Manly men can wear cleats and dance shoes

Philadelphia Inquirer, The, August, 2006 by Annette John-Hall

Who's the man? Come fall, he is certainly the gridiron god, the fleet-footed playmaker or the bone-crushing hit man whose respect quotient rises in proportion to just how badly he can jack up his opponent. Football players are manly men, all right, at least in a conventional military sense. The team forms the platoon; the athletes march onto the field like soldiers, led by their field-general quarterback.

With the image of a menacing, padded footballer as a masculine ideal, you can imagine my intrigue with what has become an unlikely showcase for some notable manly men - ABC's reality hit Dancing With the Stars. First, it was boxer Evander Holyfield gamely stepping on the dance floor in Season One, flat-footed and gawky, but unafraid to try. Then last season there was Jerry...