This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Dr. Troy Kickler, Director of the North Carolina History Project.
RALEIGH — On Sunday, The Netherlands will play Spain for the 2010 World Cup Championship. Among friends, I predicted that the talented Dutch would be in that game. (Why it’s a surprise for many, I have no idea.) But admittedly, my tournament interest waned when the United States lost to Ghana; my country and emotional favorite was out of the tourney.
Many others could have cared less, though. Apathy among many American sports fans is understandable, I guess. But I can’t grasp why some denounced Americans who play the “beautiful game”— especially those on the World Cup team who represent the decriers’ country. I don’t care about marathon running, baseball, or curling (except for the cool pants that the Norwegian team wears), but I avoid disparaging the athletes and wish the U.S. teams success in competitions.
I have heard and read wisecracks since the World Cup started: Soccer isn’t a real sport. The game isn’t exciting; it’s boring and sleep-inducing. Why run around for 90 minutes to score only one goal? And the ultimate yet unwitting admission of sporting ignorance and prejudice: Soccer players lack the athletic ability to play baseball, basketball, or football. (I should offer full disclosure: I enjoy soccer and used to play it competitively, and my family has played the game competitively and for recreation — in America — since the 1920s.)
Another criticism is that only rich or upper middle-class suburban kids play soccer. There are plenty of those, true. But that’s a myopic view of the crowd and the players that ironically reveals that the critic is a member of the socioeconomic group he criticizes. The sport is cheap to play, and so it’s popular among the poor. Among private schools with limited budgets, it’s offered, instead of football, as the primary fall sport.
And consider Clint Dempsey, a Southern boy from Nacogdoches, Texas, who lived in a trailer and learned soccer in the back yard. His parents started driving him to Dallas so he could learn more sophisticated play. Eventually his family couldn’t afford to pay for the travel and for his sister’s promising tennis career. Dempsey’s sister suffered an aneurism at 16 and died. All attention then turned to Clint’s desire to play soccer. He now is fulfilling his childhood dream. He plays professionally in England and represents America on the biggest sporting stage.
I’ve heard more serious criticisms concerning American soccer and World Cup 2010. Here are a few: It’s only popular in the United States due to recent immigration, and the World Cup is evidence of the weakening and Europeanization of America. Or it’s an attempt to break down all national barriers and create One World. Such talk leads one to think that rejecting soccer is a patriotic act — an America without soccer is a nation without problems.
A couple World Cup commercials, true, promote a fuzzy-postmodern-multicultural-global brotherhood. After watching numerous games, however, I think the World Cup has another effect. Fans and players of various professional teams unite for a common purpose — to challenge the world to beat them in their beloved game. At that moment, one’s country and one’s people are all that’s important.
Please tell me another sport in which Americans wave large American flags, wear red, white, and blue, and dress like Uncle Sam or some of the Founding Fathers. Tell me another sport in which one can hear American fans, arm in arm, booming patriotic chants, or see them crying when the national anthem is played or when an incompetent ref overlooks fouls and disallows an obvious goal. Tell me another sport in which advertisers try to appeal to the audience by including Revolutionary War soldiers, “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, and George Washington driving a Challenger to face the British.
Indeed, this year’s World Cup offered some teachable moments for Americans desperately in need of some education. What other sport hearkens back to the Founding Era or has indirect references to federalism? The U.S. Soccer Team has two slogans: “Don’t Tread on Me” [because we are] “Fifty States, One Team.”
Although I’ll be watching The Netherlands/Spain game, I will be wondering “what if” and looking forward to watching the U.S. play in the next World Cup. With or without the support of their countrymen, Uncle Sam’s Army and The Boys in Blue will be ready to challenge the world and maybe remind Americans who we are.