“I honestly think to this day that Brian believes that that’s who he became when he went on the field.” These are the words of Sean McDermott, a former defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles, who coached safety Brian Dawkins. Dawkins is a hall of famer and one of the best defensive football players of all time, but some might say that it wasn’t him who achieved legendary status, but rather Weapon X. Weapon X was a nickname given to Dawkins, not only for his hard hitting and brutal playstyle, but also for his gametime persona. Dawkins was known for transforming on game day into an entirely different personality. Rather than running out of the tunnel, like most players, he would crawl out like a bear, periodically pausing to bang his hands on the ground. In his essay entitled It, performance Studies scholar Joseph Roach writes about the idea of transforming into another personality when it’s time to perform in the context of theater and acting: “Theatrical performance is the simultaneous experience of mutually exclusive possibilities—truth and illusion, presence and absence, face and mask. Performers are none other than themselves doing a job in which they are always someone else, filling our field of vision with the flesh-and-blood matter of what can only be imagined to exist.” Joseph Roach asserts that this quality gives performers a mysterious allure that he calls “It”; in online circles, the same concept is applied to sports, but “It” goes by a different name: “aura.”
Brian Dawkins, with the theatrics of his transformation into Weapon X, has a sort of aura that I like to call “brute aura.” Athletes with this brute aura are most commonly found in high contact sports, which involve at least some measure of violence. They give off a feeling of danger, and the audience fears them at least a little bit. Alex Pereira, the UFC light-heavyweight champion, is another athlete who, like Brian Dawkins, has brute aura. He is a man of few words, often appearing emotionless in interviews, and he is an incredibly powerful fighter, known for knocking out his opponents. He looks and acts like someone dangerous, and he proves that he is dangerous when he fights. These athletes with brute aura represent a sort of animalistic essence. They have a feeling of primitive violence around them. They draw audiences in by pushing them away. People would be terrified of them in real life, but are fascinated by them with the distance of viewership.
Sergio Ramos is a soccer player known for his aggressive and violent conduct on the field. From his playing style, one would assume that he has brute aura. In reality, though, he combines brute aura with a different kind of feeling, which I call smooth aura. Smooth aura is the other end of the spectrum from brute aura. It has a sophisticated and controlled feeling to it. Sergio Ramos plays very aggressively, but he is also very adept at ball handling and very good looking, which gives him smooth aura. Another soccer player with smooth aura is Paolo Maldini, who was renowned as a center back for snuffing out attacks before they even started. He is know for saying, “if I have to make a tackle then I have already made a mistake,” demonstrating the level of control he exerted as a player. In addition to his skillful play, he, too, was exceptionally good looking, and this combination of looks and graceful play is what gives athletes smooth aura. Smooth aura can also be gained through the way that an athlete talks in interviews. Muhammad Ali, though he was a powerful fighter, had smooth aura because of his witty talk outside of the ring, and his intelligent fighting inside of it. He famously defeated George Foreman, who had more of a brute aura, through his clever rope-a-dope strategy, demonstrating the control and poise essential to smooth aura.
Brute and smooth aura are not binary types, but rather the two poles of a spectrum. Many athletes with aura fall somewhere in between. Soccer legend Zlatan Ibrahimovic is one example. He is a very large and powerful man, standing at 6 '5 with a muscular build, and he has been known to lose his temper at times. However, when he had his emotions under control, he was an incredibly graceful and skilled player, known for acrobatic finishes. He also had an air of confidence about him that showed everytime he was interviewed. He knew that he was a great player, and he was not afraid to talk about it. His appearance and physical attributes gave him a brute feel, but the way he scored goals and talked to the media had a smooth quality. He falls on the spectrum between the two extremes.
Aura comes from the feeling or essence that fans perceive in particular athletes. This is just a perception, and it isn’t necessarily true to the actual personalities of these individuals. Alex Pereira is perceived as a complete brute, void of all feelings, but there is a video of him cutting the hair of a young fan with cancer, where he sheds tears of compassion for the fan and his family. He is not just the brute that fans perceive. Muhammad Ali, in spite of his smooth aura, could be vindictive, violent, and uncontrolled. In 1971, in the buildup to his first fight against Joe Frazier, he gravely insulted his former friend, calling him an Uncle Tom. However, he couldn’t back up his words in the ring, as Frazier won the fight by unanimous decision. This shows that despite Ali’s poise, intelligence, and seeming control he too could get angry, lose control, and lose a fight. Many athlete’s with a smooth aura seem like they’re unable to be provoked and are always in complete control. They seem almost infallible, but this is of course just a perception.
Sports in general, much like aura, have a blend between brute and smooth aspects. On the brute side, athletes are using all of their meticulously trained physical capabilities to defeat an opponent. However, on the smooth side, sports are very structured games with strict rules, and athletes need to finely tune their ability to succeed within those rules. The brutal side of sports is like war, whereas the smooth side is much more like art. Sports are a mix between these two sides, requiring primitive physical might as well advanced skill and intelligence. This is why athletes with these two types of aura enthrall us. They seem to go beyond the human beings they are to become an embodiment of the game they play.