"Just assumed you hated sports, you're a band director, right?" Craig McClenahan, the band director at my alma mater Sigourney high school commenting on an assumption someone recently made about him. An assumption that unfortunately comes from a stereotype. A stereotype that unfortunately has many truths to it.
A friend of mine who is daily, sometimes hourly encouraging me and giving me advice on how to improve my writing because he wants to see me professionally published someday, will often interrupt our conversations to remind me how much he hates sports. He even coached a sport once, and he still loathes them with a passion.
Another friend of mine made a post the other night about his general dislike for sports and many commented their dislike for sports. Some even commented on their absolute hatred of sports.
My whole life I've always struggled with this concept trying to figure it out. My two greatest loves in life are the sport of amateur wrestling and the creative arts of writing and theatre. In junior high and high school it wasn't a big deal to be on the wrestling team and out for a play. Where I attended school, it was "normal" for someone to want to play a sport and participate in the arts. It wasn't until I got into college, that I learned how much of an anomaly I was for having interest, love and passion for both. It wasn't until I got into college, that I learned some kids hate sports, hate athletes and hate anyone who has anything to do with sports.
My time at Northwestern College, I was a part of the theatre department all 2.75 years I was there. Many of the theatre kids decided right of the bat that I was NOT one of them because of my interest in wrestling and weight lifting. I was often seen and treated as, "What the F is that wrestler dude doing in OUR department?" I'm not saying that everyone treated me that way, but the vibe and indirect sometimes even direct, "We DO NOT LIKE YOU because your an athlete" message was very strong.
A guy that ended up being one of my dearest friends and someone I respect and admire a great deal, Kailen Fleck, did not care for me at all when he first met me. I wore a baseball cap most of the time, with a wrestling T-shirt and I was a lean muscular 175-180 lbs kid with big arms. I looked like one of those arrogant jocks that went to his high school. He assumed since I looked like the kids that used to pick on him and make fun of him, that I must be one of them. Kailen decided one day to go against his initial judgment and actually talk to me. He got to know me. The intellectual, compassionate, thoughtful, philosophical and empathetic me. Being the kind of guy he is, with the integrity he has, he came up to me one day and told me all of this. He told me that one of his biggest regrets that he had our freshman year was deciding that he did NOT want to get to know me and that one of the best decisions he made that year was getting to know me.
Unfortunately not everyone at Northwestern College was like Kailen Fleck. Some took one look at me, made the initial assumptions he made and their mind was made up for good. I was the wrestler/weight lifter dude. I must have been just like the bullies that attended their high school that picked on and made fun of the band, theatre, choir and artsy kids and its their turn to say, "F you" to me.
I'll admit that after a while, I let it get to me. What I should have done, and what I did do some of the time is go out of my way to prove I wasn't like that. However, it was much more work than I thought it would be. Sometimes it didn't matter how hard I tried. Some of the theatre kids made up their mind of who I was long before they ever talked to me, and it didn't matter what I did. Their mind was made up, period. As a result, it pissed me off and their were times when I decided, "You're going to treat me like a prick, then I'll be a prick." I regret having this vengeful attitude and I wish I would have not let them get to me, and focused harder on the ones that did come around and begin to accept me.
I have to say that the treatment from the wrestling team towards me for being in theatre was completely different. I never officially wrestled in college, but I did attend practices 3 to 5 times a week. There were three wrestlers on the team that personally didn't like me, but it wasn't because of my vast interest in theatre. Everyone else on the team I got along with great and they actually supported my love for theatre. Even though I was only casted in about three plays my entire time up there, members of the wrestling team came to support me. For the two one act plays I wrote, "Quaker Stake" and "A Little More Grey" many members of the wrestling team came to watch them. Even one of the wrestlers, who made it clear to me that he didn't care for me as a person, came to watch "A Little More Grey" and told me afterwards that he thought I was one hell of a good story teller. The wrestlers never once chastised me or ridiculed me for my passion for theatre. Therefore I'll admit it is hard for me to relate to the theatre kids who went through that in high school. I am unable to be empathetic, but I try hard to be sympathetic. I try hard to understand the world that they are coming from.
