Read Shakespeare, Joyce. Look at Homer, Tolkien. The list goes on. Men love singing together, especially before and after battle. Especially in times of victory. Try C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett. Madeline L’Engle, too, if you don’t believe me. Why does every college have a “fight” song? When I strapped on my helmet, I wanted in on that action.  

Troops stopped singing their way into battle after World War I, but song remains in the hearts of men too bashful or ashamed to be witnessed hitting some notes. They still teach songs to new recruits because song conditions. It unites a group of people from all walks of life. No organization wants to emulate military operations more than a football team. 

In middle school, music class was mandatory, and I wanted to join the chorus. My sister told me that if I did, everyone would think I’m gay. Guys don’t sing like that. Even today, the women I work with sing little tunes at their desks in between calls. In the moment, it feels audacious, like they’re passing a mic and skipping my turn. When I take a deep breath and really think about it, I feel their courage and my own fear. 

I’ve been big since I was young. People told me for years that I should play football, just like my dad. After failing at nearly every other sport, like soccer, baseball, basketball, even golf, I decided to give it a chance. Football fields were more welcoming than most other spaces, including the choir room. I played trumpet instead of singing, an instrument that’s masculine, yet melodic. 

Stigma made me too afraid to sing even at church, despite my dad having no problem doing it while he still had a voice. It’s weird, and a little confusing, that men are only allowed to sing in certain circumstances and settings.  

As a football guy from middle school through college, I was taught plenty of cadence calls, but never any official or unofficial songs. That didn’t stop my teammates and me from singing when we got the chance. In high school, this was on the bus home from away games, but only ones we won. Bus rides home after losing were expected to be silent, reflective, and sad. I always made sure we got classics in, like “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which was spoofed on Family Guy early in my high school career, and “Livin’ on a Prayer,” especially in the middle of the season. 

No one on my team would have wanted to sing along to my favorite songs at the time, like “Falling Down” by Story of the Year or Brand New’s “Soco Amaretto Lime.” Instead, we would sing more mainstream stuff like Eminem and songs from Stadium Arcadium. Somehow, everyone on my team knew every verse to “Colt 45,” and I wonder what I was doing while they all learned that one Afroman song. 

In college, the only time we sang on the bus was “Country Roads” after winning a game in West Virginia. We sang more at keg parties. Lots of R. Kelly, unfortunately, but also Enrique Iglesias and that one KC & Jojo song. Billy Joel so much that, these days, I can’t hear “Piano Man” without cringing at how we belted it while walking to the bars. Always “Don’t Stop Believin’” even after Glee turned it into something new. 

We played Wabash College, an all-boys school that always had a nationally ranked football team, every year. After each victory, the team would raise their helmets in the air, face their stands, and sing their school song. Even on our field. You’d think we’d try to replicate that energy, but no, singing was “gay.”

Oddly enough, the one occasion where we were instructed to sing was our weekly “National Anthem Drill.” The day before every game, during our light practice, we rehearsed our presence for that song written by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s older relative. We weren’t allowed to sing before the game, but we’d all stand with the same foot touching the sideline, facing the flag, and tuck our helmets underneath the left armpit. 

To practice this ritual, the head coach selected one person from the team to sing the final notes of the song: “and the home of the brave.” I was selected to do this twice. The first time, I stopped singing after “and the home,” and just said “of the brave” in my normal speaking tone. Everyone booed. It was the only way I could push back, and that wasn’t funny to them. Comedy is a weapon, as are songs. The second time, I just said the words loudly, slightly elongated, but I wasn’t really singing. Thunderous applause. 

After college, I started coaching at my high school under one of my position coaches, who kept the “National Anthem Drill” going. I joined the same year as two other guys I played with. When selecting players to sing, we’d try to pick guys who had good weeks at practice, the stars of the team. Looking back, I realized that my high school coaches chose the nerdier, weirder guys. Having the leaders of the team sing looked humbling, but it only made their followers cheer harder.

In high school, community members praised us for being so neat during the anthem. Unlike other teams, which were fixing their pads, leaving helmets on, going over strategy with coaches, picking their butts. It was only a few years after 9/11. I liked that we made people happy, but these days I’m more likely to celebrate a player for taking a knee during the anthem than being proper for it.

Turning on the TV recently, I saw a Doritos commercial where a bunch of NFL players sang an Olivia Rodrigo song. It made me sad the first time I watched it. I nearly shed tears. To see these men, who didn’t play for the same team but who still shared the kinship of sweat and blood shed to become professional players, made me want to be back on the bus singing with my bros. Even to the Afroman song I didn’t know all the words to. 

Singing is a technique some therapists use with their clients. There’s plenty of research to back that singing can be great after traumatic events. Since we bashed each other’s brains in daily, like hammerhead sharks if they actually used their heads as the tools they resembled, we really should have been singing together more often. It worked for Wabash. 

Warming the stomach, our “second brain,” with your mouth and bringing those vibrations up to the throat and mouth—is there anything better? Doing it with others, of course. Winning something with twenty of your friends, a hundred of your teammates, or any group, really, then singing so loud that no one cares how good or bad you sound. Music loud enough so you can’t hear either way. The air in my lungs is colder when I sing by myself. 

There are ways to assuage this. I could go to a karaoke night or navigate a different problematic boys club like my local Gay Men’s Chorus, but there was something special about singing with my bros. The back half of a bus singing a song together felt like more than enough. But there’s more to it than that. 

Looking back at my football memories feels like a game of “corrupt wishes.” If I stare at a memory long enough, bad details taint even the best moments: we won games but lost players to injury. Old coaches who I thought taught me how to be a man now vote for people who want my friends and loved ones erased. The teammates who didn’t stay in touch with me as I was coming out. 

Football movies rarely show what happens after that final game, let alone a decade after coaching it and 20 years after playing it. These days, I can’t do much without hurting my back, but  I’ve been going to more concerts than ever. I try not to sing too loud, to remember that this is a show for everyone and not just me. But when those gang vocal moments hit, or the singer points the mic at the crowd? I know I can do anything. Anything. In the slight chance that I can’t, I know that being there, still standing, still singing, I’ve already won.

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Eric P. Mueller lives in Oakland, CA, where he plays way too much Tetris. He often tempts himself by looking at pictures of St. Bernard puppies and places he’s never been to but would like to visit someday. His essays and reviews have appeared in Under The Gum Tree, 14 Hills, Foglifter, Stone of Madness, Dunes Review, The Ignatian, Talking River, Vagabond City Lit, BULL., The Ana, RFD Magazine, Gold Man Review, Pyre Magazine, Boudin, and elsewhere.