Soccer - "The Un- American Activity"

Who. Fucking. Cares.

This machismo is embarrassing.

 

Exactly.

 

What exactly does that mean, Poin?
You think Ronaldinho's going to back into La Liga and be as invisible as he was in the World Cup?
Or that Frank Lampard's going back to Chelsea and will commence knocking every chance he gets over the bar?

 

And if Ray Lewis tried to execute a backflip on a balance beam, he likely would break his neck.

Neither of which means a damn thing.

 

I don't agree.

My conjecture would be that about 20 percent of NFL linemen are in the condition you describe.

 

That's true and it is unfortunate. Another problem is some kids who are excellent athletes when they are younger simply don't grow. Kids develop at such different rates. Unfortunately, many kids who would become much better athletes as high schoolers are placed on the back burner to make room for the great younger athlete who stops growing in eighth grade.

 

I sure as hell don't think many soccer players and even football players (OK, William Perry and Nathaniel Newton excluded) could be champions at ESPN's newest psuedosport, competitive eating.

 

Sometimes I wonder how many kids never realize their potential in a sport because the current youth sports system feels the need to cull the herd at an early age.
Everyone thinks the best 6-year-old is going to be the best 10-year-old and the best 10-year-old is going to be the best 16-year-old. That does happen sometimes, but life isn't that predictable.

 

I got to this party late, my New Yorker just came in the mail and I just finished the Toobin piece.
My one gripe is how sports sexism made another appearance.
Yes, the American men's soccer team had a terrible tourney, but to ignore the past success of the women's team is embarassing. It wasn't even a full paragraph, just a throwaway line on Mia Hamm and how the women's professional league tanked.
It just seems like that happens a lot whenever soccer is discussed.
Ragu, Boom and the rest remind of my old peewee football coaches who would scream and curse at you. You got praise only if the other kid you were hitting left the drill because he was hurt or you had to stop because you were blinded from the blood dripping down into your eyes.
You were tough then, a real man at 10 or 11.
It just seems comical to me now. Did then as well.

 

Jay - I am sorry that you had a bad experience in football -- its just not a game for everybody. If coaches today treated kids as you discribe said kids would be off to another sport or their play station.

Football is a tough physical game. It is not a finnesse sport. If kids are going to be taught to play the game correctly they need to understand and accept that contact is part of the sport. As a coach you are not doing anyone any favors by accecpting a lack of toughness. When a kid is afraid to tackle, as a coach I think you have an obligation to be brutally honest and suggest another sport. The kids who tend to shy away from contact are the ones who end up getting hurt.

I would term soccer more of an endurance sport- just as there are kids who can't deal with the contact, there are kids who can't hack all the running that soccer demands.

Good point you raise on Toobin on giving Womens soccer very little

 

As my middle school principal used to say:

"Soccer is a Communist plot to make sissies out of Americans."