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Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Thoughts while looking in the mirror …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Oh, Sam, how can I muster a reply?
Yes, it must be a World Cup year, since American soccer fans are already being reminded of how elitist and snobbish they are, and to get over themselves. And their silly globalist brand of kickball.
Even very good friends of mine, such as this one, could barely wait for the World Cup draw to be announced to remind us why Americans won’t care about soccer unless the U.S. team wins.
There isn’t one word of Dan’s column I don’t agree with. Especially the line about the U.S. being the “Gonzaga of the World Cup.” That’s why this guy writes books, folks, the latest being “Glory Road,” which you may have heard of. Too bad the U.S. doesn’t have an Adam Morrison. But as we’re going to find out over the next few months, this is a tired old restating of the obvious.
In my dozen or so years of closely following and writing about soccer, I’ve never tried to explain to others what they’re missing, that I think it’s superior sport and that these nativist Yanks are just unenlightened blockheads.
I don’t believe any of that, not at all. I don’t look down on baseball, basketball or American football. NASCAR, that’s another thing. I just like soccer better than any of them, and wear my passion on my sleeve. In this country, it’s an open invitation to ridicule.
What I don’t like is how American sports fans and American sports journalism have been conditioned to reflexively assert that our games are superior, and to mock whatever it sees as exotic or peculiar. We’re seeing it now from NBC, which is drowning in its usual state of myopia at the Winter Olympics. The only non-Yank competitors given any serious play in Turin (Torino?) are the Canadian and European hockey players we’re already familiar with. Like our obsession with “American” sports, the rest of the world just doesn’t matter.
If you don’t believe it, you must not have seen the vapid interview with the halfpiping Son of Carrot Top who won a gold medal in snowboarding. Dude.
As for doings closer to home, yes, Sam, MLS is indeed interested in Atlanta. MLS has always been interested in Atlanta, and from the outset. But according to this account, there are no potential investors lining up, at least those that are willing to be identified. There is no suitable place to play. These factors have been the case virtually all of the time I’ve written about soccer in Atlanta.
There isn’t anything in that article I haven’t heard, or written about before. Except that the WUSA team I covered was the Atlanta Heat all along, and I didn’t know it?
Atlanta needs guys like Gary Stokan, who likes soccer (and was an adidas rep during NASL days) and wants to have a more expansive local sports scene. He even talked once about trying to get the X Games. So I hope someday these efforts pay off, and that what is happening now will be instrumental in landing an MLS franchise here.
But just one question — if local officials really want to woo MLS, why would they take them to a Hawks game?
