Sociology of Sport Journal, 1993, 10, 98-106 O 1993 Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.

Patriotic Symbols in Intercollegiate Sports During the Gulf War: A Research Note

Michael A. Malec Boston College

In the United States, one connection between sport and politics seemed to present itself during the period of the Gulf War. Although the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) normally proscribes the use of patches on team uniforms, the American flag was a prominent addition to the uniform jerseys of many teams, especially after the United States went to war. A questionnaire was mailed to sports information directors at 152 randomly selected colleges and universities. Eighty-seven usable replies were received and analyzed. Results indicate that institutions which adopted the use of a patriotic symbol tended to be members of Division I of the NCAA or made appearances on regional or national television. National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) institutions and NCAA Division II and III institutionsinstitutions that appear infrequently on tele- visioHended not to wear patriotic symbols.

Aux ~ t a t s - ~ n i s , il semble qu'un lien entre le sport et la politique se soit manifest6 lors de la Guerre du Golfe. MCme si l'association sportive universitaire amtricaine NCAA interdit normalement l'utilisation des logos sur les uniformes d'kquipe, le drapeau amtricain a consritut,un ajout rernarqut aux uniformes de plusieurs kquipes, particulitre- ment aprts que les Etats-Unis soient entrks en guerre. Un questionnaire fut postt aux directeurs et directrices d'information sportive d'un tchantillon altatoire de 152 colltges et universitts. Au total, 87 questionnaires valibles furent reGus et analysts. Les rtsultats indiquent que les institutions ayant choisi d'afficher un symbole patriotique ttaient plut6t celles qui ttaient membres de la Division I du NCAA ou celles dont les parties ttaient di f is tes a tklkvision rtgionale ou nationale. Les institutions membres de l'association sportive NAIA et celles appartenant aux divisions II et III du NCAA (institutions dont les kquipes n'apparaissent que peu souvent a la ttlkvision) avaient tendance it ne pas afSicher de symbole patriotique.

Scholars have long noted a connection between sport and other social institutions. One of the more vexing of such connections is that which exists between sport and political values. As a social institution, sport is inherently without a political position. But, like certain other social institutions, sport has a charneleonlike quality (Figler & Whitaker, 1991) that enables it to blend into almost any political landscape. Further, perhaps in part because it provides a common ground on which people from diverse backgrounds can come together

Michael A. Malec is with the Department of Sociology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167.

Patriotic Symbols 99

(Rader, 1977), even for a brief period, sport has the potential to become a vehicle for political and ideological statements. Consequently, sport has been used to glorify regimes that are of the left, center, and right, that are monarchist or republican, democratic or totalitarian. The Nazi Party tried to use the 1936 Olympic Games as a propaganda tool to glorify the master race. Soviet-bloc countries, from 1945 to 1990, avowedly used sport as a manifestation of the superiority of their ideological system. And we in the United States are quick to wrap our sport spectacles in the flag as a way of showing political superiority, as well as staking out a moral claim on key issues. As Hoberman (1984, p. 7) points out, sport is a kind of theatrical performance, but a performance that has dramatic possibilities rarely realized on the stage.

The relationship between sport and politics is not one way, but reciprocal. As often as an individual politician or government uses sport as a propaganda vehicle, sport uses political values, such as patriotism, for its own benefit. J.E. Maslow (quoted in Figler & Whitaker, 1991, p. 257) has summarized this nicely: "As politics have become pervasive, . . . the lines between warfare and propaganda have become smudged. No one can quite define any more where . . . politics leave off and . . . sports competitions begin." Maslow was refemng to the international level, but the quote applies equally well at the national level.

As one example, consider the use of such symbols as a nation's anthem or flag. In January 1991, the National Hockey League (NHL) considered cancel- ling its All-Star Game and the National Football League (NFL) considered post- poning Super Bowl XXV because of the outbreak of war in the Persian Gulf region. Eventually the Super Bowl was played, but the usual spectacle of that game was muted because of the seriousness of the times and was transformed into a display of patriotism and support for the troops. Every one of the 72,000 fans who entered Tampa Stadium that day was given an American flag. Speaking not only of this occasion, but of earlier Super Bowls as well, former Commissioner Pete Rozelle acknowledged "a conscious effort on our part to bring . . . patriotism into the Super Bowl" (Berkow, 1991, p. 6). Here, sport is using the political value of patriotism to enhance itself.

Consider one other related phenomenon of the Gulf War period. As hostili- ties developed, first a few, then, it seemed, virtually all, college basketball teams in the U.S.A. began to wear an American flag patch on their jerseys. It soon . .

seemed to be almost mandatory for every team to wear the patch. There are several possible explanations-which are not mutually exclusive-for this. For many individuals, perhaps most, the patch was a genuine, sincere expression of a strong sense of patriotism in a time of crisis. Others may simply have imitated what a few "opinion leaders" were doing. Some may have responded to a form of peer pressure. A few may have recognized that the war was receiving wide support from the American public and crassly calculated that the flag was a good public relations ploy. Of course, this was not because people had just then discovered patriotism, but because the war emphasized it.

