Boyhood, Organized Sports, and the Construction of Masculinities

This article is based on in-depth interviews with 30 male former athletes of different race and class. I use feminist theories of the social construction of gender to explore the relationship between the construction of masculine identity and boyhood participation in organized sports. I examine family, peer group, and community relationships as key contexts within which young males become committed to athletic careers. I argue that organized sports are initially experienced as a context in which boys seek nonintimate connection with others. Yet the competitive, hierarchical structure of athletic careers encourages young males to develop a sense of “conditional self-worth,” and ultimately exacerbates their already existing internalized ambivalence toward intimacy with others. I conclude that similarities and differences in the construction of masculinities through athletic careers demonstrate an “elective affinity” between personality and social structure, between their masculine identities under construction and sport as a gendered institution.