Implicit Religion and the Highly-Identified Sports Fan: an Ethnography of Cleveland Sports Fandom
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IMPLICIT RELIGION AND THE HIGHLY-IDENTIFIED SPORTS FAN: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF CLEVELAND SPORTS FANDOM Edward T. Uszynski A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2013 Committee: Dr. Michael Butterworth, Advisor Dr. Kara Joyner Graduate Faculty Representative Dr. Bruce Edwards Dr. Vikki Krane ii ABSTRACT Michael Butterworth, Advisor Scholarly writing on the conflation of “sport as a religion” regularly concentrates on the historical and institutional parallels with the religious dimensions of sport, focusing on ritual, community, sacred space, and other categories more traditionally associated with “religious” life. Instead, this study redirects focus toward the neo-religious nature of modern spirituality; that is, the fulfillment of Thomas Luckmann’s prediction that a significant aspect of modern spirituality would concern the need to construct a “self”the constantly shifting work of forming personal identity and enhancing self understanding. As such, internal commitments and intense devotion may perform as a de facto “invisible religion” in the lives of people. As popular culture provides useful texts toward satisfying this ongoing work, professional sports can act as a conduit of both personal and collective self understanding for “highly identified fans,” subsequently operating as an invisible religion within their lives. This study investigates the nature of fandom among a sample of Cleveland professional sports fans. Using a semi-structured interview format, it explores the lived world of patrons of the Parkview NiteClub, a long standing Cleveland sports bar/blues club, asking, “How might the experience of this group of ‘highly identified fans’ in Cleveland constitute a kind of ‘invisible religious’ experience that both shapes their view of themselves and influences how they journey in this life”? Using Edward Bailey’s tripartite “implicit religion” rubric to assess “commitment,” “integrating foci,” and “intensive concerns with extensive effects,” formal interviews with 15 iii Parkview patrons took place over six months, using a semi-structured questionnaire to explore the contours of their devotion to the Cleveland teams. The interviews reveal that the co-mingling of civic history, existence of the teams, and personal life narrative of the fans themselves are intimately interwoven, producing a relationship between the three that moves the teams from mere entertainment outlet to a chief component of the fans’ self-understanding. They testify that much of their past history and current reality is affected by their relationship to the teams in Cleveland, and that both personal and collective identity gets continually influenced by the existence and performance of the teams themselves. Thus, this study concludes that the activity of sports fandom can be considered both invisibly and implicitly religious, and that “sport fandom” as a site may provide a venue for future scholarly work concerning neo-religious behavior within modern society. iv Dedicated to Cleveland sports fans around the world. Someday “waiting till next year” will be someone else’s burden. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to two of my best friends on the journey, Dr. Tim Muehlhoff and Dr. Erik Thoennes, who for years constantly encouraged me to pursue a terminal degree, who introduced me to “culture studies” when I was still ignorant about it as a discipline, who piqued my interest in ethnography, and who generally kept me from losing my mind at key points along the way. I would not have begun or finished the PhD. process apart from your influence. Thank you to former American Culture Studies Director Dr. Don McQuarie for accepting me into the program in the first place, for being constantly available to field questions and offer encouragement, and for modeling what truly diverse higher education can look like. In retrospect, I feel incredibly indebted to you and all my cohort companions from whom I learned far more than I could have anticipated, all of which fed into this dissertation process. Thank you especially to J.R., April, Justin, Christian, and Deep for our many out-of-class meals and conversationsas much an education as anything I took from a book. I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Michael Butterworth, whose investment in me as a student over salad and sushi (!) will undoubtedly remain with me long after the close of this chapter. Our time together represented higher education at its best: substantive readings, openness to uncomfortable questions, and wise guidance down new paths. Though on paper we support different ideological agendas, what we share in commona desire for civil discourse about complicated and important subjects—has established both our professional and social relationship, for which I am most grateful. I would not have come to the starting line of this project without our several years of discussions kneading it out of me, and am certain I would not have finished it without your help getting the right committee and supplying insightful critique along the way. vi I could not have imagined a more available, insightful, encouraging committee to serve alongside us in this process: Dr. Vikki Krane, Dr. Bruce Edwards, and Dr. Kara Joyner. In numerous ways—words of encouragement, belief in both me and the project, sharing of knowledge, corrective guidanceyou provided fuel that kept this dissertation’s engine running while helping me steer it to the finish line. Thank you for leaving me with only positive thoughts about our work together on this project. Thanks to longtime and now retired Cleveland sportswriter Dan Coughlin, who spent many hours in Cleveland pubs across the decades—writing and drinking away his own suffering as a Cleveland fanmaking him a valuable resource for this project. Though I was a stranger to him, Dan graciously and thoughtfully exchanged emails with me, fielded phone calls, and introduced me to his nephew-bartender who, after I explained the goal of my research aims, said “There’s really only one bar in town you need to visit—the Parkview NiteClub.” He was right. Norm and Mike Plonsky, father and son, owner and manager of the Parkview NiteClub, opened their bar and welcomed me in like a native son. On my first visit, they introduced me to help staff and patrons and paved the way for six months of credible engagement with their world. Thanks also to the bar tenders and waitresses that put up with my questions and lingering presence over the course of the study. Thanks to all the interview participants, but especially regulars Pat Farrell, Gary Brierley, and Andy Bajda, who ate and drank with me, kept the conversation going long after our official work together ended, helped me get other participants, gave feedback on my writing, and even invited me to play golf. Our day will come, and when it does, I hope to be spilled out on W. 58th and Cass Avenue celebrating alongside you and all the others! vii I appreciate all my Athletes in Action leaders who gave me space to finish what I started. Thanks especially to Steve Koproski for helping me regularly sweat out the stress (and to Eric Nelson who helped me do the same down the home stretch), to Colby Keefer for communicating pride in both me and the work all the way from Michigan, and to Ron Touby who not only always takes an interest in what I’m pursuing, but also makes me think it’s worth doing. Thanks to Steve Lane, David Thompson, Judd Burke, David Myles, Greg Couser, and other friends from church who prayed for me, asked me good questions, kept me thinking about the right things, and wouldn’t let my soul get off track. Thanks also to church friends Kristina Cushman, Beth Futrell, Emily Ruffner, and Jodi Stratton who read and edited the final copy. Finally, thank you to my wife Amy and kids Erik, Maria, Jack, and Trey. You bore the brunt of the trips to Bowling Green and Cleveland, and lived for five years with what must have seemed like a constantly distracted husband and father. In a strange way, you all made the work more meaningful for me, and certainly more tolerable. Life as a Cleveland fanlet alone as an adult studentis already miserable; I could not imagine enduring it without you! You are God’s gift to me as a constant anchor and source of joy in my life. We did this together. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 1 Piling On: Exposing the Wound Again .................................................................... 1 Cleveland Fan Base: A Constructed/Imagined Community with a History of Sports Loss ................................................................................................................ 2 Cleveland and the Enigma of Highly Identified Fans ............................................... 4 The Cultural Background Provoking This Study: Four Moves ................................ 5 The Mega-rise of the Sport Industry and Fandom Surrounding It ................ 6 The Cultivation of “Identity” as a Locus of Modern Spirituality while Reimagining the “Sacred” ............................................................................ 7 Implicit Religion” as a Rubric for Ascertaining Modern Spirituality .......... 8 Sport Fandom as a Central “Textual” Site for Personal and Collective Identity Construction ................................................................................... 9 Summary