Stop your sobbing

Yesterday's post about Mark McGwire reminded me of a trend that I find really disturbing--the increasing number of men who are not ashamed to cry in public. McGwire's a big time weeper, but he has a lot of company among sports figures. Brett Favre, Dick Vermeil, Tony LaRussa, Butch Davis and Kordell Stewart are just a few of the weeping willows that I can name off the top of my head. Vermeil has to be the grand prize winner; the dude cried when he announced that he was releasing Lawrence Phillips.

When did this become okay? I'm not that old, but it seems to me that guys just didn't used to do this at the drop of a hat. In fact, damn it, I know they didn't. I suppose part of the reason this has become acceptable is that in recent years, we've all been taught to regard anything remotely masculine as a manifestation of society's violent and repressive tendencies.

Our efforts to eradicate those tendencies have been highlighted by programs encouraging men to get in touch with their inner child and express their emotions (yuck). The schools have also done their part to destroy any remaining vestiges of masculinity, by adopting enlightened zero tolerance policies that mete out suspensions or explusions every time 10 year-old boys throw punches at each other in the school playground. Remember being told by your Dad to fight your own battles? That's something nobody hears today. Instead, we have institutional anti-bullying programs in schools where kids are expected to rat each other out. Rather than receiving the traditional cure for bullying-- an ass-kicking from a pissed-off underdog who has finally had enough-- today's bullies meet a far crueler fate. They get labeled, counselled and officially welcomed to Ritalin Nation, where they join millions of other tranquilized kids who made the mistake of behaving like boys have behaved for thousands of years.

But I digress. Regardless of what you think about our society's views on masculinity, can we at least agree that some of the crying that's going on is a tad ridiculous? I propose that we agree on a list of situations where it's okay for a guy to cry, or if not okay, at least forgiveable. To me, that's a short list, and it includes the following:

• When a member of your immediate family, a close friend, or your dog dies
• When you experience physical pain of fairly significant magnitude (broken bone, knee injury, etc.)
• When you win a World Series, Super Bowl, NBA Championship, Stanley Cup, NCAA national championship, or Olympic gold medal
• When you win a Heisman Trophy, if you dedicate the award to your nine year-old brother with leukemia
• When you're watching Brian's Song, a movie about a Heisman Trophy winner who dedicates the award to his nine year-old brother with leukemia, or Old Yeller
• When you are dying from an incurable disease and are given a day at Yankee Stadium in front of 60,000 people, although it's cooler if you just whisper.

Now, about the dying thing--you don't get to cry if Princess Di, John-John, the Pope or somebody else you've never met dies. That's just weird. You also don't get to cry when you lose a World Series, Super Bowl, NBA Championship, etc. Sometimes, you just have to suck it up. You don't get to cry if your girlfriend dumps you (that's why they invented alcohol, road trips and strip joints, bunky). And you definitely don't get to cry if you release Lawrence Phillips.