Couch Commanders: The Men Who Outsource Their Masculinity to a Scoreboard
Sports are entertainment; if they’ve become your identity, you’re not a fan, you’re a losing man.
You can love sports and still be a man.
You can watch the game, talk trash with your friends, wear the jersey, know the stats, and feel the rush when your team wins; that’s normal to many, it’s harmless fun for most, and the main source of male community for modern men.
Here’s what I can’t stomach…
Do you have any idea how many grown men have turned professional and college sports into their entire identities while their real lives fall apart?
These are men who haven’t sprinted in years talking about what professional athletes should be doing…
Men who can’t lead their families, can’t control their emotions, and can’t look in the mirror without flinching are also men who drink themselves numb every weekend and call it “relaxing,” even though they haven’t put extra effort into a damn thing in years.
Those men who do little more than work their 9-5, then sit on a couch, will go and run their mouths behind a keyboard, bashing athletes and harassing their family members if they don’t make the play the Couch Commanders believe they should have…
It’s madness wrapped in a cloak of normalcy.
And I’m not talking about a “That sucks” post on Facebook; I’m talking about mocking athletes, dogpiling them, sending threats to their wives and girlfriends, harassing their parents, and acting like a missed field goal or dropped pass is a moral failure.
That’s not fandom…
That’s the weakness of wearing a jersey and thinking it somehow makes you part of the team.
When your sense of worth rises and falls based on what a 20-something athlete does under pressure, while you avoid pressure in your own life, you don’t love the sport; you’re hiding your lack of performance inside it.
If watching sports has become the one place you can feel like a man without having to be one, then you are choosing to hijack the courage without taking risks. You get to borrow victory without earning discipline, and claim an identity without building any semblance of an impressive character.
If you need a team to feel tough, you’re not tough.
If you need a scoreboard to feel valuable, you’re already losing.
If you need a young athlete to fail so you can feel superior, you’re a weak man cosplaying as a powerful one.
The reason this message pisses so many people off is that most men aren’t training, aren’t building strength, and have zero stamina.
The CDC has reported that only 24% of U.S. adults meet both aerobic and muscle-strengthening guidelines set for a healthy male adult.
That isn’t a random statistic; that’s a cultural autopsy report.
Modern men are living pathetically weak lives, and dying years before their heart stops and they enter the ground. The average “bro” is a fucking shell of who he is meant to be, and has an obsession with the bread and circuses pumped out by the overlords of society.
On top of that, obesity prevalence sits around 40% in recent CDC reporting, and binge drinking remains common as well.
So what do you get?
You get men who don’t train, don’t regulate, don’t lead, don’t build, don’t face themselves, and drink alcohol and become emotionally unstable…
Oh, and they scream.
They scream at refs.
They scream at college kids.
They scream at rookies on professional teams.
They scream at women online and total strangers
Why?
Screaming is easier than squatting, benching, and running; it’s easier than saving money, getting your health back, and becoming the kind of man your kids can trust.
And now, let’s pour gasoline on the whole thing with gambling, because a missed kick isn’t just disappointment anymore, it’s “you cost me money,” which turns emotionally fragile men into violent little goblins behind a screen.
The NCAA has been sounding the alarm on harassment aimed at athletes that’s tied to sports betting, and anyone paying attention can feel how that poison is spreading.
This is now addiction blended with fandom, stacked on top of insecurity, injected with blinding levels of entitlement.
The cocktail of weakness.
Real men don’t tear down young athletes, they don’t threaten people because they lost a game, and they sure as fuck don’t attack women online because they’re mad at the athletic performance of another man.
Real men don’t outsource their masculinity to a scoreboard (sometimes scripted) and then pretend it’s because they’re “passionate.” It’s not passion; it’s pathetic absolution from personal control and responsibility.
If you want to be intense, be intense about your life.
Be intense about your health, your marriage, your finances, your discipline, and your children’s future.
If you poured even half of that shit-talking energy into becoming a competent husband and father, you wouldn’t need sports to feel important.
Sports are entertainment; they’re incredible entertainment that captures a part of the human experience. Think about why the Gladiators were adored, and why the Coliseum was packed...
People love competition, but that’s still no excuse for turning your identity over to it.
Sports teach lessons about teamwork, grit, preparation, and perseverance, but they are not a substitute for your personality, and they are not an excuse to be a piece of shit.
And, they are not a permission slip to become the kind of man who attacks a young athlete carrying pressure you’ve spent years avoiding.
If you felt personally offended by this, good; that sting means your conscience is still working, and it’s pissed because you know somewhere deep inside, I’m calling you out about your embarrassing behavior.
Do something about it.
Become someone your family is proud of, someone who doesn’t need a team’s success to feel like a man.
The only name you should be wearing is your own. The only man you should be screaming at is yourself, as you’re kicking ass in the weightroom; and the only time you should be emotionally moved by any sport is when it is your wife or children falling short or achieving victory.
Masculinity isn’t something you get from a jersey…
Masculinity is something you build daily, even when nobody’s watching. So get your shit straight, and knock off the pathetic obsession you have with other men doing their job in front of millions.
If you don’t, you’ll turn your sons into young men who scream at screens, drink themselves into retardation, and spend their free time watching other men achieve their goals while never making progress towards their own…
You don’t need to live like that, and you shouldn’t want that life for your sons either.
Be a better man, remove the sports, and become an athlete who competes and wins in the game of life.
- Zac Small
PS: Grab a copy of my book 31 Days to Masculinity if you’re looking for a program to help you get your life back on the railroad tracks.