Op-Ed: Travis Kelce Is the Type of Man That Men and Boys Should Aspire to Be

By: Zachary Draves

As Super Bowl LVIII approaches this Sunday with the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the San Francisco 49ers, the hoopla surrounding the relationship between Chiefs TE Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift has gone into overdrive, if that is even possible. 

(Courtesy: Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

Most rational people have looked at this union and simply think of it as something very cute and sweet made for clicks and likes. Unfortunately there is a loud portion of the population that is completely antagonistic to them that they have gone as far as to say that there is something conspiratorial about it and that the NFL somehow orchestrated the Chiefs path to the Super Bowl or that Taylor Swift is a government psyop concocted by the Pentagon.  

As utterly insane as these claims are and are rightfully being called out by those who live in objective reality, there is something else that hasn’t been talked about and specifically applies to Travis Kelce. 

Kelce possesses all the qualities that society typically expects of men. He is strong, tough, masculine presenting, and plays the ultimate gladiator sport in football. Yet since he started dating Taylor Swift and unleashed a cause celeb that hasn’t been seen since the union between Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, he has been made into less of a man by some. 

(Courtesy: Ryan Kang/Getty Images)

Right wing commentators have called Kelce a “Beta” based on the perception that he is somehow at the mercy of Taylor Swift, hinting that she will eventually “break his heart”, and because he had the audacity to cut a commercial with Pfizer to promote the COVID vaccine. 

All of which is to imply that Kelce isn’t a “real man”. 

However, in a society where the current status of men and boys is precarious with high rates of suicide, addiction, and loneliness, Kelce is exactly the kind of man that men and boys should look at as an exemplar of what a man is supposed to be, because he represents a healthy notion of manhood. 

Lately elements of traditional and digital media has been saturated by the likes of Andrew Tate and other male influencers who embody “toxic masculinity” in which men and boys are conditioned to be invulnerable, materialistic, show no emotion outside of anger, and in the case of someone like Tate, degrade women and girls in more ways than one. 

In the world of professional sports and in the NFL particularly, there has been a rash of incidents of violence against women and girls on the part of players such as Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, Tyreek Hill and others over the past decade that has warranted intense scrutiny over how the lead handles such matters and what type of culture is being promoted. 

So there is an ample desire to promote alternative definitions of manhood that are actually better suited for men’s physical, emotional, and social well-being, because along with such toxicity in the culture, there has been a huge void of positive male role models. 

So therefore, it is incumbent to hype up someone like Kelce as a breath of fresh air to defuse said toxicity. 

(Courtesy: Dustin Satloff / Getty Images)

If anything, he is showing men and boys that to be a man is to be human.

In other words, men can be tough and strong when needed as is the case with Kelce when he plays football. Men can also take the needed precautions to stay healthy as is the case with Kelce when he encourages people to get vaccinated. Men can celebrate the accomplishments of their career oriented female partners and feel secure enough to not be intimidated by that as is the case with, well you know.

Travis Kelce is many things, but a good man is one of them. He is in great company with the likes of Steph Curry, LeBron James, Jalen Hurts, and his beloved brother Jason as prototypes for what constitutes a healthy definition of manhood, which is something that is not only to be celebrated, but something that is desperately needed.

His critics need to calm down and shake it off because it is in their best interest.