Living out of Bounds: The Male Athlete's Everyday Life

256 Pages·2008·1.03 MB·English

by  Steven J. Overman

LIVING OUT OF BOUNDS:
THE MALE ATHLETE’S
EVERYDAY LIFE
STEVEN J. OVERMAN
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Overman, Steven J.
Living out of bounds : the male athlete’s everyday life / Steven J. Overman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–313–34668–2 (alk. paper)
1. Sports—Sociological aspects. 2. Athletes—Social life and customs. 3. Athletes. I. Title.
GV706.5.O88 2009
796.01—dc22 2008028210
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2009 by Steven J. Overman
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008028210
ISBN: 978–0–313–34668–2
First published in 2009
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For the “Jackson Tennis Bums” Dick, Steve B., Duane, Maurice, and three
generations of Spongs: Rich, Brian, and Bryce; native Mississippians
and transplanted Yankees, dear friends and fellow weekend athletes
over two decades.
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CONTENTS
Preface xi
Introduction xv
Chapter One. The Athlete’s Family and Youth 1
Roots 1
Opening Rounds 6
The Influence of Parents 10
Coaches and Father Figures 17
Looking Backward 19
Chapter Two. The Narrow World of Sports 21
Part I: Sport as Sanctuary 21
Home Away from Home 22
Sanctum Sanctorum 28
Part II: Sport as Neverland 30
From Peter Pan to Pete Rose 30
Living in Neverland 33
Coaching as Paternalism 35
The Wider World 38
viii Contents
Chapter Three. Public Life, Private Space 43
Introduction 43
Coping with Celebrity 44
Chapter Four. In the Arena’s Shadow 59
Gladiator’s Holiday 59
Practice Time 61
On the Road 64
Hotel Living 68
Time in; Time out 70
Filling Leisure Time 73
Playing Cards and Gambling 75
Recreational Drugs 78
Lifestyles of the Nouveau Riche and Famous 80
Teammates and Buddies 83
Revealing the Inner Man 88
Chapter Five. Sex and Sexuality 91
Male Enclave 93
Cheerleaders, Temptresses, and Centerfolds: 96
Marginalizing Women
Home and Away 103
Sexual Athletes 107
The Evolving Status of Gay Athletes 109
Chapter Six. Team Colors: Sport and Race 111
A Century of Change 111
Chapter Seven. The Athlete and His Body 135
The Toll of Training 138
Better Living through Chemistry 143
Getting Hurt 145
The Three R’s of Injuries: Repair, Rehab, and Recovery 152
No Pain, No Gain 156
Contents ix
Chapter Eight. Retiring from Sport 159
One Game at a Time 161
“One-More-Year” Syndrome 163
Transition and Adjustment 166
The Ex-athlete in Search of Identity 170
Representative Retirements 172
Chapter Nine. Conclusions 181
Notes 185
Index 215
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PREFACE
My two consuming passions growing up were reading and sports. Typically, I
could be found either propped up on my bed with my nose in a book or on
the school playground with a leather ball in my grasp. Given that I grew up in
Indiana, the object in hand was usually a basketball, but we also played hours
of touch football in the streets and softball in backyards. When I turned 13,
my family moved to a neighborhood near the city park and zoo. The animal
house was located next to the baseball stadium. Sitting on our front porch on
a summer evening, you could hear the lions roar when they were hungry and
the baseball fans roar when someone knocked a ball over the outfield fence.
This sound carried heroic overtones as local legend had it that future New York
Yankee slugger “Moose” Skowron once hit a ball over the center field score-
board and clear across Main Street onto the schoolyard where I routinely
played basketball.
My love of sports came from my father. He occasionally took me in tow on
Bowling Night where I watched him attempt to break 200 through a thick haze
of cigarette smoke. But he wasn’t so much an athlete as a fan. My most cogent
memories are of him stretched out in front of the television with the sound
turned down, watching the televised game while listening to another game
simultaneously on the old wooden radio. This meant the Chicago Bears and
Purdue Boilermaker football in the fall, high school basketball all winter, fol-
lowed by a summer of the St. Louis Cardinals on radio, and the Game of the
Week on TV. Even now, to hear a vocal rendition of “The Wabash Cannon-
ball” brings back vivid memories of commentator Dizzy Dean’s voice from
the CBS broadcast booth.
My love for books was nourished by the public library, a good bike ride to
the edge of downtown. A favorite haunt was the library’s juvenile room on
whose far wall nested a shelf of orange-covered biographies written for young
readers. My reading interests, like that of many boys, included the lives of
famous people. I read of presidents, founders, and frontiersmen—Andrew