ìMove over and let the ambulance throughî greeted me as I entered the stadium where my youngest, eleven-year old son was warming up for this first tackle football game.  Not yet past the entrance gate and my worst nightmare was being played out in front of me ñ five male coaches dressed uniformly in red, white, and black, were looking down at a boy who had not moved since being hit by a player more than twice his size, more than five minutes earlier.  I stood, leaning against the fence, as I, and all the spectators watched an ambulance drive onto the field and remove the boy on a stretcher.  In my mindís eye there was only one logical thing to do ñ take my son and go home.  I could hear concern in some of the fatherís voices because there was a chance our game would be delayed, or God-forbid, cancelled.  The mothers I spoke with felt empathy for the boyís mother, but one indicated her son ìwould have been mortifiedî had she run onto the field like the injured boyís mother did.  I had what I thought was the most rational of all responses ñ I wept.

     This wasnít the first time I wept at one of my sons sporting events.  When my oldest son, then a sweet, thoughtful boy of nine, joined the fourth grade basketball team, the age where coaches and dads become serious, he was being untaught all the things I held most dear in this boy who would be a man some day ñ compassion, treating others (boys and girls) as equals, helping those in need, and understanding, or at least sensing, an idea of fair play.  Quickly I learned that my idea of fair play was different than that of the coaches and other parents.  To them, fair play meant that each team had an equal number of players; beyond that, all else was fair game.  Bigger kids preyed on smaller kids by wrestling the ball away; taller kids stood in front of the basket leaving no chance for smaller kids to score; and coaches and parents screamed from the benches, ìHey, toughen up,î ìAre you trying to lose?î and ìGet HIM, Get HIM.î

     In grade school, I never had the pressure of winning a game on my shoulders, just occasionally seventy pounds of fellow cheerleader, Sheila Orta.  Cheerleading was the only organized sport available to girls at my school, Our Lady of Victory.  I remember thinking how strange it was that there were no opportunities for girls in sports given that our schoolís icon, our protectress, was a victorious virgin.  I liked to imagine Our Lady donning chain male and protected by a beautiful breastplate in her quests for victory, not the orange and black wool uniforms we were subjected to; the ones that made the fat girls look like psychotic pumpkins when in full cheer mode.  There was a sense of belonging in our name ñ Our Lady.  Other schools had lofty, depressing, and strange patrons like Queen of Sorrows and Precious Blood.  Not us.  We belonged to Our Lady Who Wins.

I lost my virginity, that year, in seventh grade, to cheerleading...

     Quite a fight ensued between my mother and grandmother when I informed them I had tried out for cheerleading and made the squad.  ìThatís not nice,î catapulted my grandmother in my and my motherís direction.
     ìItís good for her,î lobbed back my mother.
     ìYou know what could happen to her,î slung my grandmother.
     ìYouíre being ridiculous,î answered my mother and abruptly ended the conversation by leaving the room.
     According to my grandmother, Nana, the so-called nice girls did not attempt any sport that would make them appear unladylike.  Unladylike meant wearing a uniform since only ìfunnyî girls wore uniforms (code speak lesbians.)  Another bone of contention with Nana was sweating; nice girls perspired or ìfelt the heat,î they did not sweat.  Nana, who lived with us, or rather we lived with her, was a gentle, resolute Southern belle who would not allow feeling the heat for any reason, least of all for the glory of the game.  But the real fear, the ultimate in unladylike behavior, was lurking behind Nanaís statue of the Virgin Mary, the one where Mary is holding baby Jesus.  All that body thrashing, like doing cartwheels and the splits, could cause, would cause irredeemable damage ñ a torn hymen.
     ìNana, you mean cheerleading can take away my, uh, you know?î
     ìYes, honey, it can.î
     I lost my virginity, that year, in seventh grade, to cheerleading.

     My son came home with a note from his coach informing me that my family was invited to watch my sonís team as they participated in a gauntlet before the varsity game.  ìWhat the hell is a gauntlet?î I asked him.  He had no idea what it was, but was very excited to be participating in it.  I pictured him dressed in an oversized suit of armor with his eyes at the mouth level, walking onto the football field like the Tin Man after a storm.  I consulted the Merriam Webster Dictionary for the answer: ìa double file of men facing each other and armed with clubs or other weapons with which to strike at an individual who is made to run between them.î  I decided to skip the gauntlet and was relieved to see him walk through the door physically intact.

     At the daily football practices, I desperately searched for a parent who shared my despondency at the level of competition in mere children, babies really.  But the more people I talked to, the more alone I felt.  After exhausting what I considered the friendly, receptive faces, I began to stand alone at the practices.  One sunny, cool September day, I was watching the boys through the chained link fence that surrounded the playing field.  They were doing their regimen of sit-ups, sprints, learning to hit low, and responding to the coachís inane questions ñ ìAre We The Vikings?î ìYES, SIR!î ìDo We Want To Win?î ìYES, SIR!!î I felt someone staring at me and turned to see a sympathetic-looking mother eyeing me standing alone.  Rather surreptitiously she approached me and whispered, ìDo you know what a coach said to the older boys the other day?î  Eureka! Finally a comrade who could give me some concrete evidence to validate my anti-American feelings of despair toward organized sports.
     ìTell me, tell me,î I begged.
     ìWell,î she started, ìthe boys were meeting for their first contact practice.  After they lined-up, the coach asked if there were any ëgrass fairiesí in the group.î
     ìGrass fairies,î I repeated.  ìWhat are grass fairies?î
     ìYou know.  Soccer players,î she answered.
     Before I could digest this new vocabulary she went on, ìIsnít that the funniest thing you ever heard?î

     Asking my son if coaches spoke like this was tantamount to his breaching national security.  He reluctantly told me that most of the time, he and the other boys were referred to as ìladiesî or ìa bunch of girlsî if they made mistakes on the field.  As the boys get older, mistakes render them cruder names such as ìwussy,î the cross between woman and pussy, or wimp, or homo.  These names do not just glibly fly out of the mouths of teammates, but of coaches and fathers as well.  Similarly, if the boys are not athletic, the same names are hurled at them ñ a real no-win situation.

     But on some level, it is hard not to applaud male sports since the playing field is one of the only places a boy or a man can safely exhibit a range of emotions.  Unlike other realms, they can laugh, cry, and hug without retribution.  But like the games they participate in, there are rules of engagement ñ demonstration of emotion must only occur when knotted-up with winning or losing and only in a ìmanlyî fashion.  I canít imagine letting teachers of math or art humiliate and emasculate boys as the impetus to learning, not now since all-boy schools are all but gone. And I will never understand why women and gays must be denigrated in order to get boys fired up.

     Mothers and fathers alike tell me that the skills taught to boys in sports, especially the rigorous discipline of football, are necessary for them to survive our cutthroat world.  These skills, they say, produces non-wimpy boys who will be ready for fighting a war or succeeding on Wall Street.  It will give some boys a nudge into the inner circle of boyhood that is closed to them otherwise.  My son pleaded, begged me to let him join football, a sport where his bulky size would benefit him.  ìMom, if I can be good in football, they wonít call me fag or homo anymore.  They will let me play with them at recess.î  Childhood amnesia set in as I responded, ìWhy do you want to play with kids that call you fag and homo?î  No need for an answer.  As soon as my childhood consciousness returned, I remembered why.

     Football acumen has brought newfound popularity to my son; he can now play with the other boys at recess.  No one calls him names at school anymore, not because they have become nice, but because he is now one of them.  Pretty soon, he will be choosing who gets to play and who doesnít.  Itís enough to make me cry.