Ubuntu, hoops, and the antidote to toxic masculinity
Our masculinity crisis and the last men standing.
Everywhere you turn there’s a story about how American men – and men around the world for that matter – suck. They’re always doing too much (playing video games, watching p0rn, taking drugs, complaining about not getting laid, or committing suicide) or not enough (sustaining friendships, graduating college, hanging on to jobs, being ambitious, communicating, going to therapy, or, well, getting help in any other way).
One reason men are feeling lost: We no longer do the hard and risky things that made many of us feel worthwhile, like hunting for food, fighting via hand-to-hand combat, digging ditches, or tossing rivets atop under-construction skyscrapers. Now, we stare at screens, pop pills, and complain/lurk/scheme on platforms like Reddit and Telegram. Who does all that manly stuff now? Robots and drones.
Unsurprisingly, women are fed up. Via the #metoo movement, they’ve screamed “enough” to the grossness of powerful men.1 Conventional female wisdom is the patriarchy is monstrous, toxic masculinity has run amok, and the only feeling most men are capable of generating in them is ick.
That we lead increasingly online lives isn’t helping, either. On social media and dating apps, women face endless trolling, threats, and insults from dudes. Then, white knights swoop in with performative cheerleading that tends to ring hollow, if not downright suspicious.
On the other side of things, you’ve got charlatans like Andrew Tate who constantly talk about “being alpha” in order to sell off-brand brain/body pills and manscaping products. Somehow it escapes notice that constantly prattling on about alpha behavior is, well, a pretty beta move. After all, real alphas don’t need to constantly talk about how alpha they are; they’re too busy doing Jason Bourne stuff or whatever.
Then there’s Jordan Peterson who wants men to stand up straight and clean their rooms (sure, why not?), but is constantly on the verge of tears, seems to spend all day parsing Google Alerts for woke nonsense he can hyperventilate about, and generally comes off as rather hysterical (which is, y’know, not so manly). Also, it takes some real chutzpah to go around giving life advice to others when you’re only recently removed from an induced coma resulting from a severe addiction to benzodiazepine tranquilizers. It’s like someone dispensing workout advice right after they emerge from liposuction.
The political landscape also fails to inspire. On the right, we get Trump (the ultimate faux-tough guy) and his bootlicking toadies, George Santos’ shell game in a sweater persona, Lindsay Graham’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof-esque monologues (still waiting for him to belt out “Why I do declare…” on the Senate floor), and Kevin McCarthy debasing himself just so he can pound a now-meaningless gavel. Me. Likey. Big. Hammer.
The left isn’t much better. Obama was the last politician you could say, “See, that’s how a man should behave.” And even he did a whole song-and-dance about how Michelle was “the smart one” who made all the tough decisions in their home, a notion hilariously mocked by comedian Greg Giraldo:
Meanwhile, Bernie is principled but too old. Buttigieg is a smooth talker but pitching a gay man as the poster child of masculinity is a tough sell. Biden looks like he’s auditioning to host a reboot of Tales from the Crypt. And the rest of the party slavishly prostates itself to extremists who contend gender doesn’t even exist and fluidity reigns. It’s tough to provide a framework for manhood when you don’t even believe in men.
Basically, it’s tough times for balls.
The antidote
So what’s the antidote? What is the positive form of masculinity we want as a society? Who are the men we want to point out as role models to little boys?
The first group that comes to my mind: basketball coaches. Gregg Popovich, Steve Kerr, Monty Williams, and Doc Rivers behave the way men should behave. They are former athletes who now use their minds in creative, educational, and inspirational ways to lead teams of young men. And they do it all while acting like adults. How refreshing.
When they lose, they take it like a man. Even if the refs make a bad call, they accept defeat and take the L. They don’t bitch and moan about how the game was rigged and try to upend the entire framework of the sport. They respond with dignity. They realize you must respect the sport, not just yourself and your own ego.
Watch Monty Williams, coach of the Phoenix Suns, enter the victors’ locker room and congratulate his opponents after his team lost the NBA Finals.
I just wanted to come and congratulate you guys as a man and as a coach. You guys deserve it. I’m thankful for the experience. You guys made me a better coach and made us a better team. Congratulations.
What a glorious display of grace. “This, THIS!” I wanted to scream at the screen when I saw it. It made me want to tell my nephew, “Look, this is how a man behaves.” I yearn to see this sort of sportsmanship within the political realm. It’s literally the opposite of how I feel whenever I see a new headline about George Santos, which always elicits an internal reaction of “This f*cking guy.”2
Pop’s dinners
Or take Pop, longtime coach of the San Antonio Spurs. He has gone from a perennial champion to helming a roster devoid of talent, yet he handles it all with charm and dignity. I’m especially fascinated by how his teaching extends off the court via his love of food and wine. He is famous for his glorious group dinners that include his entire team and fellow coaches. The man understands vibe control and cares deeply about how many sit at his table, which wines are drunk, the ambiance, lighting, music, etc. Basically, he’s like Miles Raymond in Sideways but with a better attitude. This approach yields results, according to one former player:
I was friends with every single teammate I ever had in my [time] with the Spurs. That might sound far-fetched, but it's true. And those team meals were one of the biggest reasons why. To take the time to slow down and truly dine with someone in this day and age -- I'm talking a two- or three-hour dinner -- you naturally connect on a different level than just on the court or in the locker room. It seems like a pretty obvious way to build team chemistry, but the tricky part is getting everyone to buy in and actually want to go. You combine amazing restaurants with an interesting group of teammates from a bunch of different countries and the result is some of the best memories I have from my career.
