I hate soccer

We're covering tournament basketball last weekend, so we didn't make it to the first soccer match of one of our local teams, settling for a call-in instead. So we start getting emails from parents with the typical soccer bullshit. It's the most popular sport in the world. They work just as hard as athletes in any other sport. And my favorite was, if it was the opening of high school football, you would have been there. The response I wanted to deliver was if your son (or daughter) were worth a shit as an athlete, they would play a real sport. Instead, I tried to use rational thought, but that's unlikely to work on soccer people.

 

This line - It's the most popular sport in the world. - should read like this: It's the most popular sport in the REST OF THE world.

Also, soccer people just look at total numbers rather than the number of high school aged kids playing the sport. Once kids are old enough to realize soccer sucks, they quit.

 

Soccer parents = inferiority complex.

 

You know, the emailers all had valid (maybe not rational but valid) complaints. Your attitude is a bigger problem than their bitching.

Why not explain to them that it's impossible to cover everything you rely on calls from coaches (or whomever). You goal is to have a writeup on every game but the breakdown was on their end.

Let 'em bitch at the coach for not calling.

 

Soccer hates you.

For the record: 1) SSM is right, the correct saying is, "It's the most popular sport in the rest of the world."

2) The parents are right, if it was opening night of football, you would be there. But there's a helluva lot more people at a high school football than a high school soccer match. (In my neck of the woods, there's one or two games each season that come close to the attendance figure of prep football.

To SSM: When kids realize they suck at football, soccer, basketball, baseball, etc., they quit. (If mommy and daddy don't make them play ... of course, if that's the case, they've quit playing but still dress.)

It's not soccer you hate, it's parents of student athletes.

 

But kids, and I mean kids up to the age of, say, 10 or 12, don't suck at soccer. You can't at that age. There are 11 positions, coaches can "hide" them at midfield or on defence at that age.
However, I must admit, I don't mind covering soccer one bit. It's outside, the coaches give you any info you want and it's relatively easy to write.

Do I like the sport? No, not particularly. But in all honesty, soccer's biggest problems in North America are these:
1) It's cheap to play
2) Parents see it as an early babysitting service
3) the parents want the kids to play it more than the kids want to play for these reasons:
a) it's cheap
b) 11 kids get to be on the field at once
c) you can barely tell who is good and who is not early on and
d) at the younger ages, kids run around 'till they're exhausted and then nap all afternoon.

Kids get into it because their parents want them into it.

 

Can I cite your post in a scientific study I'm putting together on why kids play soccer?
Thanks in advance.

Seriously, though, how could any of your points not apply to any other youth sport?

 

That's not funny [/soccer parent]

 

Have you ever watched 10, 11 or 12 year olds play soccer? Some of them suck. Hell, even at 8 and 9 you can tell who sucks.

 

Hating certain sports just because is not an attractive quality in a sports writer. Common, but not attractive.

 

Something that always strikes me as odd is how the same people who hate soccer will defend the NBA, or those who hate NASCAR will resoundingly support soccer, or those who...etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Not trying to avoid the somewhat unprofessional attitude displayed toward parents and athletes but this hatred of one sport and support of another baffles me. At my last rag, the sports guys HATED female sports, especially volleyball and basketball, whether it was high school or collegiate. Yet they had an almost fanatical support of golf.

Just saying....

 

How many people work at your shop? How many were at the basketball tournament? Were you really under-staffed, or did you just not want to go to the soccer game.

I've lurked on here a long time. I've never understood the attitude that such and such isn't a "real" sport and therefore is "unworthy" of your coverage. Do you think the news guys like covering municipal council meetings? Or school board crap? No, they probably don't. But, you don't hear a news reporter making the argument that they didn't cover the council meeting because it wasn't "real" politics.

Toy department, indeed.