However, the use of the flag sends a message, that "we"-whether the "we" is the individual athlete, or the team, or the institution, or the conference, or the spectators-support the war effort or, at the very least, that "we" support our troops. And although there was initially wide popular support for the war, on many college campuses that support was often tempered. Still, at many institutions someone made a decision to wear the flag, thus giving tacit support

to the "hawk" side of the debate about going to war. An alternative symbol, a yellow ribbon, signifying support for the troops but not necessarily indicating support for the war, was seen only rarely. For classification purposes in this paper, the yellow ribbon will also be considered as a patriotic symbol.

At least one athlete on an American university team declined to wear the flag on the grounds that it symbolized support for a war which he, not an American citizen, could not support in good conscience. Although his teammates and institution respected his decision, he received so much hate mail, abuse, and threats, including threats to his pregnant wife, that he finally felt compelled to leave the team, university, and country, and return to his native land. It is interesting to speculate what response might have been elicited had some major professional sports figures, rather than a relatively unknown college player, decided not to wear the flag. Would Joe Montana or Hakeem Olajuwon have been shunned as was Muhammad Ali 2 decades ago?

Those who attacked this student may have assumed that "everyone" was wearing the flag, that "everyone" did or should support the war effort, and that all athletes should join in the display of patriotism. One purpose of the present study was to determine what proportion of institutions had teams that did actually wear a flag or other war-related symbol. Another was to learn who made the decision to wear (or not wear) the flag, and for what reasons.

Method

A stratified random sample of 152 American colleges and universities was drawn from The 1990-1991 National Directory of College Athletics (National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, 1990). The population was limited to colleges and universities that belonged to either the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) or the National Association of Intercollegiate Ath- letics (NAIA). A three-page questionnaire was mailed to the sports information director (SID) of each institution. Eighty-eight questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 58%.

The questionnaire sought the following information: the affiliation of the institution (i.e., NCAA Division or NAIA); whether the institution's athletic teams had, prior to the war or during the war, worn a flag (or other patriotic) patch; if so, who made the decision to do so, and for what reason; which team was the first to wear a patch; which teams subsequently wore a patch; and whether there were plans to continue the symbolic support in the coming year. The SIDs were also asked to indicate the number of television appearances for their teams, and whether these were local, regional, or national. Finally, additional open- ended reactions to the questionnaire and the issues it raised were solicited.

Results

Who Wore the Flag?

Contrary to my initial personal impressions and contrary to the image that had been created by media reports, a surprisingly large proportion of institutions included in this study (42%) did not wear a patriotic symbol on their team uniforms. However, this statement must be qualified, since one segment of the

Patriotic Symbols 101

sample, NCAA Division I institutions, was extremely strong in its endorsement of patriotism. Ninety-one percent of the Division I institutions had at least one athletic team whose members wore a symbol, compared to 35% of all other institutions (NCAA Divisions I1 and I11 and NAIA). The flag was the symbol of choice for 88% of the institutions that did wear a patch; the remaining 12% wore a yellow ribbon (Table 1).

Which Teams Wore the Flag?

Basketball teams, especially the men's teams, were more likely to wear a patch than any other athletic teams. At the institutions where a patch was worn, it was done so by 80% of the men's basketball teams and by 44% of the women's basketball teams. At only 8% of these institutions was the patch worn by teams other than basketball, and this seemed to be the result of the actions of a single individual (such as a coach who was a military veteran).

Only one other university-level sport, football, receives major television coverage. But because of the timing of the outbreak of the war, and its short duration, no football teams were mentioned. Had the hostilities occurred in August or September, it is highly likely that football teams would have "shown the colors" with a frequency similar to that of basketball. It is important to mention television coverage since, as will be seen, it can be argued that the reason basketball teams, and very few others, wore the flag was due in part to television.

When subjects were classified by gender, a patch was worn only by the men's teams at 48% of the institutions, only by the women's teams at 4% of the institutions, and by both men's and women's teams at 48% of the institutions.

When Did the Flag Appear?

First, some background. In the context of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, it seems that the first sports teams to wear a flag patch as a gesture of support for the troops were the 1990 Major League Baseball World Series participants, Oakland and Cincinnati. Further, the idea to wear the flag came not from the realm of baseball but from a sports marketing firm on behalf of one of

Table 1

Use of Flag by Divisional Affiliation*

NCAA Division I All others Total

Wore a patch n 29 18 47 '70 90.6 34.6 56.0

Did not wear a patch n 3 34 37 '70 9.4 65.4 44.0

Total n 32 52 84 % 38.1 61.9 100.0

Note. Chi-square (Yates') = 22.99. df = 1. Phi = 0.56. ' p < 0.001.

