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(10/25/21 11:30am)
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The sixth edition of “Clear The Air” welcomes IU alumna and Sports Illustrated reporter Priya Desai, who covers the intersection between culture and sport in America. Part of her work focuses on the convergence between race and sport, a touchy subject Mina Denny wants to consider in this episode.
In general, sport is an amazing equalizer for all. Two people from completely different ends of the earth could meet and talk for hours just because they love the same sports team.
While this is a great testament for how sport can bring people together in amazing and
unexpected ways, being an equalizer allows for means to have tough conversations about the inequalities that occur in our world.
“Sport kind of winds its way through our culture,” Desai said.
George Floyd’s death last year is a prime example of this. Intuitions such as the WNBA and
NBA really took Floyd’s death to heart, and they made sure that their players were cognizant of
these serious racial issues.
These two institutions were not subscribing to this “stick to sport” mentality that often makes its way into the opinion news section. Understanding that their players aren’t just athletes, the WNBA and NBA recognize that they’re human too, and there are certain social issues that are not only important to them, but to the millions of fans who watch them play on the court every week.
As these athletes demonstrate the importance of solidarity, other athletic institutions have followed in their footsteps. When Desai was in broadcast news, she said, no one was talking about these concerns, and it’s heartening to see institutions and athletes today using their given platforms for change.
Endorsement deals are another huge controversial matter in sport, and this conversation gets even more contentious for athletes of color.
Professional boxer and two-time Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields virtually received no endorsement deals after her gold medal win. Not only is she a female, but she is a minority athlete who received nothing comparable to that of a White male athlete.
Being a woman in the world of sport is already difficult enough, but being a minority female
athlete is almost an added pressure.
It took the NBA and MLB time to build popularity, and the same amount of time needs to be allotted for female institutions to grow and gain popularity. The stereotype that women’s sports aren’t popular doesn’t exist because they’re less than male sports, Desai said, but because their market to build popularity isn’t as large.
Not giving Shields any endorsement deals is one of the many wrinkles in the way that prevents these institutions from gaining popularity and growing.
Sports have helped improve racial inequality in America, but only time will tell if this generation of athletes and institutions will achieve full equality for all.
(10/11/21 12:00pm)
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The fifth edition of “Clear The Air” brings in Xan Smith. Smith is a third-year Ph.D. student at The Media School where they study and conduct qualitative research on a topic Mina Denny wants to dive a little deeper on in this episode: the relationship between gender and video games.
Many of the ways we see gender disparity being displayed in traditional sports can be reflected in e-sports, among other virtual gaming spaces as well.
Topics such as misogyny in video games, putting women behind paywalls, underrepresentation for female players, and the stereotype that sport is still an all boy’s club, are applicable in all professional sports, including e-sports.
“There’s a social pressure that being associated with e-sports is not deemed feminine, and it’s contrary to what women should be in regards to femininity,” Smith said. “These are things we’re seeing both in sports and e-sports to keep women out of that professional level.”
Female gamers receive triple the amount of harassment and negative comments that male gamers do, and a big reason why is because of these long-held stereotypes that women are inadequate players who just want attention from men.
Denny and Smith unpack the meanings behind some of these common perceptions for females in the industry such as the “gamer girl,” “gamer girlfriend” and “manic pixie dream girl” stereotypes.
The extra pressures that female players face, aside from the pressures they already have when preparing for a tournament, can be attributed to these stereotypes.
“For women, you have those same pressures (as men do), you want to improve, you want to play well, but then also you have this added pressure that if I don’t play well, people are going to accuse me of cheating, or they’ll say all women suck,” Smith said.
Often female players will pretend to be male players to avoid harassment. The backlash that both traditional female athletes and female e-sports players face are similar in the sense that there always seems to be some comparison to a man or a woman’s relationship to a man.
“There’s kind of the assumption you’re either playing games to find a guy or because your boyfriend plays games, or there to just get attention,” Smith said.
