Being the sports nut that I am I tend to check on the statuses of athletes in the NFL and the NBA. One article I read was about Dwight Howard and how he can improve his God-awful free throw shooting percentage, which is about 55%, far below the league average of about 72%. While reading the article I found some concepts involving masculinity and why Dwight will not improve his free throw shooting easily.
So, a famous NBA player named Rick Barry is considered one of the greatest small forwards of his era and the greatest free throw shooter of all time. He has the all-time record for free throw percentage, averaging about 90%. The reason he was able to achieve this percentage is because he shot his free throws underhanded, which are more likely to be made than the standard shooting technique. In fact, my grandfather told me that coaches required all players to shoot underhanded free throws before the sixties. That practice has virtually faded away overtime.
In the article, Rick Barry states that he will offer to teach Dwight Howard how to shoot underhanded free throws to raise his percentage, help add a few extra points to his average, and prevent the Hack-A-Howard strategy used against him. Yet, Dwight refuses to learn and apply the underhanded shot because of the modern media might perceive him in lacking masculinity; the same media that personifies masculinity in basketball as dunking, shot blocking, and shooting impossible shots. Howard is not the only horrible free throw shooter to say this. Shaq, who is considered to be the worst free throw shooter of all time, once said in Sports Illustrated that he would rather "shoot a negative percentage before I shot like that (underhanded)." Wilt Chamberlain, another notoriously horrible free throw shooter, said that he felt like a "sissy" when he shot underhanded.
So immediately I find this dangerous view of masculinity as a detriment to one's production. What is so "sissy" about scoring a few extra points? What's so damn feminine about helping your team make some crucial free throws when the game is on the line? Honestly, Shaq could have probably surpassed Wilt's position on the All-time scoring list if he raised his free throw shooting by shooting underhanded. Wilt might have averaged 55 points per game in the season he averaged 50 if he applied Rick Barry's old time technique.
Dwight Howard is a rising talent who has the chance to be completely unstoppable offensively if he can learn from Rick Barry's underhanded free throw techniques. Clearly, his current style is not working if he's averaging 55% percent this season. And honestly, what does it matter to Dwight's "manliness" if he's averaging more points and winning more games with underhanded free throw shots?
This is very interesting! Your example appears to reflect another example of how social construction comes into play. Oftentimes a useful signal for when ideology is playing a role is when the situation at hand appears to be absolutely non-sensical.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it about shooting free throws "underhanded" that makes them feminine? Is that the way the "girls teams" do it? How exactly does a "masculinity factor" get assigned to a free throw technique? Is it related to power/strength in some way? Does one method take less strength than the other?
The idea that it is better to not appear feminine (or less masculine) than to shoot more points for your team is an immediate red flag that we are in the realm of irrationality--which is usually where a socially constructed notion is at play (sorry for the pun).
(Another:) Good catch, David.