During these meals, Popovich continues coaching by pointing out the precision and teamwork required to run a fine dining restaurant. Michelin star-winning chef Michael Mina watched Pop during a meal at his restaurant:
"I honestly thought he was just this really hard-nosed, bust-your-ass coach, and that's how he got them to do it," Mina says. But now, watching Popovich with his players in the dining room, Mina realizes "how gentle he was, and how it was about educating in a much different way."
Later, when Mina grills Popovich about team-building, Popovich says the key is to take people out of their element, have them experience new things, and learn from it together.
Pop’s generosity extends to the staff too. He often gifts free tickets to a waiter or sommelier, writes handwritten notes to restaurant staffers, leaves enormous tips, and offers words of encouragement.
As Popovich prepares to leave, [29-year-old sommelier Jienna] Basaldu stands near the door. He stops and turns to her. "You're too good for this place," he says. "You're going to do big things."
Pop isn't knocking Sacramento, or the restaurant where she's worked for 2½ years, a place he's visited many times. He's referencing her promise.
"You're so young, and you're so well-spoken, and you're so knowledgeable. It's clear that you love this. When you love something like this, you hold on to it. You hear me?" "Yes, sir, Mr. Popovich," she tells him.
Being a young woman in a male-dominated industry is daunting. Still, she tells herself, "Gregg Popovich sees something in me."
Four years later, when Basaldu makes the leap and lands at The Morris, an acclaimed eatery in San Francisco's Potrero Flats neighborhood, she looks back on that night with Popovich. And her voice will crack, recalling the time when this famous coach, known for his gruff exterior, gave her the push she needed -- how he walked into her restaurant, recognized her game and helped change the course of her life.
Beautiful. And helps you understand why Pop was the first NBA coach to hire a female assistant, Becky Hammon.
“Shut up and dribble?” Nah.
When these coaches speak about non-basketball issues, they do so with fervor, clarity, and from a place of deep morality.
Pop speaks out regularly on racism, social justice, and our former putz President (he described Trump as a “soulless coward” and a “pathological liar”). At one Spurs media day, he spoke at length about systemic racism and politics.
Obviously, race is the elephant in the room and we all understand that. Unless it is talked about constantly, it’s not going to get better. Why do we have to talk about that?’ Well, because it’s uncomfortable. There has to be an uncomfortable element in the discourse for anything to change.
76ers coach Doc Rivers also spoke eloquently about race and policing after the killing of George Floyd.
My father was a 30-year veteran of the Chicago police department, and if he were still with us right now, he’d be hurt and outraged by the senseless acts of racial injustice that continue to plague our country,” Rivers said. “Being black in America is tough. I’ve personally been called more racial slurs than I can count, been pulled over many times because of the color of my skin, and even had my home burned down…This isn’t an African-American issue. This is a human issue. Our society must start getting comfortable with the uncomfortable conversation and do the right thing.
After the shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, Rivers said, “It’s amazing why [black people] keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back.”
We’re the ones getting killed. We’re the ones getting shot, and we’re the ones that are denied to live in certain communities. We’ve been hung. We’ve been shot. And all you do is keep hearing about fear…The training has to change in the police force. The unions have to be taken down in the police force. My dad was a cop. I believe in good cops. We’re not trying to defund the police and take all their money away. We’re trying to get them to protect us, just like they protect everybody else.
When coaching the Celtics, Rivers championed the notion of Ubuntu, which comes from the Zulu phrase "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu," which translates to, "a person can only be a person through others." South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu explained, "Ubuntu is the essence of being human. It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong."
Under Rivers's leadership, this concept unified the Celtics team he led to a championship.
To him, the philosophy [of Ubuntu] meant, "I can't be all I can be, unless you are all you can be. I can never be threatened by you because you're good, because the better you are, the better I am." It was the perfect concept for their team, turning a group of talented yet disparate players into a single, tight-knit unit.
Rivers still had to get his team on board. He did so by recruiting his rookie players as the messengers, urging them to spread the message through the organization. Slowly, it caught on. "Our team started living Ubuntu," Rivers said. The team used it as their pregame chant as they turned in a winning season and made their run through the postseason. After winning the Finals, the team had the word Ubuntu etched into their championship rings.