Many females in the past have suppressed their femininity because of these conventional ideas. Nevertheless, the younger generation of e-sports players we see today are entering a more inclusive space than ever before.
E-sport players around the world have started to leave the popular multiplayer game, World of Warcraft, because of the misogynistic and discriminatory culture surrounding it.
“The exodus of players from World of Warcraft has just been really heartening to see,” Smith said. “Not only are women realizing that this is a problem, but all players are realizing this is a problem and we can’t continue to support this.”
Twitch, along with many other e-sport streaming platforms, are now working really hard to not only support these diverse streamers, but to protect them and promote the idea that gender shouldn’t play a role when assessing one’s talent and skill.
(09/27/21 6:06am)
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Hannah Garvey, a graduate student from the Department of Religious Studies here at Indiana University, joins Mina Denny for a very notable fourth edition of “Clear The Air.”
Denny and Garvey unpack a term coined by Robert N. Bellah in 1967, “American civil religion,” and explain what this concept means in regards to the role that sports play in constructing “the religion of Americans” and how sport is a part of America’s inborn culture as a whole.
They examine the way that spectators consume sports “religiously,” and how sporting establishments like the NFL or MLB are seen as “religious institutions.” For example, Garvey explains that “a lot of people practice certain rituals around sporting events, like not washing jerseys, or making sure that we do certain things in order to set our team up for success.”
The sheer time commitment of being in a group of people that are all committed to the same thing can feel very similar to something that people might more easily identify as a religious institution, Garvey says.
Certain religious ideals and morals stick with us from an early age, and the culture and spirit of a particular team or sport can become ingrained early on in a similar way. American football, specifically, is paramount in American culture and affects how Americans perceive not only themselves, but also the country as a whole.
When athletes dispute these fixed cultural behaviors, they often experience backlash from fans and media. During the playing of the national anthem, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand erect to the flag, but instead took a knee in dissent regarding African American oppression in America.
“What happened with Kaepernick very quickly spiraled into claims about his American-ness – if he’s a good American, if he’s a bad American,” Garvey said. “When Kaepernick didn’t do that (standing erect to the flag), people wanted to read that as being disrespectful towards the flag and therefore being disrespectful to the U.S.”
Being that the national anthem is a tradition very sacred in the U.S., Kaepernick seems to be challenging one of the habitual ideals of what “American civil religion” is, by not saluting the flag.
As we live in such an activist-driven society, we are seeing professional athletes in this generation such as Kaepernick, Simone Biles and Raven Saunders practicing the very thing we understand to be American: freedom of speech and self-expression.
Though there will always be spectators wanting to keep sports and politics separate, athletes today are taking advantage of the platform they have to show that they can use their voice for positive change and be a proud American athlete at the same time.
(09/27/21 12:28am)
They say if one wants to see the sun, they’ll have to weather the storm first. That’s certainly the case for the Hoosiers now, following a win-loss weekend as Indiana opened Big Ten play on Friday.
For the first time since 2018, the women of Indiana volleyball swept the conference opener, winning 3-0 against the Michigan State Spartans on Friday night. Finally being healthy for the first time in three weeks, having outsider hitter Kari Zumach and middle blocker Kaley Rammelsberg back in action really changed the spirit of the team, but that spirit was quickly annihilated Sunday morning, following a tough 3-0 loss to No. 7 Purdue.
“I thought we passed just OK,” head coach Steve Aird said. “I thought the decisions were OK.”
Sure, you can tip your cap to the winning teams, but when will Hoosier Nation be able to tip their cap to their own? The question now: when will Indiana stop being just “OK”? Aird is dealing with the constant ups and downs this season, and said he feels it's upon his shoulders to change this rocky momentum.
“We tried to put a gameplan out on Saturday,” Aird said. “Clearly, I just didn’t have them emotionally ready to go coming off training yesterday, so that’s on me.”
