With socialization, learning, not instinct is responsible for the development of values, identities, and roles in relationship to society. Michael Messner views identity as a “process of construction.” One way that gender identity for males is generated is through sports. Messner did a study on a diverse group of retired athletes. Through this study, Messner observed how males identified their boyhood through sports. Four broad areas of the lives of the thirty diverse athletes were addressed. The first item of concern was the athletes’ earliest experiences with sports in boyhood. Second were the athletic careers of the athletes. Third, was the conclusion and withdraw from their athletic careers. Fourth was their life after their athletic career had been concluded. Messner also compared the athletes that came from a poor background, to those that had come from a higher status background.All of these athletes had been brought into sports when they were young. Being involved in sports as a young boy seemed to be the natural and normal thing to do. Some of the interviewed athletes responded that there was something wrong with a young boy who was not involved with sports, and that it was a “natural” thing and really the only thing to do. Being that society for these athletes offered no rites of passage into manhood, sports became the way to prove one’s manhood.Family influences played a major role in the motivation of these athletes. Competition or emulation of family members was often the reason one tried so hard to excel in the athletic world. These competitive atmospheres often created a lot of pressure. Often, receiving the respect of one’s father and making him proud was also an important factor in pushing athletes to success. Some of the athletes were afraid of failure, and fought harder to get the praise of his family. Their father also introduced many of these athletes to s...
