Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2008 The rhetorical myth of the athlete as a moral hero: the implications of steroids in sport and the threatened myth Karen L. Hartman Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Hartman, Karen L., "The rhetorical myth of the athlete as a moral hero: the implications of steroids in sport and the threatened myth" (2008). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2015. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2015 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE RHETORICAL MYTH OF THE ATHLETE AS A MORAL HERO: THE IMPLICATIONS OF STEROIDS IN SPORT AND THE THREATENED MYTH A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Communication Studies by Karen L. Hartman B.A., Furman University, 2000 M.A., University of South Carolina, 2004 August, 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………...iv CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………..1 CHAPTER TWO: A HISTORY OF MYTH AND HOW MYTH FUNCTIONS……………….14 Definition of Myth……………………………………………………………………….15 Meanings of Myth and What They Convey……………………………………………...20 Historical Development of Myth………………………………………………………...22 How Myths are Communicated and Constructed……………………………………..…29 Metaphors………………………………………………………………………..30 Narratives………………………………………………………………………...32 Ideographs and Ideologies……………………………………………………….34 How Myths Influence…………………………………………………………………....36 Rituals…………………………………………………………………………………....38 Rhetorical Nature of Myth……………………………………………………………….39 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….41 CHAPTER THREE: THE TRINITY OF MYTH, SPORT, AND THE HERO…………………43 What Is the Myth of Sport?................................................................................................44 Rhetorical Construction of the Mythical Hero…………………………………………...46 Rips in the Myth……………………………………………………………………...….50 Sport as Morally Bankrupt……………………………………………………………….53 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….55 CHAPTER FOUR: THE RHETORICAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE ATHLETE AS A MORAL HERO FROM 1850-1920……………………………………………………………..58 The Rhetorical Construction of the Athlete……………………………………………...61 YMCA…………………………………………………………………………...61 Muscular Christianity…………………………………………………………….63 Bernarr Macfadden and Physical Culture………………………………………..65 Theodore Roosevelt……………………………………………………………...66 IAAUS/NCAA…………………………………………………………………...70 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….72 CHAPTER FIVE: MODERN SPORT AND WHAT KEEPS FANS ENAMORED……………75 Sports Broadcasters and Writers………………………………………………………....77 Advertising…………………………………………………………………………….…82 The Movie Industry………………………………………………………………………84 Popular Novels…………………………………………………………………………...86 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….89 CHAPTER SIX: THE THREAT OF STEROIDS TO THE MYTH OF THE MORAL ATHLETE………………………………………………………………………………………..93 What Is a Performance Enhancer and Why Is It Bad?.......................................................95 History of Drug Use in Sport…………………………………………………………...100 ii Acceptance and Rationale for Steroid Use……………………………………………..104 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...109 CHAPTER SEVEN: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF FAN REACTION TO STEROIDS: A CASE STUDY OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL…………………………………………..111 MLB’s Steroid Scandal………………………………………………………………....113 History of Steroids in the League……………………………………………....114 The Homerun Race……………………………………………………………..116 BALCO………………………………………………………………………....118 Rhetorical Analysis of Steroid Use in MLB……………………………………………122 Steroids Do Not Affect an Athlete’s Talent Level…………………..………….124 Athletes Have Control Over Their Bodies………..…………………………….127 Scapegoating…………………………………………………………………....130 Pre-Steroid Portrayal…………………………………………………....134 Post-Steroid Accusation………………………………………………...136 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...138 CHAPTER EIGHT: HOW ACCEPTANCE OF THE THREATENED MYTH OFFERS A NEW MODEL OF MYTHICAL ANALYSIS………………………………………………………..140 The Body as a Rhetorical Text………………………………………………………….142 Development of Myths…………………………………………………………………143 Evolutionary Method of Mythical Analysis…………………………………………....146 Historical and Mythical Outline of Sport……………………………………………….150 Primary Stage/Ancient Sport…………………………………………………...150 Implicit Stage/Middle Stages of Sport………………………………………….153 Rational Stage/ Modern Sport and Steroids…………………………………….156 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...160 CHAPTER NINE: FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION………………………………………...163 Summary of Subject, Rationale, and Method…………………………………………..163 Findings………………………………………………………………………………...164 Implications…………………………………………………………………………….168 Future Research………………………………………………………………………...169 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………………..172 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………………186 iii ABSTRACT This research analyzes changes in the rhetoric of a sustaining myth in order to better assess what happens when a myth is threatened. By examining American sport and its current struggle to withstand the widespread use of steroids, the author investigates how public discourse about the scandal turns athletes from mythical heroes to cheaters. The author begins by explicating the rhetorical construction of the athlete as a moral hero in America and how this myth is perpetuated today. The author then examines how steroids threaten the myth of the moral athlete and uses Major League Baseball as a case study to illustrate the rhetorical justification of their use. Ultimately this research offers a cyclical method of mythical analysis as a new method to analyze threatened myths. Current research offers few methods to explain how myths develop and this cyclical method attempts to provide specificity for one-way myths can survive. It is argued that the cyclical method acts as a way to account for threats to the myth, as well as to allow for rhetorical shifts. iv CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Myths hold a long and complex grasp on how humankind makes sense of the world. Like a hand stretched out that alternately clutches and loosens its grip, myths work themselves into our society where they grope along the spectrum of obvious untruths and clear reality. Myths, however, serve a fundamental part of cultures allowing early humans ways to understand life, death, and the creation of the universe. Today humans still rely on them to guide and offer explanations for chaos. The necessity of myths and their ability to form perceptions of reality quickly reveals the power myths hold. The power and purpose of myths, as identified by various scholars for the past several hundred years, grew more complex as humankind developed. Mythic studies vary from Descartes and Bacon’s views on myth’s affect on philosophic inquiry and rationality to Vico’s challenge that myths were part of a rational mind and could be used to create “truths.” Years later Sigmund Freud viewed myth’s function in the internal environment of the mind as the expression of an individual’s unconscious wishes, fears, and drives. Stemming out of Freud’s perception, Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung offered a broader viewpoint and argued myths were an expression of a universal, collective unconscious. Additionally, other scholars such as Eliade viewed myths as the essence of religion, Radin viewed myths from an economic perspective, and Lévi-Strauss saw myths as abstract constructions instead of narratives or symbols of experience (Rosenberg, 1994). The diversity of myth’s purpose and function, therefore, makes studying it both a complex but a potentially very rewarding endeavor. Myth gives meaning to our lives, relationships, and communities, and by understanding it we can better understand the world around us. At the heart of myth lies the role of language to create symbolically and socially constructed meaning. This rhetorical viewpoint of myth emphasizes the struggle over symbols to 1 create meaning, as well as the ability for the meanings of the symbols to change. Discourse serves as a way to structure myth and works to recycle and reinscribe the myth. Custodians of myths impose a rhetorical frame on events and constantly reinscribe the major components of the relevant myth. Myths, therefore, can become highly coherent and powerful pieces of ideo-topoi and when employed through this frame, myths serve as symbolic action. This study looks at an institution in crisis. American sport is currently struggling to withstand the widespread use of steroids and how their use turns athletes as mythical heroes into cheaters. Institutions are based on guiding standards and presumptions, but in crisis, institutions may be forced to change their core justifications and the guiding social myth that legitimizes and sustains them. For example, American agriculture was long sustained by the myth of the yeoman farmer as the ideal citizen. Jefferson and other founders of the Republic taught that the farmer had a stronger sense of responsibility and morality than city dwellers or wage workers and that the Republic could only be sustained by a large