A Swing, A Pivot, A Self
By Emmanuel Ehi Echoga | On detours, identity, and finding strength in softness, through the lens of Happy Gilmore.
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| Seeking Veritas Columnist | | Sankarsingh-Gonsalves Productions
Laughing My Way Into a Lesson
Back in 2018, I was on a quiet little mission watching every Adam Sandler movie I could find on IMDb. At the time, I didn’t know why I felt pulled to his films. They weren’t perfect, but they were something. Loud, unfiltered, ridiculous, yet weirdly comforting. They made me laugh when I didn’t feel like laughing, and maybe that’s what I needed most then.
I think I was looking for something that felt like home. Not a physical place, but a version of myself that didn’t have to try so hard to “become”. Sandler’s characters didn’t try to become anything. They already were. Messy. Misunderstood. But real.
That’s what made Happy Gilmore hit different on a recent rewatch. It’s the kind of movie you think you remember: just a wild hockey player somehow becoming a golf star. But watching it again now, after moving across continents and pivoting dreams more than once, I saw it for what it really is: a story about letting go of the life you thought you needed so you can discover the one that fits.
And maybe, just maybe, that's what this Substack is about too.
The Sandler Archetype: Rough Shell, Soft Core
There’s something consistent about the men Adam Sandler plays. They’re often angry, awkward, emotionally stunted, but underneath, they’re full of love. They’re the type who’ll punch a guy in the face for disrespecting their mom and then quietly fix the kitchen sink without saying a word. They don’t always know how to say “I care,” but they’ll show it in the strangest, most beautiful ways.
Think Big Daddy, where a man-child becomes a dad by accident and ends up loving more honestly than anyone expected. Or Click, where a career-obsessed father learns, too late, that time is the only thing you can’t get back. Or even Uncut Gems, chaotic and nerve-wracking as it is, where Sandler plays a man who’s addicted to risk, but beneath all the noise is just someone trying to win, to matter.
That duality, rage and softness, feels real to me. Feels... masculine in a way that doesn’t always get shown. Growing up, I was taught that being a man meant being composed, being strong, being something. But Sandler’s characters remind me that it’s okay to be loud, to be confused, to have too much heart. That you can be messy and still be worthy. That love doesn’t always look like a grand gesture, sometimes it’s just staying in the room when it would be easier to leave.
Watching Happy Gilmore now feels like watching an old friend who reminds you who you really are. Not the polished version. The real one. The one who’s been trying to find his swing all along.
Happy Gilmore’s Pivot as a Mirror of Growth
Happy never really wanted to play golf. He wanted to play hockey. That was the dream. That was the plan. He wasn’t just passionate about it, he was obsessed, determined, loyal to a fault. Even when it was obvious he didn’t quite have what it took to make it in the NHL, he held on. Because what else do you do when your dream starts to define you?
But life, as it tends to do, reroutes him. And not gently.
Suddenly, golf, a sport he mocked, a world he didn’t belong to-becomes his new reality. It’s not graceful, not clean, and certainly not natural. His swing is violent. His attitude is off. He breaks rules, gets booed, pisses off the system. But somehow… it works.
And what struck me this time is why it works: because he brings all of himself to the course. His wildness. His edge. His grief. His hunger. He doesn’t become a golfer in the traditional sense, he makes the sport bend around who he is. And that? That’s the pivot that feels holy.
I’ve felt that many times in my own life. Wanting so badly for a plan to work. Putting everything into one version of success. Then suddenly finding myself on a path I didn’t plan, but not entirely lost either. Just… rerouted.
What Happy Gilmore reminds me is that pivoting doesn’t mean failure. It means you’re listening. It means you’re adapting without abandoning who you are. And sometimes the things that seem like distractions—like strange swings or strange cities—are actually directions. Better ones.
Manhood, Bullying, and Belonging
One thing I’ve always noticed—maybe even admired quietly—is how Adam Sandler’s characters always stand up to bullies.
Not just the cartoonish ones who shove people in lockers, but the deeper bullies. The systems. The snobs. The people who make you feel like you don’t belong just because you’re different.
In Billy Madison, it’s the cold, classist school administrators.
In The Waterboy, it’s the ones who mock what they don’t understand.
In Happy Gilmore, it’s Shooter McGavin, the gatekeeper of a world Gilmore was never supposed to enter.
Sandler always shows up. Loud, awkward, emotional, but he shows up. And he doesn’t always win cleanly, but he wins his way. That left something in me. Something I couldn’t name then. Something that taught me manhood wasn’t about dominance or silence, it was about knowing when to protect the parts of yourself that others might call “too much.”
Growing up Nigerian, especially as a man, there's a silent curriculum of who you’re supposed to be. Strong, rational, composed. But life, pain, migration, grief, they don’t move in straight lines. And I’ve learned that real strength is sometimes just staying in the room with your feelings long enough to name them.
Sandler’s characters helped me feel less strange about that. Like maybe my softness wasn’t a weakness, but a compass. Maybe being misunderstood at first doesn’t mean you’re wrong, it just means you’re early.
To the Ones in Between
This column, Cultural Echoes, will be a place for all of that.
The pivots. The detours. The loud moments and the quiet ones. It will be a space where stories speak across continents, and where reflection isn’t a luxury, it’s a form of resistance.
If you're someone who’s ever had to start over, who’s been told to toughen up, who feels like you're too much or not enough, I hope this space reminds you that being in-between doesn’t mean being lost.
It means you’re still in motion.
Still discovering your swing.
Still allowed to be a little rough, a little soft, and fully, unapologetically you.
Poem - (Excerpt from Inbetween Worlds by Emmanuel Echoga)
“If every step leads to an untimely death
I will walk, for the hope of you
If every memory morphs into regret
I’ll make more, I will not lose you
If every night begets loneliness
I’ll cry, but smile too
And if each time I write I am left with less
Then I’ll give you a whole book
Because I long for the emptiness.”
— The Inbetween One
6:16 AM | 10/01/2020
About the Author: Emmanuel Ehi Echoga is a Nigerian writer, storyteller, and podcast host. He is the founder of Echo Culture, a creative hub exploring how storytelling in gaming, music, and film can shift perspectives and bridge cultures. | Echoga is the author of Inbetween Worlds
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