People in the psychedelic world who talk about this kind of interconnectedness are frequently dismissed as woo woo weirdos. So it’s refreshing to know that guys like Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen have Ubuntu etched on their rings.
Warriors’ coach Steve Kerr, whose father was assassinated by a gunman, has spoken repeatedly about gun control and mass shootings. He continually points out how we keep accepting something as normal that is patently unacceptable and completely bizarre. After a recent school shooting, he pleaded, “When are we going to do something?”
“I’m not going to talk about basketball. Any basketball questions don’t matter. Since we left shootaround, 14 children were killed 400 miles from here, and a teacher. In the last 10 days, we’ve had elderly Black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo. We’ve had Asian churchgoers killed in Southern California. Now, we have children murdered at school. When are we going to do something! I’m tired; I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there. I’m tired of the moments of silence. Enough!”
For two and a half minutes, Kerr railed and pleaded, his hands shaking, his voice quivering, his eyes watering. He called out the 50 Republican senators who were blocking a vote on background-check legislation. He pounded the table so hard that the microphone with the NBA logo shook. He left without taking questions.
Amen.
Coaching on the fringe
And then there’s my favorite hoops coach of all, John Mosley. Unlike the others mentioned, he doesn’t coach pros. He’s the coach at East Los Angeles College, a junior college which has been the subject of two seasons of Last Chance U on Netflix. He doesn’t have the budget, players, or shine of NBA coaches. But he is in the trenches, dealing with young men on the fringe, and he is literally saving lives.
The teens who come to him have the talent to play D1 basketball but, for various reasons, have been shuffled into the purgatory of the junior college ranks. They face academic woes, confront rage issues, endure chaotic family lives, and some even face homelessness. When they reach ELAC, it’s their last shot. They have just one or two years to prove they can function both on and off the court. If they succeed, they can earn a scholarship to a D1 school and a path out of chaos. Failure is something they don’t even want to ponder.
So they put their lives in the hands of Coach Mosley, a deeply religious man who rarely brings up his faith. His spirituality is manifested through his actions, not his words. Every step of the way, you can see how much he obsesses over these kids and their futures.
Worth noting: His love is not gentle, it is tough. He yells, cajoles, berates, and screams in these kids’ faces when they fail to give the effort he requires. They bristle, but put with it because they know he is giving them everything. They keep showing up because he keeps showing up. “It's time to get desperate, get a level of urgency going,” Mosley says to the camera after yelling at his team. “That's part of my job too, I gotta do a better job of making these guys desperate for their lives. Otherwise, ain't none of us gettin' out, nobody's moving on, nothing good is gonna happen unless they're desperate to get the hell out of here. And they ain't there yet.”
Also, he is tender. He loves his team and his life is devoted to helping them succeed. He sweeps the court, drives the team van, and makes sure his players keep their grades up. And every season, he brings these inner city kids out into nature where they grill burgers, talk about their feelings, and stare at stars they can’t see where they come from. (Full disclosure: I’ve bawled more than once while watching.)
In season two, LA Clippers’ coach Ty Lue and owner Steve Ballmer showed up to talk to ELAC’s players before a game. They weren’t there because they care about juco basketball (almost no one does), they were there to recognize coach Mo and what he stands for. The unsaid words: We see you, what you’re doing, the difference you’re making, and how much you care. And we respect it – and you. Keep going.
Sports as MacGuffin
Watching coaches like these operate shows how much sports is a MacGuffin.
In fiction, a MacGuffin is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.
The game may be unimportant, but it moves “the plot” forward and reveals truths about the characters involved. Though it may be the object we focus on, it’s not what the story is really about. In truth, these coaches are using basketball to elevate higher ideals: craft, practice, devotion, competition, cooperation, responsibility, unity, and heart. On the surface, they’re merely coaching players to put a ball through a hoop. But via the vehicle of hoops, they’re showing us all what it means to be a man.
Thoughts/feedback? I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment and I’ll reply.
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🎟 NYC | 3/9/23 | Misguided Meditation with Matt Ruby: Mindful Comedy Show + Open Bar! ($5 off with code “exhale”).
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-Matt
Men: As a lover of bathrobes, I beg you, please, no more stories about them as the uniform of ick (latest example: Pam Anderson’s tale about Tim Allen on the set of Home Improvement). You’re making those of us who genuinely like a post-shower robe hang seem awfully creeptastic.
“George Santos Allegedly Stole $3,000 From Disabled Veteran's GoFundMe for Dying Dog” sounds like a Mad Lib someone would fill-in to describe the worst human alive.
awesome piece. Thank you
"Ubuntu". What a beautiful philosophy... a wave of goosebumps spread over just as I was reading the word (must be pretty good stuff, that usually only happens when I listen to amazing music like Simon & Garfunkel).
And idc what anyone says about JBP... dude is awesome! I've lived by Rule 12 way before reading his book(s). He does cry a lot, but people who feel deeply always do. Now if only I could keep my room clean...