When Jason Kelce recently took the stand to announce his retirement from the National Football League after 13 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles.seemed to be playing the role of traditional masculinity to perfection.
Kelce, with his familiar beard, wore a cut-off T-shirt, sandals and a gold Rolex. At her microphone, she thanked everyone for attending. And then she started to cry.
“Oh,” she said through tears. “This is going to take a long time”.
Sure enough, for the next 40 minutes, Kelce battled with his emotions as he struggled to deliver his speech.
He cried when he talked about his teammates. He cried as he reflected on the smell of “freshly cut barbecue.” He even cried when he remembered other people crying — mainly his father, who, according to Kelce, had “tears streaming down his face” when Kelce was drafted in 2011.
And when Kelce talked about his relationship with his younger brother, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis appeared to be in danger of a complete collapse. Travis was sobbing behind sunglasses in the front row. Someone tossed Jason a towel so he could dry his face.
“This is where I will lose all calm,” he said.
If not exactly taboo, crying in men's sports was once considered a sign of weakness. But while in many ways the Kelces could not be more representative of the stereotype of the tough athlete —Travis hangs out with Taylor Swift, Jason drinks gallons of beer, and they both got famous playing a violent game— seem to cry more profusely and more frequently than professional athletes in previous eras.
Now that its platform extends into the Swift cosmos, its type of vulnerability is front and center. And the message is clear: it is normal and healthy for men to cry.
“You can be a tough and strong guy, and you can also be emotional and connectr,” said Fredric Rabinowitz, a psychology professor at the University of Redlands in California.
In 2023, after the Kelce brothers faced each other in the Super Bowl, Jason sought out his mother to hug her through tears. Travis cried during his postgame press conference. And then the brothers cried together during a podcast.
“Ironically, you lose the Super Bowl and you cry after the game,” Jason Kelce said through tears on a “New Heights” broadcast. “And they are not tears of sadness; They are tears of joy.”
The tears of male athletes were not always so celebrated. For example, In 2009, Michael Jordan was mocked in memes such as “Tearful Jordan” when he spilled them in his speech. induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Rabinowitz cautioned that there is still work to be done. “I think for the average man there is still this feeling of shame about crying,” he said.
But perhaps that is starting to change. Rabinowitz recalled seeing Jason Kelce's retirement announcement on television.
“And I'm crying watching it,” she said.
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