IN A GRAINY 22-year-old videotape replayed upon the occasion of the recent death of tennis hustler Bobby Riggs, there was the proof: Only a couple of decades ago, sports people didn't know how to hug.
Hugging in sports has come a long way in the past quarter of a century. Subtly, almost imperceptibly, the renaissance has proceeded like a North Shore wave, engulfing the sports world like Bela Karolyi engulfing Shannon Miller. People used to hug the way Billie Jean King got hugged by Riggs, who placed a patronizing arm around her shoulder after leaping the net at the conclusion of their Battle of the Sexes, looking as comfortable about it as a teenager on a first date at the movies. With the notable exception of Don Larsen jumping into Yogi Berra's arms after Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series - now there was a hug - the first 75 years of the century produced virtually nothing in the way of memorable sports hugs. Stoicism ruled. Sports looked like a convention of Swedes.But then along came the high five, followed by the low five, followed by the publication of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" and athletes, like everybody else, realized there was no longer any need to hide their feelings. Sports stars need self-help too. They too could nurture. Their inner selves should come out.
Now, you're expected to hug. Even if you'd rather not. Now, hockey players hug. If Bobby Riggs leaped the net today, he and Billie Jean would have a real hug.
Even golfers, the most neurotic of athletes, hug these days. Find a tape of a golf tournament, any golf tournament, where the winner doesn't turn around and hug the caddy. They may not even like each other, the golfer and his caddy. But still they hug. It's like a tour rule. By this standard, Ben Hogan, who barely spoke to his caddies, was not born too early. If Hogan was playing today, he'd need to spend a little extra time on the hug range.
More than any other group of athletes, soccer players have elevated hugging into an artform. No matter how, when, where, why, or what the score, after a soccer player makes a goal he will run as far as possible at top speed to find a teammate to hug.
The late Jimmy Valvano is credited with having a lot to do with bringing hugging into vogue when, after his North Carolina State team beat Houston to win the 1983 NCAA basketball championship, he lapped the court searching for someone to hug. A lot of soccer players were watching.
Baseball players are still the sports world's most self-conscious huggers, which explains why, apart from the pitcher-catcher hug after a no-hitter, baseball players prefer the more impersonal group hug, which can actually look - and feel - very much like a brawl. Bench-clearings for hugs have resulted in as many injuries as bench-clearings for brawls. In baseball, hugging is a contact sport. The object is to not get on the bottom of the pile.
The modern athletic expression of feelings reached a zenith of sorts in the NBA Finals of 1987 when Magic Johnson kissed Isiah Thomas. But that didn't catch on. The sports world shrank back after that one, did a collective blanch, reacted as strongly as when Kermit Washington belted Rudy Tomjanovich, and kissing of opponents did not catch on thereafter except among a handful of pairs ice skaters.
Some very visible sports figures who have been swept along by the hugging generation but who came on the scene well before its inception have managed to stay apart from the movement. Bobby Knight, for one example, is one who still prefers to get in touch with his feelings in the old-fashioned style made popular by Ty Cobb. Slamming down press row telephones, throwing chairs, and kicking the occasional team member is an honest expression of feelings too.
But it's not the preferred form of expression any longer. The Bobby Knights of the sports world are dinosaurs. Outrage is out. Sensitive is in. Boorish is out. Roy Firestone is in. It's the '90s. Score a goal and hug somebody.