Being that Purdue has built a very well prepared and confident volleyball program for over 40 years, there was no rivalry Sunday between the very young Hoosier team and the experienced Boilermakers. Purdue’s starting setter Hayley Bush is the glue that’s held the Boilermakers together for four years. Comparing that to the other side of the court, freshman setter Camyrn Haworth is just starting to make a name for herself within the Hoosier program.
Aird emphasized that he and his faculty are asking Haworth to be really, really precise, and while she had control in certain moments, there needs to be more fire that fuels hitters and setters to communicate properly during a set, Aird said.
“The hitter’s got to do a better job of helping her out,” Aird said. “But that doesn’t get Cam out of jail.”
Now standing 1-1 in the Big Ten, the Hoosiers have proven they have the potential to play pretty well, but just having potential won’t allow them to survive the rest of the conference.
“The answer isn’t that everyone else is going to be bad or play bad, it’s that we have to get good,” Aird said. “We have pieces to do so, we just weren’t very organized or very competitive today.”
The difficult reality of the conference environment is that competitiveness is crucial. While one match isn’t the end of the world, the Hoosiers will look to learn from this before traveling to Ohio State on Wednesday. Earning respect from fans is another piece missing from the puzzle. Giving Hoosier Nation a reason to come back to Wilkinson Hall and grow with the team is just another one of the many humps they need to get over before they get too deep into Big Ten play.
“When I took the job, what I had in my head was this place would be rockin’ and full,” Aird said. “If we have crowds like that, you want to reward them, and that was the tough part of the day.”
(09/23/21 5:32pm)
The Big Ten is the pinnacle of college volleyball. While this is great for the conference, head coach Steve Aird and his team are about to get underway with conference play, as Indiana sits at the bottom of the pack in the Big Ten standings.
There are currently six teams in the top 25 from the conference, and the Hoosiers are on the outside looking in — trying to figure out how to compete. There are 20 opportunities for the women of Indiana volleyball to play the best teams in the country, and those chances start this weekend. Indiana will battle Michigan State on Friday and end with a match against No. 7 Purdue on Sunday at home.
Indiana’s not at full strength heading into this challenging stretch.
“We’ve been snakebit a little bit with some stuff that’s outside of our control,” Aird said.
More than one challenge has been on the table this preseason. With starting opposite Kari Zumach dealing with an ankle injury, and starting middle Kaley Rammelsberg sore, the set lineup that Aird assembled and trained with was unavailable for the past two weeks. This is a sticky situation to be in right before the arrival of Big Ten play. Having bad luck at a time when a team is hoping not to is part of the adversity Aird and his team have to face here and now.
“Leading when everything is going perfect isn’t leading,” Aird said. “That’s kind of managing and cruising, but when adversity hits, you’ve got to keep everyone fighting and pulling the rope in the same direction.”
Keeping everyone together is a high priority for Indiana, especially right now, after two blowout losses to Chicago State and undefeated Ole Miss last weekend, both dominating the Hoosiers 3-0. The team won’t be able to get over this hump if all the games are blowouts, but that hasn’t been the case all year. Even at Georgia Tech, the Hoosiers played a ranked team on the road and the results were close. What they are doing is working, Aird said, there are just some growing pains they need to get through quickly.
“Teams that believe they can win end up winning,” Aird said. “Teams that are worried about losing, tend to lose — it’s a mindset and it's earned.”
[embed]https://twitter.com/TheHoosierNet/status/1440647073783758848[/embed]
Indiana is still in the infancy of greatness. With such a young team, Aird’s focus is on developing a strong and stable program rather than winning a national championship. When asked about the infamous IU-Purdue rivalry, Aird emphasized that no such thing exists to him in this moment.
“We’re in a different space than Purdue right now,” Aird said. “Comparison’s the thief of joy.”
There will likely be some contingencies about the lineup, forcing Aird to make some untraditional decisions if necessary going into conference play on Friday. Even so, the availability and opportunity to play top teams continues to fuel this team every week.
