Posted on 03/11/2009 8:56:05 AM PDT by AreaMan
I’m in the SF Bay Area, and lacrosse is indeed becoming very popular.
Here’s what I think so far about sports for boys (I have 3, age 12, 10, 6, none of them particularly athletic).
First, I don’t watch them practice, and only rarely watch them play. I consider it their business, not mine. (I’m no helicopter parent, that’s for sure.)
Basketball: too hard. Have to be super athletic.
Soccer: too boring. Season is too long (6 months).
Baseball: the best team sport. Good for nerds.
Golf and tennis: the best overall. Useful for life.
Horseback riding: very nice skill to have.
Ice skating: another good skill to have.
Track/cross country: I like it. Fitness, comradarie.
Karate: great for boys, but not places w/ contracts.
I like Little League; CYO basketball is too tough. I’ll never encourage my boys to do soccer unless they beg me.
Roight! I’ll admit, in the past, I’ve referred to soccer as football for, ah, cigarettes.
I loath soccer...
“btw....why am I not surprised you like soccer....I bet you like bicycle shorts too?
tell the truth GD.”
The only soccer I REALLY like is when my son is playing because he enjoys it. He also played baseball and basketball but it became evident he wasn’t cut out for either, although he was OK in baseball. He also runs cross country and track. And as the CC team says, “Our sport is your sport’s punishment.”
All I know is that my son is involved in a healthy activity he enjoys. He’s not hanging out and getting in trouble. And the kids on the track and soccer teams are among the best. I hope that’s all right with you.
I don’t ride a bicycle so I have no opinion on bicycle shorts. All the pros wear them, so there must be a reason.
And if you don't have objects, use the 8 worst kids. Just make them stand still.........
“’American Football’ is a bit-like Rugby, except that the players wear body armor. It’s the gayest game ever, beating even that lane-swimming event called Basketball.”
I killed a fellow player (a friend) in high school football, he collapsed on the field and died either immediately or shortly after.
Four years earlier during a scrimmage in which I was on the offense another friend of mine on the defensive side suffered an injury that he died of within a day or two.
I don’t know what the death rate is in soccer but without the pads football would be unplayable, as we learned generations ago.
LOL.
Soccer: The game played by those who dont want to get hit (football), and those that CANT HIT the curveball!
There are reasons for the way the rules are, actually the current offside rule is weaker then what is used to be in the beginning of the 20th century I think. Goals in soccer matter in a huge way, that’s what many people love about the game. With 10-8 game.. you could go to a fridge and miss a couple and not care, thats just not soccer.
Soccer is all about balance of offense and defense. It also very defendant on the league. What you describe is common in leagues that tend to favor possession based game, EPL is very different in that sense for example. Lots of it is also dependent on the climate of the country. You really can not play EPL style in Mexican league, nobody has the stamine to run like that with the temperature that you see there. Same issue in MLS, MLS plays in summer.. some games are just brutal in terms of the heat and humidity. Most European leagues play in winter when it is much easier to be fast for the whole 90
Many years ago when Jim Brown was at Syracuse, my college (Union) played Syracuse in lacrosse and soccer. Jim Brown was such an all-around athlete that he played the 1st-half of the lacrosse match, giving Syracuse an unsurmountable lead, and then suited up for track and won the 220.
Speaking of which, Man United is playing Internationale today at 3:45 pm EDT. It'll only be available by streaming video or pay per view. I used to go to a pub in Pasadena to watch the European matches on the weekends. Most of the English games start at 8 on Sunday morning. The pub was located on the main drag used by locals on their way to church, and they'd drive by all dressed in their finery, sneering at what they thought was a "bunch of drunks who were waiting for the bar to open". We'd yell back at them, "hey, it's just a different kind of church".
It's interesting that almost every one of these 'hate soccer' diatribes is written by someone who has never taken the time to learn and understand the game.
That didn't start with soccer, it started with Little League Baseball back when I played in the 70s.
1) You are not allowed to use your hands. This author never played soccer, or else he would know that hands are used quite a bit- and not just by the keeper. They are used to shove the other player as you fight for the ball. See, unlike baseball, soccer is a contact sport.
But, if we must get rid of soccer because players can’t touch the ball, then I guess we must do away with track.
2) Breaking kids down. Those of us who have stood on the 18 yard line, the ball planted 12 yards from the goal line, and facing the icy glare of the keeper know what athletic pressure is. You don’t have three strikes. There are no walks, and it seems the whole world is staring. Three years ago the whole world was staring.
3) A foreign invasion? How about golf? Tennis? Boxing?
4) If the reasons cited make soccer a girl’s sport, then basketball is a girl’s sport too. Baseball is a game of taking turns, which sounds like it preschool lesson. “Your tunr is over, now it’s my turn to try an score some runs”. In soccer, you don’t wait your turn for the ball, you chase down the man who has it, knock him down, take the ball and put it and the keeper in the back of the net.
You'll be eating those words next year. Remember it was only back in 2002, that we made it to the final eight, and for the most part, outplayed Germany (they even admitted it), even though they won 1-0.
Thank God for Fox Soccer Net. Now I have a reason to get up early Saturdays. Go United!
Brown was an astounding athlete.
Vast majority of death are heart attacks, some heat stroke cases probably. It is nowhere near the mortality rate in American Football though.
The game at top level is incredibly fitness demanding, you get guys who are in an incredible shape just collapsing on the field from their heart not being able to take it anymore.
“The thing which would perk up soccer for me is eliminating or at least greatly reducing the offside rule. A long kick to a teammate streaking to the goal to bring the score to 10-8 would be much more interesting than yet another 1-0 match.”
Eliminating it would necessarily result in people streaking to the goal (which happens now anyway). Instead, you’d see people assigned to the exciting task of camping in front of the goal and defenders to camp with them. Yawn. That’s why basketball also has the three-second rule.
That didn't start with soccer, it started with Little League Baseball back when I played in the 70s.
The soccer push by feminists and leftists started in the late 60s and it was hailed as more equalizing than the violent, masculine, win at all costs football that so seemed to represent all that was American.
Good point. I think that’s also a reason why the USA team does much better in the World Cup, when it’s held outside of Europe. The European teams don’t have as much of an advantage. The last two WCs held outside of Europe (94 and 02) the US made it to the knockout stages. And I predict that the US will do very well next year in South Africa.
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