnessed in the stands. I thought soccer was about how well you play the game. Apparently, some members of the crowd did not agree with me.
I was sitting with a friend and his parents, among a large group of Dartmouth students. At one point, the other students were discussing the heckling of the players, and its role in sports. Specifically, they mentioned the fact that in rugby, if a player is heckled, he or she is allowed to replay any performance which was flawed due to the aforementioned heckling. They were perplexed at the existence of such a gentleman's sport. And then they continued their heckling of the Brown players.
It is not just the heckling that bothered me, though. At football games, I am among the first to scoff at a player's name or to scorn the referee who, in my opinion, made an error in judgment.
What truly upset me was the content of the remarks made by my fellow Dartmouth students. We all know, or believe, that Brown is a liberal school in comparison to Dartmouth. The stereotype of a male Brown student probably includes long hair. Indeed, a good number of the soccer players on Brown's team have long hair. This long hair was initially the object of the Dartmouth students' attention.
During the first half, the fans shouted, "How can you play with long hair?" They teased, "I thought this was the men's game, but it looks like the women from here!" "Long hair looks good ... on a girl!" At every opportune moment, they would shout "Get a hair cut!" This teasing was not confined completely to the Brown team. In fact, one Dartmouth player has hair that is nearly chin-length, and a student remarked that he had told this player to get a hair cut, as it was not in the spirit of a Dartmouth team. So far, pretty mild, right?
During the second half, this heckling degenerated. Some fans shouted, "What, is this the alternative team?" "Is this the DaGLO team, or the Brown team?" One Brown player did not reach a ball before it rolled out of bounds, and a student yelled, "I bet your boyfriend would have gotten it!"
Most other remarks implied that homosexuals cannot play soccer, a real man's sport. And these were the mild comments. There are numerous others which were vicious and downright rude. How the physical appearance of a person leads to an idea of their sexuality, which is then taken as measure of that person's abilities, is beyond me. I was embarrassed to be sitting with this group of students, lest I be mistaken for one of them.
As for the game, there were a number of calls with which I did not agree. All in all, though, the Brown team played a good game and won fairly. The Dartmouth team played well also, never giving up. I feel a great respect for the players of both teams. When I played soccer as a six-year-old, I was never the best or fastest player. So I greatly admire these gentlemen who have the ability and desire to play the game.
It never occurs to me to question the race, religion, appearance or sexuality of any of the players: they all made it this far, so they must be decent players. Indeed, despite their long hair and whatever else, the Brown players beat the "real men" of Dartmouth. Men of the Dartmouth and Brown Soccer teams, I salute you: you all played a great game. I thought that was what soccer was about.