“Having all of these ranked teams in the conference means you’ve got opportunities to pick people off all over the place, but you have to be tough enough to do it,” Aird said. “That is where we need to be mentally. The other stuff…you can’t control.”
Considering the countless ebbs and flows this preseason, a lot of newcomers have stepped up to fill in holes when needed. Freshman setter Camyrn Haworth and freshman outside hitter Mady Saris have both proved that they will be headline Hoosier athletes for the next three years.
“Cam Haworth as a freshman setter has come in and given us opportunities in every game,” Aird said. “She came into some matches and brought us back and found ways to win that certainly kept us at .500.” “Mady Saris has been really solid. We’re asking her to do a whole bunch of stuff as a freshman and she’s been up to the challenge.”
Indiana desperately needs to hit its stride soon if the Hoosiers want the chance to compete in a conference full of powerhouse programs. Accepting that they are the David in a conference full of Goliaths is the first step.
“There’s tons of excuses,” Aird said. “But what you have to do is be okay being the underdog.”
(09/16/21 11:58am)
The very long and weary days of jumping from city to city are finally over for the women of Indiana volleyball.
Coming off three weeks of road tournaments, the Hoosiers are ecstatic to be back on their home turf for the Indiana Invitational this week.
The team will kick off the tournament on Sept. 16 with a match against the Alabama A&M Bulldogs, followed by a morning match against the Chicago State Cougars on Sept. 17, and end the night against the Ole Miss Rebels.
Playing top-20 team Georgia Tech last week at their home gym in Atlanta gave head coach Steve Aird some clarity about the young group he has assembled this season, even though IU lost. Aird notes that while he still has unanswered questions about this group, there’s no doubt that they’re hyper-competitive and not afraid of the moment, at all. Instead of dwelling on the loss, it’s clear that playing successful teams encourages this youthful roster even more.
“I think we’re spending a lot of time in the mud right now,” Aird said. “We’re really trying to drill down on some things that we’re not quite there at yet.”
Their goal now? Growing from that high-pressure from ranked teams and coming back to win.
“That’s how close we are. It’s not miles," Aird said. "It's feet."
Dealing with injuries seems to be another wrinkle in the way for this group. Kari Zumach was out last week and was awfully missed by her team.
“She’s plays the game the right way,” Aird said. “She’s really competitive and very skilled, and we can match her up against people, so having her available for the first few matches this season was really important.”
This week marks the transition from a nonconference season to conference, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. Ole Miss will be coming in hot to Bloomington at 8-0, along with Chicago State standing at 6-3. Aird emphasizes that one of the best ways to get better is to gain experience, and playing elite programs gives this group that opportunity.
“I’m starting to get a feel of who’s going to have really good teams and who’s not, and for us, I think we’re still learning,” Aird said. “I wouldn’t be shocked if we hit our stride a little bit later in the year, but that’s just the nature of what we got going on.”
Learning how to be a pro at this level is critical. With the ample amount of underclassmen this season, having the chance to lean on and learn from some of the older kids and new transfers boosts their likelihood to reach success; such as middle blocker, Kaley Rammelsburg, from High Point, who has a hitting percentage of .429, ranking her sixth in the Big Ten.
“You can have all the physical tools, but if you’re not coachable or if you don’t really have a passion for the game and desire to learn, it’s hard to coach,” Aird said. “Kaley is the absolute opposite, she has an unbelievable attitude about work and is an elite athlete.”
Indiana is known for its pride, and women’s volleyball in the Big Ten is a big deal. Since Aird started in Bloomington, the student section has been somewhat of a pet-project of his, and something he’s really proud of. Thursday will be the beginning of the new era Aird strives to create, he wants Wilkinson Hall to be different than other Big Ten venues, and that begins with the students.
“It takes a village, so it starts with a community — the student section — to really get behind it,” Aird said. “There will be some ups and downs as we get going, but I think we have a loyal fan base and the students are going to have a blast.”
