It's the heart of summer and the sport of masculinity has once again become a steamy, sweaty house of ill repute.  Has the locker room odor gotten to you yet?

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick stands accused of vicious dogfighting.  Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy is being investigated for betting on basketball games, including ones at which he officiated.  Barry Bonds passing Hank Aaron's all-time home run record will forever be tainted with charges of Bonds' steroid use.  The Tour de France devolved into so many doping accusations that in some circles the grueling bicycle race was derisively renamed the Tour de Farce.  A daily newspaper in Massachusetts sponsored a professional wrestling night, replete with racist and sexist themes, as part of a "Just the Guys" promotional campaign to increase male readership.  A common denominator: men at our worst. 

While the rise of women as athletes, sports fans, broadcasters, coaches and journalists gives us much to cheer about, too much of sports culture still smacks of old school male culture: Man at His Worst (to invert Esquire magazine's smug tag line).  The rash of bad news undermines the efforts of the best of our Little League coaches, mentors, uncles, big brothers and dads across the country teaching boys — and girls — the best of a noble sports ethic (what, in a bygone era, was referred to with pride as "sportsmanship"). 

The search for positive male role models is undermined every time another high profile athlete (and now a ref) is accused of besmirching the reputation of their sport or themselves.  They are not alone.  Among the co-conspirators?  Other men's silence.  We feed the insatiable male pop-sports culture monster the worst of our masculinity—and our humanity—every time we fail to speak up and reject a sports culture (or entertainment culture, or media culture, or political culture) that distorts and belittles men's humanity.  It is too easy for us to return to socialized form by quietly condoning or flaunting a posture that celebrates the shadow side of masculine culture, the side that lives on violence.

We're seven years into the 21st century.  I-phones have arrived — the latest techno-cocoon in which members of the Me Generation can wrap themselves, especially us guys.  What can we do to avoid becoming numb?  Find our voices and use them.  Dave Zirin uses his.  A social critic who examines culture through the prism of sports, Zirin, an author and columnist, offers a perspective that men need to hear.  Consider this excerpt from a recent column on Michael Vick: (www.edgeofsports.com):

“American culture celebrates violent sports — especially football—and is insensitive to the consequences that the weekly scrum has on the bodies and minds of its players.  We love a sport where any given play can be a player's last.  We accept that after 44-year-old former Philadelphia Eagle Andre Waters committed suicide, the autopsy revealed that his brain resembled someone with early-stage Alzheimer's due to repeated concussions.  We ignore that a Hall of Fame running back, the once-unstoppable Earl Campbell, can barely get out of a car without assistance.  We forget that Johnny Unitas, the greatest quarterback to play the game, couldn't grip a football by the time of his death.  Meanwhile let's turn the magnifying glass on a society that condones so much violence in war, film and sport.  Let's question the media's rush to judgment when the violence spills over into a shadow game where animals are brutally exploited in the service of violent entertainment."

It's ironic that the kind of courage men need to summon up in order to stand apart from old school masculinity — repudiating not just the easy targets cited above, but their own local, bush league, under-the-radar cousins — is in such short supply.  There's nothing courageous about standing by quietly while the male status quo commentary machine continues unchecked — whether the down and dirty invective spewing over sports talk radio airwaves or the middlebrow, males-are-always-superior approach writers such as George Will promote in print. 

Are we ready to add the words "As a man I object to... [fill in the blank citing the latest transgression by a male athlete or entertainment figure]"? Are we ready to begin a difficult man-to-man conversation with a coach, or a letter to the editor with those words—" As a man I object to...?"  Are we prepared to begin sending a message to the purveyors of popular culture that as men we no longer are going to silently tolerate our brothers' actions?  Are we ready to call for a long timeout to rethink strategy, not just for the game or the season, but for our lives?

Rob Okun is Executive Director of the Men’s Resource Center for Change and Editor of  Voice Male.  He can be reached at (413) 253-9887 Ext.  20 or by e-mail.