102 Malec

its clients, the United Services Organization (Thomas, 1991). The NFZ, National Basketball Association (NBA), and NHL soon followed suit. The NHL adopted the Canadian as well as the U.S. flag, and at its All-Star Game players wore the United Nations flag-perhaps in necessary recognition of the fact that the League has many players from beyond North America.

In other professional sports, a patriotic symbol seems not to have been widely adopted by the athletes on the Professional Golf Association tour or by professional tennis players. The tack and silks at race tracks did not blossom with red, white, and blue insignia or yellow ribbons. The flag-wearing phenome- non seems to have been located, for the most part, within the team sports and not the individual sports.

The men's basketball team at Louisiana State University was possibly the first college team to wear a patch, on December 7, 1990. The idea to do so came to LSU coach Dale Brown in a letter from a Louisiana serviceman who was on duty in the Gulf (Thomas, 1991). Upper Iowa University, aware of the fact that the bylaws of the NCAA (1990, Article 12.5.4) prohibit the wearing of decorative patches on team uniforms, wrote to the NCAA on December 19, 1990, requesting permission to wear a patch in honor of one of its basketball team's members who had been called to duty in the Gulf. On January 18, 1991, the NCAA sent a memo to all member institutions, advising them, "Because this gesture is patriotic in nature, the American flag may be worn on the game jersey" (NCAA, 1991). At this time, we can only speculate whether the NCAA memo served as a catalyst for the adoption of the flag patch.

Given this background, we asked the institutions in our sample to tell us when they adopted the patch as part of their uniform. The results are reported in Table 2. It is worth noting that the four respondents who claimed that their institutions wore a patriotic patch in the fall of 1990 either are mistaken as to the date of adoption or in fact did adopt a patch considerably before the rest of the country. What is clear is that most institutions that adopted a patch did so at about the time of the NCAA memo.

Why Was the Patch Worn?

Sport sociologists have suggested that sports are intertwined with govern- ment and politics for many reasons, including promoting the prestige of a group or nation, promoting a sense of identity and unity among citizens, emphasizing value orientations consistent with the overall political ideology of a society, and increasing citizens' beliefs in the legitimacy of a government's actions (Coakley, 1990, p. 303). Although this list emphasizes government as the actor, it is understood that the relationship is reciprocal, that sports organizations, such as the United States Olympic Committee, as well as individual athletes, can and do use patriotism as a means to enhance their own interests, as the quote from Pete Rozelle indicates. Psychologist James Bean has suggested that "patriotism in sports is a natural extension of our tribalism" (quoted in Hiestand, 1991, p. lc). Sport can foster a sense of togetherness (or tribalism) among its adherents, and this identity can extend to and embrace other realms, including nationalism and patriotism.

In the present study, an overwhelming proportion of our respondents (89%) stated that their institutions adopted the patch either for reasons of patriotism (1 1%) or as a symbol of support, respect, or appreciation for the troops (78%).

Patriotic Symbols

Table 2

Chronology of Patch Adoptions

Patch adopted f Cum. %

1 990 September-November 4 December 6

1991 January 29 February 6 March 3

Total 48

Some of these latter noted explicitly that their actions were not intended to condone the war. Others stated that the support was at least partly for the students or alumni who were in the Gulf region. Of other reasons offered, a few respondents noted that they were located near military bases or that many people in their communities had relatives in the armed services. From these comments there is some evidence that the decision to wear a patch was both universal ("patriotism") and particular ("our students").

Unfortunately, we did not systematically pursue the question of why at some institutions a decision was made not to wear a patch, or why, perhaps, at some institutions administrators simply chose not to deal with the issue. A few anecdotal replies, however, indicate that at some institutions, especially small institutions, a contributing factor was simply a strain on budgets or available human resources-someone, after all, has to purchase the patches and someone has to sew or iron the patches onto the uniforms. At one institution where a patch was worn, an equipment manager reported concern that it might, when removed, discolor the jersey. Several respondents indicated that although a patch was not worn, other actions, such as a pregame moment of prayer for the troops, were taken.

Who Led the Way?

Given the timing of the outbreak of the Gulf War, it is perhaps not surprising that basketball teams were generally the first on a given campus to wear a patch. In 53% of our cases, the men's basketball team was the first on campus to wear the flag; the women's basketball team was first 13% of the time, and both basketball teams together were first 15% of the time. Teams other than basketball were first 16% of the time. Four percent of our respondents said that all their teams began to wear the patch at the same time.

