{"id":2137,"date":"2017-03-28T03:12:10","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T11:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog\/?p=2137"},"modified":"2017-03-30T16:28:24","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T00:28:24","slug":"that-oppressive-script-how-angels-of-mercy-changed-my-queer-boy-perspective-on-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/?p=2137","title":{"rendered":"That Oppressive Script … How Angels of Mercy Changed My Queer Boy Perspective on Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

That Oppressive Script … How Angels of Mercy<\/em> Changed My Queer Boy Perspective on Sports<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Reprint from Rainbow Gold Reads Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n


\n<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jocks have it hard.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve got a lot to live up to as they pursue their passion in their chosen sport. This isn\u2019t an easy thing to acknowledge on my part. I was one of those artistic queer kids that jocks loved to bag on. So why the change up in opinion?<\/p>\n

Simple: I wrote\u00a0Angels of Mercy<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/aom_std_trailer_032517_720px.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

When\u00a0Angels<\/em>\u00a0presented itself (fully formed to the bitter end, mind you), I thought \u201cEh, I\u2019ll bang this one out in a month.\u201d I had the ending in my head already. I just had to write to that ending, right? Yeah, not so much it seems.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I learned: you see, my main protagonist, Marco Sforza, is built upon my husband\u2019s experiences playing football both at the high school level at Massillon, Ohio (the heart of high school American Football as we know it) and for Clemson U back in the day (admittedly a very different era than Marco\u2019s present day story). So given the disparity in my husband’s and Marco’s timelines, I had to make some adjustments between my husband\u2019s experiences and those that I was building for Marco. But what amazed me is that, at its core, very little has changed with regards to\u00a0the institutionalization of homophobia within American football \u2013 be it, high school, college or pro.<\/p>\n

We like to think \u201cIt gets better \u2026\u201d but in reality, has it? There are emerging stories about players in high school and college football that have appeared in OutSports where the players have come out to their teammates. In the cases that have been reported the response has been rather positive. Yet, we only have to bring up what happened to Michael Sam to understand that very little has changed with regard to players who hope to play openly and valued for their sportsmanship and not for who they love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Angels<\/em>\u00a0taught me a lot. Not just about my characters and their road to happiness, but also because as I explored Marco\u2019s having to follow that \u201cjock script\u201d all boys are indoctrinated to follow (bag the girl and draw some blood out on the field) Marco goes through some fairly difficult moments in his teenage life. In his desire to play ball and be one of the guys, he\u2019s opened himself up to a major downfall that he can\u2019t see coming \u2013 mostly because of the pressure to perform both on and off the field. That pressure is enormous. Yet, there\u2019s a boy that has captured Marco\u2019s attention in a way that no one, boy or girl, ever has. He finds himself on an emotional pendulum \u2013 swinging wildly from the life everyone else thinks he should have (girlfriends or friends with bennies, followed by marriage and rugrats), and the life he wants for himself wrapped up in a boy who requires darkness and shadows to survive another hellish day of high school.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a ride my own husband had to play.<\/p>\n

Simply put, hiding hurts everyone involved. No one ultimately benefits from that arrangement, despite how much comfort it may bring teammates in thinking that\u00a0everything is cool<\/em>,\u00a0the dude is solid<\/em>,\u00a0a man\u2019s man<\/em>. Marco\u2019s journey changed long held positions and baggage I carried from jocks that tormented me in my own past. I began to understand the pressures boys like Marco \u2013 who hide from themselves just to play the game they love to play \u2013 are under. But I didn\u2019t want that discussion in my works to be so one-sided.<\/p>\n

My granddaughter is queer and I spend a great deal of time with her and her friends. Queerdom is a very different monster with her crew. Just the fact that they embrace the word “queer” has changed my perspective on a word that used to torment me. So I realized that while things may not have totally changed, I also remembered the stories posted in OutSports of players who have experienced support from within their team. So while there is a clique within the team from Mercy High in my stories, I also balanced it with boys who really wouldn\u2019t care if Marco was with a boy. I needed to show that line that things are changing. Maybe not at lightening speeds, but change is coming.<\/p>\n

I am not kidding myself in thinking it will change in college or pro-ball in the next five, ten or fifteen years. That may be a long time in coming, but come it will.<\/p>\n

With the release of\u00a0Angels of Mercy \u2013 Diary of a Quarterback Part I: King of Imperfections<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Angels of Mercy \u2013 Diary of a Quarterback Part II: Prince of Mistakes<\/em><\/a>, I wanted to explore Marco\u2019s journey. To be honest, while I started the main Angels of Mercy series from Marco\u2019s boyfriend Elliot\u2019s point of view, the story was really Marco\u2019s to tell. He gets the lion\u2019s share of the series (three books out of the six total).<\/p>\n

I am thankful that Marco exists. He\u2019s made me understand my husband\u2019s past so much more. And I am far more sympathetic to athletes who take that courageous step to emerge and live a life out and proud. Their stories will always hold my interest.<\/p>\n

I often wonder what I would say to my younger tortured teenboy self that would give my younger self context to understand what those boys go through. Don\u2019t know if it would\u2019ve made a difference or not, but I am glad I\u2019ve grown enough as a writer and a queer man to give them a bit more of a pass and a modicum of understanding that many of them may not feel free enough to live openly and use oppression to express their frustration.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what\u00a0Angels<\/em>\u00a0ultimately explores. Here\u2019s hoping that the trend toward acceptance keeps moving in a positive direction. I look forward to the day when it simply won\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

Until next time …<\/p>\n

\u2013 SAC<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Buy Links<\/span><\/h2>\n

SA Collins Store<\/a>\u00a0 (support the author directly)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That Oppressive Script … How Angels of Mercy Changed My Queer Boy Perspective on Sports (Reprint from Rainbow Gold Reads Review)   Jocks have it hard. They\u2019ve got a lot to live up to as they pursue their passion in their chosen sport. This isn\u2019t an easy thing to acknowledge on my part. I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377,552,551,598,270,580,261,48,216,234,43,199,198,3,881,396,145,18,325],"tags":[68,614,67,318,351,884,66,885,882,883],"class_list":["post-2137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authors-voices","category-book-promotion","category-book-release","category-cover-artwork","category-gay-community","category-gays-in-sports","category-geeking-out","category-giving-back","category-journey","category-language","category-life-inserts-itself","category-male-feelings","category-men","category-novel-writing","category-queer-youth","category-the-craft","category-words-have-power","category-writing","category-young-adult-realities","tag-angels-of-mercy","tag-competitive-sports","tag-elliot-donahey","tag-homophobia","tag-jocks","tag-living-out-and-proud","tag-marco-sforza","tag-out-athletes","tag-queer-boys","tag-that-jock-script"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2137"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2145,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions\/2145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sacollins.com\/blog-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}