The Sopranos, the football coach and the masculinity spectrum

Or, how men walk the line.

There’s an episode in the first series of The Sopranos, that sprawling great Dickens novel set in turn-of-the-century New Jersey.

“Boca”, the ninth episode of the show, was first screened in March 1999.

Rewatching it recently for the first time in at least 15 years, and with those 15 years of growing towards a greater level of self-awareness and at least some form of maturity as an adult male, this episode struck me forcefully as a commentary of the broad spectrum of what it is to be male, masculine, a man.

It seemed to ask the question — or, at least, this was a question I asked myself after watching: “Where do you, as a man, see yourself on this spectrum?”

Let me explain.

Coach Don Hauser is the coach of the school soccer team of Meadow Soprano, Tony’s daughter.

And Coach Hauser seems to be doing a great job. The girls all seem to love him, and he seems to have crafted a team that’s challenging for competitive honors.

But then Coach Hauser gets head-hunted. An article appears in the newspaper announcing that he’s taking up a job at another school. So Tony Soprano and other members of his mob team of associates get together to hatch a plan to persuade, and when persuasion doesn’t work, coerce Hauser to stay.

So far, so Sopranos.

But here’s where those questions about male behavior, and more than that, the male role in families, societies and civilization itself, come into focus.

Tony and the gang bring Coach Hauser to the Bada Bing bar to celebrate a victory. Bada Bing is no ordinary bar; it’s a daytime strip joint where girls dance on poles and bring men into back rooms for private dances and maybe more.

Coach Hauser (right) with Tony and the boys in Bada Bing

Hauser is visibly uncomfortable in the place, even more so when the prospect of a backroom “dance” is offered, so he makes his excuses and gets out of there.

The first inkling is that here we have two male extremes: on one hand the upstanding, law-abiding coach, inspiring his team to greater efforts and more success on the field, and on the other the organized crime bosses who embrace all the laws of the jungle and do whatever it takes — whatever it takes — to get their way, get ahead and stay ahead.

But soon we realize that all is not as simple as it seems.