Picture this: A business meeting. Bunch of business men-types discussing a merger. They argue over figures. They compare notes. They rehash strategies. Finally, after a gruelling two hour session of mental gymnastics, they reach a deal that all can accept. The CEO of the company approaches his VP, and…
pats him on the butt.
Now, that’s just not gonna happen, right? If it did, VP would deck CEO, and an all-out brawl would follow, yes?
Yet, on the football field or on the ball diamond, a player makes a good catch or a great pass, and he gets his butt patted by his team mates or coach, and it’s cool.
So why is it that in sports, it is acceptable for men to go around patting each other on the butt, but in the rest of life, doing so would get a guy a black eye?
I have no idea. We just get used to it. I grew up playing soccer and baseball. It became part of the routine. There was a Friend’s episode on this, I think. Where the boss kept patting Chandler on the butt and it was making him uncomfortable. But everybody else wanted pats, too. I have no idea where I was going with this.
I guess, in short, I have no idea. If my boss patted me on the butt, I’d worry. But if a coach did, I’m not sure I would even notice. Just a conditioned response under certain circumstances, I guess.
When a sales rep isn’t meeting his quota for the month, his supervisor gets in his face, drill-sergeant style, and starts screaming: “WHAT YOU NEED TO DO IS FOCUS!! DO YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR QUOTE OR DO YOU WANT TO FAIL??? DID YOU TAKE THIS JOB TO BE HAPPY WITH SECOND PLACE?? etc.”
Hmm. Not gonna happen, is it?
Or when a bigwig closes the deal that makes the company, he goes running across the office, and slides on the floor, and all of his associates pile on top of him.
Think that would happen?
Or when someone solves a tough problem, they start breakdancing in the hallway.
Not likely, you say?
I Think it’s because the sports world and the business world are completely different. Most sports being more physical and contact oriented, and most business relationships following the “stay out of my personal space” rule.
In approximately 17 years of playing basketball at every conceivable level, I have never smacked anyone on the butt for a job well done. I didn’t have anything against it, but when I was excited or wanted to show appreciation to someone, I stuck with the high 5. That’s just sort of what worked for me.
I gave and received a lot of hugs while playing. It’s just one of those spur of the moment, crowd cheering, exceptional accomplishment kinds of things. It is really easy to get lost in the emotion of success in a game with fans cheering you on. It is hard to get quite so emotionally uplifted by figuring out an Excel macro or properly forecasting a budget. I think it all comes down to a combo of environment, acceptable behavior, and emotional ramifications.
Okay, mouthbreather, gotcha. But what about a gang of guys, hanging out, drinking beer, watching the game? Touchdown on TV, they jump up yelling and screaming. They high-five. They may grab each other in that guy-bear-hug-thing. Never seen them grab each others’ asses, though.
And by the way, I have seen a supervisor scream in someone’s face when they weren’t meeting quota. He was quite the prick.
My whole theory on this is due to the bond that forms between a coach and his players is much closer than that of a boss and his employees. There’s almost a father/son thing between a coach and players. Coaches often refer to their players as “my guys” or “my kids”
For the record, though, I do think it’s more of a football thing than many other sports. I played baseball for a total of 13 years growing up and football for 2 years. I think I was patted on the ass in baseball a grand total of 0 times for good plays (and I used to make a lot of good defensive plays) as opposed to football, when I got patted on the ass almost after every catch that resulted in a first down and definitely after every TD pass (I was a reciever if you couldn’t piece that together).
I’ll have to go in with BratMan on this. I wasn’t big enough to play football. I played baseball all through high school and Legion. In the baseball culture it’s less prevalent to do that butt-slapping thing. It might’ve also been the fact that in 4 years of HS ball our team record was seldom above .500. Not much praise in the dugout in that time, from what I remember. Even less cause for the butt-slap, had it been warranted.
Our high school football team were avid butt-slappers but the guys that played both baseball and football kept their repressed desires on the gridiron, thank god.