(09/13/21 12:50pm)
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Mina Denny brings in two very special guests for the third episode of “Clear The Air” — former athletes Dylan Harris and Ryan O’Callaghan. Harris is a 2019 IU alumnus who is also a former brother of the Pike fraternity where he previously held the position of the mental health chair and captain of his Little 500 team. O’Callaghan played in the NFL for both the Patriots and the Chiefs as an offensive tackle.
Though Harris and O’Callaghan went on their own separate journeys as male athletes, they both went through them as closeted gay men. As both Harris and O’Callaghan now live their lives openly, they are able to speak on the inclusion and representation athletes within the LGBTQ+ community receive within sports and sports media through their own personal experiences.
“The only reason I played football to begin with was because I thought it was the best cover for being gay that there was,” O’Callaghan said when discussing how he planned to never come out to anyone ever.
Harris reinforces that there was a shared fear of coming out to anyone because he “didn’t know how they (fraternity brothers) were going to handle it. I didn’t know if they were going to look at me differently, if they were going to be mean to me, or if they wouldn’t care.”
Fortunately, when both men did eventually come out, the responses they received were overwhelmingly optimistic, even in the absence of positive representation of LGBTQ+ athletes in the media when growing up.
“I was almost in shock actually of how supportive they (fraternity brothers) were,” Harris said. “They made sure that I knew that they had my back the entire time.”
O’Callaghan feared coming out to his family the most, as he grew up in a very conservative household.
“One of my biggest allies was my mom,” O’Callaghan said when speaking on the concept of allyship. “Growing up, I never expected that support system, but you quickly learn once you start coming out to people how accepting they all are.”
The number of out-athletes in the sports community today is constantly growing and providing further hope for the next generation of closeted athletes. Nashville Predators prospect Luke Prokop recently made history as the first active player under contract to an NHL team to come out, along with Carl Nassib, the first active NFL to do so as well.
O’Callaghan has his own organization, “The Ryan O’Callaghan Foundation,” promoting more encouraging representation and pragmatic solutions for LGBTQ+ athletes who still fear the unknown when coming to terms with their true identity.
People in today’s society are finally beginning to see more openness and normalization for athletes in the LGBTQ+ community, and Harris and O’Callaghan are thrilled to be witnesses and contribute to the change.
(09/11/21 6:00pm)
The women of Indiana volleyball woke up Thursday morning standing a sweet 5-1 for the season, but much can change in just two days.
As the squad traveled to its third consecutive road tournament Thursday, the Hoosiers dropped not one, not two, but all three matches at the Georgia Tech Classic, changing that nice-looking 5-1 to a tense 5-4 for the season.
Indiana volleyball started off strong in the first three sets against the Mississippi State Bulldogs Thursday morning, taking a 2-1 lead early. Despite a powerful start, the Hoosiers couldn’t find enough gas in the tank to close out the following two sets, leaving the Bulldogs with a 3-2 five-setter win.
Returning to action Friday morning, Indiana competed against the Oklahoma Sooners. A sense of repetitiveness was starting to be seen in Atlanta, as the Hoosiers started off hot in the first and third set, but ultimately came up short in set two, four, and five, giving away another five-setter win.
The team’s momentum continued to stay the same following the end of the tournament. After two five-set losses, the Hoosiers came out confident for the third match against No. 21 Georgia Tech, winning set one, but failing to prevail in the subsequent three sets, ending the match with a 3-1 Yellow Jacket win.
Back in 2018 when head coach Steve Aird took over, Indiana was 3-13 in five-setters against Power Five teams and 9-14 in total in five-setters. The trend of not being able to close out and win five-setters for the Hoosiers has started to become a reoccurring theme this season.
Indiana specifically had opportunities in set two and four against the Bulldogs to close it out; notably in set two, as it was a hard-fought back-and-forth battle the entire time, with Mississippi winning the extensive set 31-33.
“It’s a competitive thing,” Aird said. “I think we’ve got to the get the point where we can close out games. But on the whole, I think that’s the nature of the beast.”
