This has been one of my favorite weekends for college football, ever -- and I say that despite the fact the Florida spent the first twenty-seven minutes of yesterday's game trailing Furman by as many as 15 points.
Something I've missed desperately in the two and a half years since I left UF is the fervor surrounding college football in the South. People in D.C. just don't get excited for it the way the Gator Nation does. This is Skins Country, it's Caps country, it's ACC basketball country, but it isn't college football country. Sure, you have your Terps and Hokies fans, the occasional overly enthusiastic West Virginia grad -- but college football isn't the dominant event of every weekend for most Washingtonians the way it is for me.
But you wouldn't have been able to tell that from last night.
This just happened to be my twenty-fifth birthday weekend, so I was in the basement of a dingily spectacular Capitol Hill bar with twenty to thirty friends when it all went down.
Florida State losing to UVA. Oregon falling to Southern Cal. Oklahoma getting stunned by Baylor. All on top of Clemson and Okla State already having been upset.
Fever pitch. Insanity. Jumping up and down. Hugging and cheering. My dear friend Thomas, a long-time Ducks fan, crumbling to the ground with wails of "Nooooo!" Wide-eyed staring at each other with looks that clearly said, "What could happen next?" For the first time in years, I found myself with people who truly cared about what was happening on those screens. We grabbed one another, running through all the feasible outcomes from the weekend, reasoning our way through every option, trying to guess who would end up in the BCS championship game. Could Virginia Tech somehow do it, after an entire season of being overlooked? (I love the idea, by the way, of the SEC -- already having dispensed with teams from the Big 12, the Pac 10 and the Big 10 on its way to winning five straight national titles -- getting a chance to round things out by beating an ACC school, too.) Did the improbable happenings of Saturday night void Oklahoma State's seemingly crippling loss on Friday, creating exactly the circumstances needed for them to be able to claw their way back to No. 2? What if Auburn beats Bama next week? What if it doesn't? What if Georgia pulls out the win in Atlanta? Is there a role for Houston in all of this? Have all the pieces aligned just so, such that we'll actually see a rematch of the "Game of the Century" from Nov. 5? And who the heck is Robert Griffin III?
What an evening of wonderful, magical chaos.
I have no idea what is going to happen, and neither do any of you. Because with LSU having to face No. 3 (I'm assuming) Arkansas on Friday, and the Iron Bowl still to come, anything could happen. Anything at all. I highly doubt this season's handed us its last surprise. Which is, of course, what makes sports so much fun in the first place.
I can't freaking wait to watch the next few weeks play out.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
On the tragedy at Penn State
I want to be outraged over the scandal unfolding in State College, PA. What happened there, if the charges are true, was a tragedy of unthinkable proportions.
I want to feel betrayed by Joe Paterno. I want to be pissed at him and join the masses calling for his head, not just his job. I want to feel those things. But I can’t.
I’m utterly in denial.
I’m not among those who think the school made a mistake by firing their long-time head coach Wednesday night. I understand why it was done, and I believe it was right that it end that way, given everything we know. But my emotional blinders simply won’t let me believe Joe Paterno could have done the things people are saying. That at best he turned a blind eye to reports of improper behavior, and at worse enabled a child rapist by knowingly covering up a crime.
I just simply can’t fathom that those things could be true.
My connection to Penn State began when I was approximately 8 years old. My family had moved to Pennsylvania not that long before, and there came a day when our elementary school lifted its ban on hats and invited all the students to wear their favorite baseball cap to class.
I didn’t have a baseball cap, so my mom went out and bought me one. It was a Nittany Lions cap and it’s still hanging in my room at home.
I decided that if the Lions were going to get my implicit endorsement as a result of my wearing their logo around school, I’d better find out who they were. Some people are born fans of their favorite teams. As an Army brat who already had five states under her belt, I had to make a conscious choice about which programs to be a fan of.
So I asked my dad about PSU. And he told me of a man named Joe Paterno.
My dad had great respect for JoePa -- and Bobby Bowden, whom he always mentioned in same breath with Paterno as the two longest-serving and greatest coaches in the game. I learned that Penn State had been an independent before it became the eleventh school in the Big 10 (something I found ironic), and that Paterno had been head coach there since 1966. I learned about the Grand Experiment, and the national titles, and that Penn State football won the right way, and that JoePa did it with class. He was the old guard, my dad would tell me. He was really something special.
For years I watched the Nittany Lions and dreamed of the day when I’d go to Dear Old State. Indeed, it was the first college I ever visited when the time came for me to start looking at schools.
