REAL MEN DON'T WATCH ICE SKATING

I'm a 90's kind of guy. I don't drive a truck. I don't subscribe to Hustler. I have never chewed tobacco or told my wife to fetch me a beer from the refrigerator. Yet, I won't watch ice skating. I have not become that sensitive. It's time to draw a line in the sand, or on the ice as it may well be.

Like most suburban communities in Atlanta, I am a part of the majority of men who have recognized the independence and equality of women. Here in Peachtree City you are as likely to see a woman on the golf course as a man and you are as likely to race a woman to work in the morning as a man and I think that is just great. But with the arrival of the Winter Olympics, I feel my hands slipping from this icy, open-minded rope.

Ice Skating is not a sport. Downhill Skiing is a sport. Ice Skating is not. The Luge is a sport. Ice Skating is not. This wonderful, yet fragile age of sexual symetry risks a thawing out thanks to the barrage of Ice Skating programs listed as "Saturday Night Sports." combined with its foremost position in the Winter Olympics. I know there are going to be some of those types who go to the bathroom with a support group who are gonna call me sexist. I know I may be exposed as a fraud if I showed my true attitude when instructing the opposite sex on the art of programming a VCR. Yet It's time I was finger-numbingly honest.

Ice Skating is for women. It is not a sport. Ice Skating is like dancing. Sure, there is heavy breathing and movement but, men only show interest in it to please the woman. Recently, I went to one of the Ice Skating "competitions" with my wife. You should have seen the men there. Like me, their interest hardly went past looking for the roving venders to buy some more peanuts. None of us were turning to our wives and saying, "Gee, I wonder where Scott Hamilton shops?"

I am not disputing the fact that ice skaters are athletic. I just don't know what is so competitive about it. It all comes down to who falls and who doesn't. In a man's world, that might just as well be a drinking contest. I don't speak from experience there, as I have never drank but, neither have I ever cried just because a stylist gave me a bad haircut. Maybe I'm being macho because I can open my own jars or my last name never has to change. But, even that withstanding Ice Skating is no sport.

My wife loves Ice Skating. She says the artistry is inspiring. The movements are compelling. The music is beautiful. Yet real sports don't include lace. Real sports don't have the tenderness for boas, frills, plumes and sometimes a kiss at the end. My wife and I have not argued over whether Ice Skating is a sport or not. At home, I still like there to be sometimes a kiss at the end.

In the scheme of things, I don't propose anything change. I am not for getting rid of Ice Skating. Let's just all quit calling it a sport. There are lots of chillier notions out there, like the nightly news or anything to do with Martha Stewart. It's just in these times of coerced honesty and mock integrity, I thought I should break free from my hypocrisy and lay my soul bare. And in some way, I hope that brings me full circle.

Billy Murphy -- 1/26/98