And the journey to taming that beast is far from over for this team. Being on the road the first three weeks against some exemplary teams presents a different challenge of its own. The Hoosiers didn’t have a lot of time in their home gym — only a couple weeks of preseason — then they rolled out.
“There’s a lot of things we want to work on, we just haven’t had the time and part of that has been the schedule,” Aird said. “We certainly have some kids who can play, we had some great performances tonight, so I think we’re encouraged and we’d like to have a few more wins in the preseason obviously going into the Big Ten.”
The young Hoosiers are still building their confidence going into next week’s first home tournament. Aird explained that they’re still working toward their fullest potential, and an injury to their starting opposite this week, Kari Zumach, put a damper on the team’s spirit.
“She didn’t travel or make the trip,” Aird said. “We’re hoping she gets healthy because she’s a fantastic player and at a different level of some stuff that we’re able to do.”
While the possibility of an injury is always a scary threat for an athlete, this team really stepped up in Zumach’s absence and battled the hardest they ever have, Aird said, despite the losing outcomes.
“I thought this was the most competitive I’ve seen that group since I’ve got them, especially as we were training for the matches tonight,” Aird said. “I think that was a good sign, I think they’re not afraid.”
The weeks of traveling and adjusting to new courts are finally over, as Indiana will return home to Wilkinson Hall for the Indiana Invitational on Sept. 16-17. The squad will face Alabama A&M Thursday night, followed by Chicago State Friday morning, and end the night with a match against Ole Miss.
(09/02/21 11:54am)
Victorious would certainly be one way to describe how this past weekend went for the Hoosier volleyball team, as the team won not one, not two, but all three matches at the Top Dawg Challenge in Indianapolis.
Indiana battled five tough sets last weekend against reigning MAC champions, Bowling Green Falcons, and they definitely gave the Hoosiers a run for their money. Although the women of Indiana volleyball pulled out a win, the Falcons gave the Hoosiers a little taste of what to expect from the all-mighty Big Ten, and what the team needs to do to survive the rest of the conference.
Junior middle blocker Kaley Rammelsberg had the chance to experience a Big Ten battle for the very first time, and the confidence she possessed during the match allowed her to lead the squad with eight kills while shifting the momentum of the game from Bowling Green back to Indiana when it came down to crunch time.
“It was my first tournament here, so it was really nice to get in the groove of things and actually play against someone else other than our team,” Rammelsberg said. “We’re still working out the kinks of everything, but I think we did a pretty good job this weekend and I am really excited to see what the rest of the season looks like.”
While “working out the kinks” does involve improving, the Hoosiers aren’t going to change their approach going into this weekend where they will face Western Michigan, Purdue University Fort Wayne, and Southeast Missouri State at the Discover Kalamazoo Classic, which begins Friday night.
Senior outside hitter Breana Edwards acknowledges that the matches in Indianapolis could’ve easily gone the other way, so using the same technique and plan of attack every week is going to be pivotal if they want to advance to postseason play.
“Anything that we do, we can always do better,” Edwards said. “The biggest thing that coach talks about is getting the one percent better every day. There were a couple sets in the Bowling Green game where we started out really strong then we sort of dipped off, so I think just playing more cohesive, more as a team, and finding a way to stay consistent through a whole game would be a great goal for this team.”
Aird reiterates that the Hoosiers will not alter their approach, regardless of who they play or what week it is. Keeping the energy consistent at times when it’s frantic or when the team’s down a little bit will be key if they want to stay on a persistent roll during a match.
As Edwards enters her fourth year in Bloomington, Rammelsberg is still adjusting to all the hysteria and zest surrounding Indiana athletics. While Wilkinson Hall has been Edwards’ home for some time now, new players like Rammelsberg have brought a fresh energy to Wilkinson and changed the course of Aird’s volleyball program.
“The change started this summer,” said Edwards. “We were in here every day getting better, and every day in the weight room we were pushing ourselves and working really hard, and that’s what started this season off on the right foot because we were all in shape and had put in the time, so we knew in our hearts what we could do. That was the biggest change I’ve seen in my four years here, and that flip this summer…it was really cool.”
