Fighting Feelings

The Emotional Labor of “Old Heads” in an Amateur Boxing Gym

Bibliographic Data

ID2363372
AuthorsJeffrey O Sacha (University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume60
Issue1
Pages77-94
Publication date2017-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0731-1214 • E-ISSN: 1533-8673
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0731121415596083
OpenAlexW2343067420
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited36

This article explores the mentorship of low-income young men of color by examining amateur boxing coaches and the training techniques that they use. Studying both the actions and the intentions of boxing coaches offers insights into the increasingly rare experience of adult male mentorship for low-income young men of color. Data for this article come from a 13-month ethnographic study of a South Los Angeles boxing gym and in-depth interviews with the gym's boxing coaches. This article explores two aspects of the training process from the coach's point of view: the creation and enforcement of rules to differentiate the boxing gym from 'the street' and the use of 'emotional regimens' in training. The coaches in this study acted as 'old head' mentors for their fighters and used emotional regimens to encourage a particular form of masculinity with their amateur boxers that simultaneously embraced and forbade certain expressions of 'street' masculinity

Amateur · Emotional labor · Ethnography · Feeling · Masculinity · Medical education · Mentorship · Political science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Medicine · Physical Education and Pedagogy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sport Psychology and Performance · Sports, Gender, and Society

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