Posted on 03/11/2009 8:56:05 AM PDT by AreaMan
How Soccer is Ruining America: A Jeremiad
Soccer is running America into the ground, and there is very little anyone can do about it. Social critics have long observed that we live in a therapeutic society that treats young people as if they can do no wrong. Every kid is a winner, and nobody is ever left behind, no matter how many times they watch the ball going the other way. Whether the dumbing down of America or soccer came first is hard to say, but soccer is clearly an important means by which American energy, drive, and competitiveness is being undermined to the point of no return.
What other game, to put it bluntly, is so boring to watch? (Bowling and golf come to mind, but the sound of crashing pins and the sight of the well-attired strolling on perfectly kept greens are at least inherently pleasurable activities.) The linear, two-dimensional action of soccer is like the rocking of a boat but without any storm and while the boat has not even left the dock. Think of two posses pursuing their prey in opposite directions without any bullets in their guns. Soccer is the fluoridation of the American sporting scene.
For those who think I jest, let me put forth four points, which is more points than most fans will see in a week of games—and more points than most soccer players have scored since their pee-wee days.
1) Any sport that limits you to using your feet, with the occasional bang of the head, has something very wrong with it. Indeed, soccer is a liberal’s dream of tragedy: It creates an egalitarian playing field by rigorously enforcing a uniform disability. Anthropologists commonly define man according to his use of hands. We have the thumb, an opposable digit that God gave us to distinguish us from animals that walk on all fours. The thumb lets us do things like throw baseballs and fold our hands in prayer. We can even talk with our hands. Have you ever seen a deaf person trying to talk with their feet? When you are really angry and acting like an animal, you kick out with your feet. Only fools punch a wall with their hands. The Iraqi who threw his shoes at President Bush was following his primordial instincts. Showing someone your feet, or sticking your shoes in someone’s face, is the ultimate sign of disrespect. Do kids ever say, “Trick or Treat, smell my hands”? Did Jesus wash his disciples’ hands at the Last Supper? No, hands are divine (they are one of the body parts most frequently attributed to God), while feet are in need of redemption. In all the portraits of God’s wrath, never once is he pictured as wanting to step on us or kick us; he does not stoop that low.
2) Sporting should be about breaking kids down before you start building them up. Take baseball, for example. When I was a kid, baseball was the most popular sport precisely because it was so demanding. Even its language was intimidating, with bases, bats, strikes, and outs. Striding up to the plate gave each of us a chance to act like we were starring in a Western movie, and tapping the bat to the plate gave us our first experience with inventing self-indulgent personal rituals. The boy chosen to be the pitcher was inevitably the first kid on the team to reach puberty, and he threw a hard ball right at you.
Thus, you had to face the fear of disfigurement as well as the statistical probability of striking out. The spectacle of your failure was so public that it was like having all of your friends invited to your home to watch your dad forcing you to eat your vegetables. We also spent a lot of time in the outfield chanting, “Hey batter batter!” as if we were Buddhist monks on steroids. Our chanting was compensatory behavior, a way of making the time go by, which is surely why at soccer games today it is the parents who do all of the yelling.
3) Everyone knows that soccer is a foreign invasion, but few people know exactly what is wrong with that. More than having to do with its origin, soccer is a European sport because it is all about death and despair. Americans would never invent a sport where the better you get the less you score. Even the way most games end, in sudden death, suggests something of an old-fashioned duel. How could anyone enjoy a game where so much energy results in so little advantage, and which typically ends with a penalty kick out, as if it is the audience that needs to be put out of its misery. Shootouts are such an anticlimax to the game and are so unpredictable that the teams might as well flip a coin to see who wins—indeed, they might as well flip the coin before the game, and not play at all.
4) And then there is the question of gender. I know my daughter will kick me when she reads this, but soccer is a game for girls. Girls are too smart to waste an entire day playing baseball, and they do not have the bloodlust for football. Soccer penalizes shoving and burns countless calories, and the margins of victory are almost always too narrow to afford any gloating. As a display of nearly death-defying stamina, soccer mimics the paradigmatic feminine experience of childbirth more than the masculine business of destroying your opponent with insurmountable power.
Let me conclude on a note of despair appropriate to my topic. There is no way to run away from soccer, if only because it is a sport all about running. It is as relentless as it is easy, and it is as tiring to play as it is tedious to watch. The real tragedy is that soccer is a foreign invasion, but it is not a plot to overthrow America. For those inclined toward paranoia, it would be easy to blame soccer’s success on the political left, which, after all, worked for years to bring European decadence and despair to America. The left tried to make existentialism, Marxism, post-structuralism, and deconstructionism fashionable in order to weaken the clarity, pragmatism, and drive of American culture. What the left could not accomplish through these intellectual fads, one might suspect, they are trying to accomplish through sport.
Yet this suspicion would be mistaken. Soccer is of foreign origin, that is certainly true, but its promotion and implementation are thoroughly domestic. Soccer is a self-inflicted wound. Americans have nobody to blame but themselves. Conservative suburban families, the backbone of America, have turned to soccer in droves. Baseball is too intimidating, football too brutal, and basketball takes too much time to develop the required skills. American parents in the past several decades are overworked and exhausted, but their children are overweight and neglected. Soccer is the perfect antidote to television and video games. It forces kids to run and run, and everyone can play their role, no matter how minor or irrelevant to the game. Soccer and relevision are the peanut butter and jelly of parenting.