As a result of my unpleasant experience at Northwestern, I got out of theatre for good for about 5 years. I didn't want to experience the feeling of people disliking me and even hating me for what I deem unjustifiable reasons again. I still itched to get on stage and to hopefully write plays again, but scared that I was going to experience it again.
I met and befriend Beverly "Mama" Meade one night in the cab and surprised her when she asked me what my interest in life were, when one of the things I said was, "theatre." Even though I was reluctant and scared, she talked me into going out for a play with Iowa City Community Theatre. I walked into auditions later on that week. I was terrified. Not that I would look like an idiot, screw up and get a part, but that I would get casted and then be surrounded be a group of actors who gave me the, "What the F is this wrestler/weight lifter dude doing here?" treatment. I was casted and the first night of rehearsals I didn't throw up before I went, but I came awful close to it. That's how nervous I was.
I don't think I've ever had a more pleasant surprise in my life. Right off the bat I clicked with the other actors. They accepted me and treated me like one of their own. Even though some of them (actually all of them) were far more talented and gifted than I am, they all treated me with open arms. It was one of the best experiences I've ever had in my life. The next play I was in was an even better experience and I never would have imagined that. Both plays and the play I was in after that were awesome. I made some great, forever lasting friendships with many of those people. It was the experience that I feel I was robbed of in college for stupid reasons, and I am so glad that I got to experience it.
I often wonder why it was different for me then, than what it was for me in college. This may sound stupid, but I think it might have had something to do with weight gain. In college I was very lean and muscular. I looked like a million bucks. Chiseled chest, very defined triceps and a pretty little vein that ran through my bicep. I didn't have abs, but I had a flat stomach. By the time I was in ICCT, I had gotten fat. Still looked like a lifter and a pretty strong dude, but with a belly and a pair of A cup sized tits. As strange as it sounds, I still wonder if this had something to do with theatre people being more accepting of me as ridiculous of a conclusion that it sounds.
I also wonder if maybe it had something to do with the clothes I wore. When I was in 7th grade, I attended a wrestling camp at Wartburg College. Head coach Jim Miller told us that it was our duty to promote the sport in every way we could. Wrestling was only growing to grow if we made it grow. I took that to heart and began wearing wrestling t-shirts and wrestling baseball caps everywhere I went. I wonder if this is a part of why the Northwestern College theatre kids didn't like me. In ICCT, I still wore wrestling t-shirts and wrestling baseball caps to rehearsals sometimes, but I also wore other clothes too. Sounds strange, but I contemplate if this had something to do with being more accepted as well.
A couple of months ago, a comedy friend of mine, who also lifts at the gym I go to, came up to me and asked me if he could ask me a question. I told him sure. He asked me if I felt that the other comedy people held something against me because I was in fairly decent shape and obviously someone that was into baseball and wrestling. I told him that I personally hadn't experienced that yet. The theatre people I hung around with were very accepting of me and treated me well. Then again, because of my job and how busy I get sometimes, I hadn't spent as much time around them as he had. He told me that he did feel discriminated against because of his interest in lifting weights. I told him that I experienced similar feelings while in college.
It's been something that has bugged me for a long time and I've felt an uncomfortable itch to say something about it for nearly a decade. I haven't yet because I haven't known what to say. I feel that there isn't much I can do to change it for the better, if anything. And, maybe I can't. Maybe there is nothing I can do. I would like to understand it though.
Yes, I do feel that because of narcissistic and arrogant jerks in high school that participated in sports, who decided to pick on, ridicule, chastise and make fun of the artsy kids, that in turn I sometimes have to suffer because of THEIR choices. That sometimes artsy kids who were picked on by an athlete who looks like me, assume that I am like him and make up their mind that they hate me too.
