People have long marveled at the physical prowess and potential of the human body.
Athleticism has played a powerful role in society. On college campuses, sports are also heavily ingrained. Many students are able to receive scholarships to go to college because of their hard work and athletic talents exhibited in high school. In turn, these schools can raise funds through their sports events. Most notable are the football teams, which attract many students, both as spectators and participants. The sport represents what many Americans feel to be one of the great pastimes of the country. A look at the enormous revenue generated during Super Bowl weekend can attest to that.
I recall somewhat bitterly the affairs of my high school football team. At pep rallies, other teams were given brief recognition, while each football player got an individual mini-biography. Lawnmowers and landscapers painstakingly poured over the football field every day, while students indoors didn't even have proper desks or textbooks at times.
Even in college, I must remember that the distinguished title of Ivy League was not originally used to describe my school’s academics, but its elite sports status.
This special treatment can lead these athletes (who are virtually all male, in the case of football) to feel a sense of entitlement over their peers. Football is also a contact sport, and one could argue that players are encouraged to be combative and aggressive, as well as pressured by their coaches, peers, and families to succeed. It should come as no surprise that this behavior extends outside the field.
I knew a few players who consistently expected to be allowed to bend the rules. They refused to even attempt homework on days when they had games, and demanded their teachers move test and homework dates or let them skip the work altogether. They were aware of the prestigious place they held in our high school, which was often valued more than academic success itself, and used it to their advantage.
The Steubenville rape case is a prime example of the learned sense of entitlement of male athletes, as well as the sympathy they receive from others. The football players had no issue with being aggressors and taking what they wanted from an incapacitated girl. Respectable media outlets such as CNN lamented over the fact that Mays and Richmond had ruined their shot at an athletic career, instead of illustrating them as what they are: rapists. The victim was not only repeatedly assaulted, but was publicly humiliated and shamed instead of being defended. Why does the presence of alcohol make the victim blameworthy for the crime, but the athletic status of her attackers is an excuse?
Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker writer and bestselling author, shocked Penn students when he gave a speech at our school suggesting football be eliminated completely. He claimed that the school puts students at risk for a dangerous condition known as CTE, which can lead to depression and suicidality from repeated traumatic brain injury, merely for the sake of entertainment and financial gain. Many, especially the football players, were offended by this notion.
Many Americans are obsessed with their sports, and are willing to put their children at risk for the sake of fame and money. Parents push their kids into athletics at a very young age in the hopes that they will be successful, but very few will go pro. Even if we are unwilling to give up our more dangerous sports, like football, we must not teach the young people who play them that their actions are without consequence.
Individualism has a cost; it leads us to glorify students like Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond for their physical control and simultaneously shun their victim for lacking it. While the boys received sympathy for being young athletic stars who simply did not know any better (“boys will be boys”), the similarly young girl was expected to be responsible. Underage drinking is illegal, but it does not excuse a violent crime. Of course, many athletes and men are good students and upstanding members of society. But teaching and reinforcing hyper-masculinity and blamelessness contributes to a victim-blaming rape culture that robs survivors of their dignity well after their attack.
