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Juan Flores
Professor, Ditch
English 113B
11 January 2015
Through Your Eyes
The person who I am today has been shaped through the years by playing football. My
work ethic, competitiveness, and persistence have translated from the football field to my
everyday life. My athletic culture is the biggest influence over my identity, so my behavior tends
to be influence by it too. My identity is formed by different components such as academics,
sports, and music, so a single perspective would not fully describe my complex identity. Many
times I feel like I get pre judge by the people that surround me because of the way I behave or
react on a certain situation. Although that is not always the case, I feel like a single perspective
can potentially cause a misconception of my identity. The problem is when the misconception
affects me by creating on the eyes of those who surround me a single story based identity.
My behavior in the football field as an athlete is very different from my every days
behavior on school or my house. In the football field I describe my behavior as hyper masculine
and insensitive. Those qualities are necessary in order to be successful in this particular rough
sport, where winning is the ultimate goal. In the Article Training For Life? Or for Death?
Football as a methapor the author Warren Farrell points out that football is potentially the best
way to learn life lessons with this quote "Except for war, there is nothing in American life
nothing which trains a boy better for life than football" (qtd.in Farrell 1). I agree with this quote
because some of my best qualities like my work ethic and persistence come from playing
football. In football being persistence and not giving up is necessary in order to win. Giving up is

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not an option in this athletic culture. In the football field I feel free speaking about anything since
most of the people at the field dont really take anything personal because thats how football
works. Every play is different, so whatever happened before shouldnt affect the new play.
In the other hand my every day behavior at school is almost completely different from
the football one since I consider myself sensitive, humble, and a very friendly individual. I try to
be approachable for my classmates because I want to make school a comfortable environment for
everyone. I also apply my work ethic and persistence, and competitiveness at school. Although
these qualities are separated by spaces many times they tend to clash with each other. By
clashing I mean that they get mix up and its very difficult to separate them.
The biggest problem that I have is when my identity clashes between my football identity
and school identity and I become unaware of it. Many times my responses to touchy subjects
become problematic with my classmates because I dont really articulate myself before speaking.
In the article Mens Health: Body, Identity and Social Context by Dana Rosenfeld she describes
the potential effects of this clash by saying the effects of the clash between their traditional
hegemonic masculinity and the new gender relations and ideological context in which they find
themselves post-migration would appear to be vaguely-referenced mental health issues and life
stresses(Rosenfeld 3). This might be the cause of my insensitivity. Many times my insensitive
responses lead my classmates into assuming that I am a very selfish individual, who only cares
about getting his voice heard. Then they form a misconception of my identity based off their
observations of my behavior. This is formed because I didnt think my argument or response
twice before speaking since I am so used to speaking freely about anything just like in the
football filed.

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In the TED Talk; The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie the single
story concept is describe as not untrue, but incomplete (Adichie), which means that a single
story is not completely wrong. Some of the misconceptions my classmates have of me create
this one single story based story of me based on what they see of me on that particular space
such as school. Like I mentioned, they are not completely wrong because that is the way I
behave on that particular space, but they cant base my entire identity off that. I am complex and
they is more to me than just my academic culture and what they see of me.
I find some similarities on my identity and the way people react to it with Richard
Sherman, who is a Stanford graduate and currently a premier top NFL cornerback of the Seattle
Seahawks. In January, 19, 2014 Richard Sherman tipped the game winning interception that
ended the game giving his team the victory of the NFC championship game over the San
Francisco 49rs. After the game ended, Erin Andrew (reporter) came up to him and asked him to
describe to her the last play of the game, so he responded angry and over hyped Im the best
corner on the game, when you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree thats the result you
gonna get, dont you ever talk about me (Sherman). This interview exploded all over the news
the next day. Some fans were criticizing Sherman by calling him a thug, a loud mouth, and
ignorant.
The reason why I feel some type of connection with Sherman is because we are both
athletes, so we know that in order to play the game of football; you need to have a really
competitive mindset and high level passion to able to perform at the top level. After making my
own research I found out that Sherman reacted that way he did because after the game he
offered a hand shake to his competitor Michael Crabtree (49rs receiver), but Crabtree responded

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with a push to Shermans face. All this happened moments before the interview, so he was angry
with Crabtree and went off on the interview.
Many times people react negatively to someone who behaves differently to what they are
accustomed just like Ronal Jackson, Cerise Glenn, and Kesha Williams describe in their article
Self-Identity and Culture by saying These alternate cultural identities can often be regarded as
different in ways that seem abnormal because they are not the same behaviors you
learned(Jackson, Genn, Williams 117). Its easy to judge someone off just one single story, but
that doesnt mean that is necessarily true. Just like in Shermans case, he was misjudged by
everyone that only saw his rant after the game interview and not by the real reason behind it. The
same case that I many times face with my classmates, who dont really understand that, my
athletic culture has made me a little insensitive of other peoples feelings. My behavior might
change from space to space, but its also the factor of who I am. I am a proud student athlete.

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Work Cited

Adichie, Chimamanda. "The Danger of a Single Story." TED. N.p., July 2009. Web. 19 Feb.
2015.
Farrell, Warren. "Training for Life? Or for Death? Football as Metaphor." Everyman.36 (1999):
28. ProQuest. 19 Feb. 2015 .
Jackson, Ronald, Clerise Glenn, and Kesha Williams. Self-Identity. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Rosenfeld, Dana. "MEN'S HEALTH: BODY, IDENTITY AND SOCIAL

CONTEXT." International Journal of Men's Health 9.1 (2010): 82-6. ProQuest. 19 Feb.
2015 .