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The darkness of
Raiders Night shows brilliance
Robert Lipsyte's teen novel casts
light on the underbelly of sports
By
Cyd Zeigler jr.
Outsports.com
As America is
embroiled in another football season, full of god-like praising
of coaches as geniuses and athletes as heroes, it is easy for
young men to hear the cheers and be willing to sacrifice
anything for them. It is also easy to ignore the evil side of
sports that so often gets pushed to the dark corners of the
locker room and buried in coverage by ESPN and Sports
Illustrated. Heralded sportswriter
Robert Lipsyte's book Raiders Night is a rich,
powerful story of one such dark corner.
The backdrop is
Nearmont High School, where town life revolves around the
Raiders football team like a stereotypical Texas town of several
hundred (though the book is set in the Northeast). Matt Rydek is
the co-captain and star wide receiver with plenty on his mind,
including a championship to end his high school career.
The story
revolves around "Raiders Night," a team hazing tradition that
resembles the player-executed initiation process of many sports
teams in America. One particular transfer, tight end Chris
Martin, has been having an incredible camp and is a threat to
Matt's co-captain, Ramp. Ramp constantly beats down Chris,
insulting him at every turn and putting him through hazing
rituals like carrying the trays of upperclassmen.
On "Raiders
Night," the seniors on the team spend time with the freshmen on
the team, putting them through fake "tea-bagging," among other
"bonding" experiences. Ramp takes the hazing of Chris too far,
urinating on his face and sodomizing him with a baseball bat.
The players cover up the incident as Matt struggles with whether
to tell the coaches and a resourceful reporter who is
unrelenting in his questions about "Raiders Night." The
incident, it turns out, scars Chris for life.
At the surface,
the novel uncovers the destructive nature of some of the
deep-seeded institutions of American sports: Athletes are taught
to sacrifice anything for victory, leading many of them to the
destructive use of steroids; The idea of teamwork gets twisted
into the need to defend those who have done something wrong for
the "good of the team;" Hazing is defended by many in sports,
from high school players to NFL head coaches, as an important
part of bonding. It's the latter that serves as the centerpiece
of the book
Below the
surface, Raiders Night exposes the problems that come
from a lack of true leadership in the jock culture. While many
view sports teams as dictatorships, with power resting on one
coach, they are truly oligarchies in which decisions are made by
a select few elites. Even the strongest coaches understand they
are powerless without the support of the elite players and his
coaching staff. That dynamic plays out in the story as various
members of the elite, including captains Matt and Ramp along
with the coaching staff, engage in a political and moral battle
over how to handle the raping of one of the "common folk" trying
to ascend to power. The book shows a morally corrupt adult
leadership that will go to seemingly any length to stay in power
and relive their high school glory (or find the glory they never
received). It is Matt's struggle with this and his role in it in
which the heart of the story manifests.
Readers may
feel like the novel, set in high school, is dominated by
college-level players dealing with college-level themes making
college-level decisions. Sex is tossed around by the teenage
characters like it was a videogame you played with friends.
Alcohol is consumed in a manner that would make fraternity
members stand at attention. Vicodin and steroids are popped and
injected like they were milk and cookies. But that's the sad
reality that so many young athletes are confronted with in the
increasingly high-stakes world of American football, where high
school players are expected to play like they're in college,
college players are put on a pedestal like they're in the pros,
and pro athletes are demanded to do things that past generations
would have called inhuman.
Homosexual
themes abound throughout the book, largely as negative
reinforcements of how the issue is used as a club to beat people
down. Whether it's sodomy as a hazing ritual or the questioning
of players' sexual orientation, Lipsyte adeptly gets inside the
culture that so effectively keeps many athletes in the closet.
Lipsyte, 69,
does a masterful job hitting a tone that teenagers will find
familiar. It's a testament to his incredible skill that, two
generations removed, Lipsyte can tell a story in a voice that
Generation X calls their own. Inside Matt's head, his thoughts
are often choppy like a series of music videos cut together in a
way only youth could make complete sense of. The conversations
are short and to the point, as though they are texted with
smiley faces. It is no wonder Lipsyte's teen novels have been
met over and over with such critical acclaim.
The novel was
written, per the acknowledgements, with direction from sports
psychiatrist Mike Miletic, M.D. Miletic is a former member of
the Canadian weight-lifting team who has dedicated his life to
helping people understand the jock culture. His insight abounds
throughout the book. You can find Miletic at
his Web site.
Purchase:
Buy Raiders Night for under $7
Also:
Lipsyte's eerie experiences from his book tour
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