Rammelsberg proved her valor in Indianapolis last weekend as she was named to the Top Dawg Challenge all-tournament team. She said Aird has pushed her to reach her full potential this offseason.
“I feel like he just really believes in me,” Rammelsberg said. “He focuses on what I’m supposed to do and has patience with me, I feel like that’s a big difference. He really wants me to get better and when I mess up, it’s not like he’s going to make me do sleds right away, he’s going to understand and work with me.”
Obviously, talent wins games, but this team’s passion and growing chemistry goes beyond the game, and can ultimately lead them to success.
“Every single person is a great human being,” Edwards said. “As you play more games together and you travel on the road, everyone gets closer, and that was one of the things I think our team was lacking last year. With COVID-19, we couldn’t really get that off-the-court chemistry as great as we have this year.”
(08/30/21 1:24pm)
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The second edition of “Clear The Air” brings in sports psychologist and associate professor in the department of Counseling and Educational Psychology at Indiana University, Jesse Steinfeldt. Steinfeldt has spent the majority of his life in the world of sport, which prompted his interest in the study of men and masculinities. This has allowed him to contribute to some notable insight and awareness about the topic Mina Denny wants to consider in this episode, toxic masculinity within sports.
“There was a personal and professional desire to better understand the dynamics (about male athletes) I’d seen around me, growing up as a high school, college, and professional football, baseball, and basketball player,” Steinfeldt says, when considering all the different factors that play into the social construct of toxic masculinity.
As men develop misogynistic thoughts and conform to the stereotypes that men shouldn’t cry, and that they need to be strong and aggressive in life and in athletics, Steinfeldt explains that these standards allow “toxic masculinity to become a manifestation of some of the negative norms that men are socialized to follow.”
Though male athletes still struggle with following these gender norms in society — and probably still will enduringly — Denny and Steinfeldt unpack some recent cases where prominent men in the sports world have opposed the status quo of patriarchy.
Men in the football community today — Ryan O’Callaghan, Michael Sam, and even IU’s own, coach Tom Allen — are making strides to promote healthier perceptions of masculinity while using their platforms to develop a more open understanding of what it truly means to be a man.
For example Allen’s mantra is “LEO,” an acronym for “love each other.”
“In football you might think, oh love…that’s soft, that’s going to make you a sissy,” Steinfeldt says. “No, it’s understanding that his definition of love is accountability, responsibility and wanting to be engaged with other people.”
Male athletes are beginning to undo what has previously been socially justifiable in sports concerning toxic masculinity behaviors. It takes bravery and resilience in trying to have a more subjective understanding of what’s been expected from them for centuries. Nonetheless, they are now able to reconsider what they truly want to endorse and represent as a man in sport.
(08/26/21 11:47am)
Coming off a very challenging year of change, Indiana volleyball head coach Steve Aird and his staff hope the return of fans and a fierce roster will restore the energy in Wilkinson Hall that’s been missing for 18 months.
This time last year, not only did the team miss out on summer training, but their preseason and preseason matches were lost in the mix as well. Pandemic aside, the 2020 roster was very young, one of the youngest teams in the country, with roughly four or five freshman as starters. Entering the 2021 season, Aird intends to reinvent what Indiana volleyball means, along with the team’s status in the Big Ten.
“Going into this year, we’ve added some veteran kids who have really made the gym look and sound a little bit different,” Aird said Tuesday evening. “We feel like we’ve got a very competitive group that I think will surprise some people this year.”
With preseason camp only lasting approximately 10 to 12 days, the seven newcomers and returning players have blown all of Aird’s expectations away, following the outstanding leadership and drive in the short time of two weeks.
“There’s going to be a lot of new bodies in the mix, a lot of new people to get to know,” Aird said. “...But the product right now, I can safely say, it’s the best team I’ve had since I’ve been here.”