I don't think that's the only reason theatre, choir, band, art, dance, ect people hate sports and athletes though. I think there is more to it. As a wrestler, I know what it is like to be in a sport that, "nobody gives a shit about." Granted I live in Iowa, a state where wrestling is very popular, but I don't see the world with blinders. I know that in some states like Alabama, wrestling is as popular and followed as high school tennis is here. I know that in Mississippi, many don't even know what amateur wrestling is. I say this because I know what it is like to feel ignored and underappreciated, which is what I think many artistic people feel.
Iowa State is putting on "Treasure Island" here in a few weeks. Does anyone know about it? Does anyone care? Not compared to the number of people who will attend the football game that weekend. A college has a football game, the whole community knows about it. Hell, the WHOLE state knows about it. The WHOLE state talks about it and the WHOLE state attends it. Iowa plays Iowa State in football yesterday, your facebook and twitter feed is full of nothing but facts, stats and opinions on the game, the players and the coaches. You cannot escape the fixation that Americans have with football. Meanwhile the theatre department, who works extremely hard will be lucky to get a couple hundred people to their production. The music department might get lucky and draw near 1,000 to their concert. Small potatoes to the 75,000 that usually show up at Kinnick stadium for a football game.
As a society we praise and idolize our sports and our athletes. Ask someone to name the best wrestler, the best football player and the best basketball player at their high school. They'll think for a second and rattle off the names in 30 seconds or less. They know who they are. Even if they don't like sports and pretend that they didn't pay attention, they know who they are. They can't help but know who they are because so much attention and recognition was given to them. Yet ask who the best band student was. Ask who the best actor was. Ask them who the valedictorian and the salutatorian was and suddenly you're stuck for an answer.
I get this frustration, I understand it.
I see myself as a creative person, a writer first and foremost. I view myself as a theatre person who happened to wrestle in high school and a theatre person who happens to like wrestling and baseball. That is how I see myself, but I realize most people don't see me that way. They see me as a wrestler/weight lifter first and foremost. They do not see me as the theatre guy who likes wrestling, they see me as the wrestling guy who likes theatre. Why? The clothes I wear and the way I'm built. Believe me, when I call a college and ask for a wrestling t-shirt to be sent to my house, I always ask for a theatre t-shirt to be sent too. I'd wear "Iowa Theatre" t-shirts the same way I wear "Iowa Wrestling" t-shirts, but guess what? They don't make them. That's why I don't wear them. If they made them and I could get my hands on them, I'd wear them, but they don't.
What do I think needs to be done? Well, I think it is up to us, the athletes (and believe me I cringe calling myself an athlete knowing how much better other people are at sports than I am) to show the theatre people that we aren't a bunch of jerks. We need to discourage chastising and ridiculing and bullying. We need to encourage support for one another. Everyone has different interest, talents and passions. We don't need to divide amongst one another and reproach one another. We should instead unite and celebrate one another. I'm not saying you need to suddenly start attending every event for everything. I'm simply saying that if you have a son on the football team, don't encourage him to think he's better than the kid who excels at the science fair, who couldn't catch or throw a ball if his life depended on it. If you have a kid who is a genius at science and consistently wins the science fair, don't encourage him to treat the football player, who struggles to maintain that C- in science class like an idiot. Instead lets teach our kids to celebrate their differences and encourage one another at what they're good at.
Am I talking to the wind here people? I'm a weight lifter AND I'm an actor. I'm a creative writer AND I'm a wrestling/baseball guy. I'm not ashamed of anything and I'm not afraid to wear my theatre hat in a wrestling room. I'm not afraid to wear my wrestling hat in a theatre room. I shouldn't have to be. It's stupid and it needs changed.
Will you the athlete help me to change it? Will you the artsy person be accepting of the effort giving by those who do try and change it? Will you take stereotypes and stigmas you have about us athletes and give us a chance to start fresh? Will you? Both sides, the athletes and the artsy types have a lot of characteristics that need changed.
It can be done. Will you help me to do it?
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