The most gendering moment of my youth took place in Pop Warner football when I was in 5^th grade. I had played soccer my entire life and had even made in onto the B team when I hit the competitive level. At that time I was larger than most of my peers so I tended to use my size to my advantage. After one game in which I received a red card for a particularly viscous slide tackle, a youth football coach came up to me. He told me that “I was too much of a man to play a sissy sport like soccer” and requested I come out for his football team. These words were exceptionally biting and I quickly agreed to play. When I finally did play football I found these sexist remarks to be more and more common. It was commonplace for the coaches to threaten us with remarks like “a bunch of girls could do better than that.” Unfortunately this intimidation was incredible effective as the coaches were good men and role models. After 7 years of football I truly feel the effects of this manipulation. It instilled in me the morals typical of a 1950’s generation man. I forever saw soccer as a sissy sport and anything “girly” was to be avoided. I still am weighing and attempting to understand the effects of the gendering I received by my football coaches.