The temporal priority of men's basketball is further accentuated if one looks at this distribution within levels of organization. Among NCAA Division I institutions, men's basketball teams were the first to wear the flag in 68% of the cases; among all other organizational affiliations, the figure for men's basketball is

25%. One possible reason for this difference might be the effect of television-this will be explored later.

Who Decided?

Most often, it was an official of the athletic department who made the decision for athletes to wear a patch. Forty-eight of our respondents provided information as to who made this decision. The athletes themselves made the decision in 19% of the cases. The athletic director (AD) alone (19%) and head coach alone (19%) were equally frequent decision makers. Athletes were co- decision makers in another 8% of the cases. The remaining instances (35%) were decided by some combination of ADS, coaches, or other university personnel. Stated slightly differently, the athletes themselves had no direct say in the matter in 73% of the institutions. What we do not know here is anything at all about the political backgrounds or values of the decision makers in our sample.

Television as a Factor

Our attention was initially drawn to television as a factor because of the criticism offered by several journalists over what some felt was an excessive display of patriotism at the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is, perhaps more than any other event in sport, a creature of television. Because of the possible connec- tion between sport, television, and patriotism, we also asked our respondents to indicate the number of times that any of their institutions' teams appeared on local, regional, or national television. Of the 78 institutions from which responses to these questions were received, 68% had no local appearances, 62% had no regional appearances, and 76% had no national appearances.

When television appearances are cross-tabulated with whether an institution wore a patch, some interesting suggestions emerge. Chi-square-based measures show that local television appearances are moderately related to wearing the patch (p<.09; phi = .23). Regional (see Table 3) and national TV appearances, however, have significance levels of p<.02 and p<.03, respectively (with phi = .32 and .26, respectively). It is thus clear that institutions that appeared on regional or national TV were much more likely to wear patriotic symbols than institutions that did not appear on such telecasts.

Thus, three variables seem to be interrelated: Wearing a patch can be construed as dependent on both level of organizational affiliation and television exposure. Of course, NCAA Division I institutions are precisely those that are more likely to receive increased TV exposure, especially of the national and regional variety, so the two independent variables are confounded.

Future Plans

Our questionnaire asked whether anything was planned for the 1991-92 academic year to commemorate Operation Desert Storm or its participants. Twen- ty-three percent of the respondents indicated that they had such plans. Most often, it appeared that this commemoration would be some sort of activity at half-time of a football or basketball game. Once again, however, significant differences emerged as a result of level of organizational affiliation and television exposure. With regard to affiliation, 41% of the NCAA-I institutions had plans for an event

Patriotic Symbols

Table 3

Flag Use by Regional Television Appearances*

No TV exposure Some TV exposure Total

Wore a patch n 24 Yo 52.2

Did not wear a patch n 22 Yo 47.8

Total n 46 Yo 60.5

Note. Chi-square (Yates') = 6.40. df = 1. Phi = 0.32. *p < .02.

in 1991-92, compared to 10% of all other institutions. Of those who had received some national television exposure, 50% planned an event for 1991-92 compared to 17% of those that did not receive such exposure.

Conclusion

The great flag-wearing episode of the Gulf War period was a phenomenon that received considerable media coverage and which, our data suggest, may have been partly created by the media. The phenomenon, however, was far from universal among college athletic teams. At 58% of the institutions in our sample some teams wore some sort of patriotic symbol during the Gulf War period, but 42% did not. Most of those that did wear a patch were from the larger institutions that belonged to NCAA Division I and that therefore were more likely to appear on regional and national television. Those with smaller programs (NCAA Divisions I1 and I11 and NAIA institutions), which are less likely to appear on regional or national television, were less likely to wear a patriotic symbol on athletic team uniforms. Thus, size of program and television exposure were two important factors associated with the decision to wear the flag.

Although the instrument used in this study did not allow for in-depth replies, some tentative interpretations of the data can be made. Previous research suggests that male athletes are a bit more conservative than their nonathlete peers, and coaches are more conservative than the athletes-but probably not much more conservative than other adult males. In high school and university settings, coaches, as a group, are probably more conservative than students and other faculty members. Since it seems that most of the decisions to wear a symbolic patch were made by coaches and administrators-not by athletes, and not by the universities as expressive communities-it is perhaps not surprising that the patch was adopted. Once again in the world of sport, a decision with political consequences is made in direct support of the dominant national ideology.

What is more surprising is the disparity between NCAA Division I institu- tions and all others and the apparent effect of television. If it were only conserva- tive administrators who made the decisions, there should be no difference between

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large and small programs, or between those that were and were not on W . We can infer that some dynamic is operating that pushed these schools into patriotic displays which other schools did not feel were necessary. The nature of that dynamic is a subject for future study.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank John Mitrano, Amanda Udis-Kessler, and Jonathan White for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. This is a slightly revised version of a paper presented at the annual meetings of the North American Society for Sport Sociology, Milwaukee, November 1991.