The Culture of Tough Care in a Competitive University Football Team

“I hadda play football, even if it kills me” captures the mindset of male footballers at a local university in Trinidad and Tobago. At a glance, it may sound extreme but the do-or-die mindset motivated players through injury, losses, successes and academics. Male student athletes balance school, sport, relationships and expectations. As a member of my university football team, navigating the compounded stress of performing both in class and on the field can be challenging. So, I have always been interested in understanding the social support of male student athletes in a high-intensity contact sport. My mini-ethnography for Caribbean Anthropology sought to explore the experience of care and social support from coaches and fellow teammates during training and competing. For these student athletes, care was culturally expressed through toughness and discipline. It was not always gentle reassurance or sentimentality, but demanding, goal-driven and rooted in shared expectations of endurance. As my study progressed, I realised that ‘care’ reflected the wider cultural expectations of Caribbean masculinity to show strength through endurance, authority and the ability to “take pressure” without complaint. These behaviours can be categorised as toxic masculinity traits.

But, for my teammates, the experience of toughness was not rejected. It fostered a mentality of survival and tough motivation, one that players also used as a form of motivation to improve academic performance. On and off the field, high expectations of winning and shared accountability for skill advancement, stuck with team members. In this situation, care, sports and masculinity, ‘toughness’ from the coach and other team members was not a mere rejection of vulnerability but a form of social support and an intrinsic motivator. Ultimately, this mini-ethnography revealed that care amongst players and coaches was embedded in expectations, shared pressure and discipline. While this may negatively impact how vulnerability is expressed, toughness was viewed as a form of belonging, accountability and motivation. 

By Kristof St. Bernard