I should know. I am an overworked teacher, with books to read and books to write, and before I put in a video for the kids to watch while I work in the evenings, they need to have spent some of their energy. Otherwise, they want to play with me! Last year all three of my kids were on three different soccer teams at the same time. My daughter is on a traveling team, and she is quite good. I had to sign a form that said, among other things, I would not do anything embarrassing to her or the team during the game. I told the coach I could not sign it. She was perplexed and worried. “Why not,” she asked? “Are you one of those parents who yells at their kids? “Not at all,” I replied, “I read books on the sidelines during the game, and this embarrasses my daughter to no end.” That is my one way of protesting the rise of this pitiful sport. Nonetheless, I must say that my kids and I come home from a soccer game a very happy family.
Stephen H. Webb is a professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College. His recent books include American Providence and Taking Religion to School.
Also I think that in football, both college and pro, an overtime win, should not count the same as a regulation win.
I like the point balance in that, but I don’t like losses getting points (I believe a loss is a loss), and it would add another column to the standings chart. It would help keep teams from tanking the last 5 minutes though, as they’d now be losing a possible point.
True, sometimes two good teams get to a tie. But at some point you just have to call it. Especially for “regular” games (not playoffs). I mean I love a quintuple OT NHL playoff game, I especially love them because I’m on pacific time by the time the playoffs start and I can watch a 5 OT game and still get to bed by midnight if it’s an east coast game. But part of what makes them cool is that they are a playoff thing. If regular season games could go into 5 OTs it would get dull, and that dullness would reflect on the playoff marathon games.
Regular season games should be able to end in a tie. Get it over with, it’s just a regular season game, most sports have too many of them anyway.
Yes, no football on my list so far—my oldest boy is only 12 so that option hasn’t really entered our lives yet.
I don’t think it ever will as they are all skinny.
I have uncles who’ve played rugby; now there’s a sport!
I forgot swimming—like golf and tennis, very useful one’s whole life, even when elderly.
Well in the NFL they kind of don’t. Because NFL standings so frequently go to tie-breakers, and point differential is part of the tie-breaker system, and OT wins have a limit to the point differential (usually 3, sometimes 6), there is some level of reward for winning in regulation. Sort of.
ROTFL, now that sounds like a sport.
That’s an excellent business case for the tie regular season game, but it hinges on the notion that what’s REALLY important is the meta-game, not the game itself.
I think playing each game to a decision is more logically coherent in terms of game theory, if not always the best business theory.
Your mileage may vary.
Can Arsenal now make it 4 out of the final 8 in the Champions League for the EPL? Going to extra time in Rome.
What we really need are more soccer wars where 3rd world nations go to war over soccer disputes. Would cut down on the illegal immigration
The soccer war between el salvador and honduras
I don’t think it’s just a business case. OT is often times not exciting. Ties are a decision, it’s a decision that the two teams on that day were equal.
I played Little League in the 60s and 70s....Dixie Youth...it was hardcore.
now Cal Ripken league is soft
All the way to penalties, huh? But, by golly, they did it!
It’ll be interesting to see how the draw plays out.
I don't know about that. Let's see: "the two of you played to a draw, so now we flip a coin . . . and the winner of the coinflip will be the overwhelming favorite to win."
I don't know... in the end we all up dead, that's pretty much the ultimate clock-ruled game.
In der Beschraenkung zeigt sich erst der Meister, Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben. (The master proves himself in limitation. And it is the law that can provide us with freedom) -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Why use a ball, anyway? Why not just fight it out with our fists.
We can even talk with our hands. Have you ever seen a deaf person trying to talk with their feet? When you are really angry and acting like an animal, you kick out with your feet. Only fools punch a wall with their hands. The Iraqi who threw his shoes at President Bush was following his primordial instincts. Showing someone your feet, or sticking your shoes in someone’s face, is the ultimate sign of disrespect. Do kids ever say, “Trick or Treat, smell my hands”? Did Jesus wash his disciples’ hands at the Last Supper? No, hands are divine (they are one of the body parts most frequently attributed to God), while feet are in need of redemption. In all the portraits of God’s wrath, never once is he pictured as wanting to step on us or kick us; he does not stoop that low.
This guy has got a real foot fetish. Or anti-foot fetish.
I actually don't think he's wrong. Soccer does make for a different America than football does.
But there is such a thing as being over the top, and a lot of polemicists do undercut their argument by going too far.
Did Soccer ruin Britain? It sounds like it gives the Brits and opportunity to get out the same aggressions that other countries do with rugby or hockey or American football.
The clock doesn’t rule the life of anyone not trapped in a film-noir remake:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.O.A._(1950_film)
Most of us die when we give up, not the other way around.
Yep, this is where the Champions League really gets good.
Final Eight:
Arsenal
Liverpool
Man Utd
Chelsea
Bayern Munich
Barcelona
Porto
Villareal
Football is a man’s sport,rugby is a crazy man’s sport. If they are skinny and slow,then football is not for them. Try wrestling or karate.
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