My parents ultimately persuaded me to visit the University of Florida a few months later. By the time I got to high school, we’d long since moved to Tampa, which made UF a much more attractive choice to them. I’d be able to go for free -- not something to be taken lightly, they repeatedly reminded me -- and I’d only be two hours from home. It’s a fine school, they said. The finest in the state. Plus, it’s similar to PSU in its size, offerings and outsize obsession with college football.
That ended up being enough for me. I fell in love during the campus tour and haven’t for a moment regretted my decision to be a Gator.
Yet Penn State and JoePa retained a place of honor in my heart.
The charges against the monster that is Jerry Sandusky are horrifying. I can’t even wrap my brain around the reality that there could actually be people like him in this world. I am grieving for the victims just like any feeling person would be. And if they turn out to be true, I hope the justice system chews him up and spits him into a prison for the rest of his life. Actually, there’s a quote from Pulp Fiction that starts with “What now? Let me tell you what now” that would be appropriate.
But I find myself wondering whether there might be another way to look at Paterno’s role in all of this.
If he knew what was happening and put the welfare of a football team ahead of the welfare of those children, that is deplorable in every imaginable sense of the word, and he deserves to be be arrested.
But are we sure he understood what was going on?
Is it possible that he heard rumors less specific than what we’re being told he knew about -- about a close friend and long-time colleague whose name was practically synonymous in that town with charity -- and it didn’t occur to him that it could be this bad?
Isn’t it possible that the idea that this guy who spent all those many years on his staff was a child molester just seemed so patently ludicrous to JoePa that it never even crossed his mind?
Isn’t it human nature to reject the notion that someone you trust could be guilty of something so heinously, inexplicably, unforgivably awful? To assume there must have been some sort of misunderstanding, because the reality flies so thoroughly in the face of everything you know about that person?
The analogy I’ve been reading a lot is that a grown man doesn’t walk past a stranger raping a girl in an alleyway without calling the police.
Of course I agree. But I also think it’s at least possible that this situation was different -- if and only if the full picture of what McQueary witnessed wasn’t made clear to Paterno.
I guess in the end, I just cannot believe JoePa, a guy I’ve adored and looked up to nearly my entire life, could have been aware of what was happening and not done anything to stop it.
I want to feel betrayed by Joe Paterno. I want to be pissed at him and join the masses calling for his head, not just his job. I want to feel those things. But I can’t.
I’m utterly in denial.
I’m not among those who think the school made a mistake by firing their long-time head coach Wednesday night. I understand why it was done, and I believe it was right that it end that way, given everything we know. But my emotional blinders simply won’t let me believe Joe Paterno could have done the things people are saying. That at best he turned a blind eye to reports of improper behavior, and at worse enabled a child rapist by knowingly covering up a crime.
I just simply can’t fathom that those things could be true.
My connection to Penn State began when I was approximately 8 years old. My family had moved to Pennsylvania not that long before, and there came a day when our elementary school lifted its ban on hats and invited all the students to wear their favorite baseball cap to class.
I didn’t have a baseball cap, so my mom went out and bought me one. It was a Nittany Lions cap and it’s still hanging in my room at home.
I decided that if the Lions were going to get my implicit endorsement as a result of my wearing their logo around school, I’d better find out who they were. Some people are born fans of their favorite teams. As an Army brat who already had five states under her belt, I had to make a conscious choice about which programs to be a fan of.
So I asked my dad about PSU. And he told me of a man named Joe Paterno.
My dad had great respect for JoePa -- and Bobby Bowden, whom he always mentioned in same breath with Paterno as the two longest-serving and greatest coaches in the game. I learned that Penn State had been an independent before it became the eleventh school in the Big 10 (something I found ironic), and that Paterno had been head coach there since 1966. I learned about the Grand Experiment, and the national titles, and that Penn State football won the right way, and that JoePa did it with class. He was the old guard, my dad would tell me. He was really something special.
For years I watched the Nittany Lions and dreamed of the day when I’d go to Dear Old State. Indeed, it was the first college I ever visited when the time came for me to start looking at schools.
My parents ultimately persuaded me to visit the University of Florida a few months later. By the time I got to high school, we’d long since moved to Tampa, which made UF a much more attractive choice to them. I’d be able to go for free -- not something to be taken lightly, they repeatedly reminded me -- and I’d only be two hours from home. It’s a fine school, they said. The finest in the state. Plus, it’s similar to PSU in its size, offerings and outsize obsession with college football.
That ended up being enough for me. I fell in love during the campus tour and haven’t for a moment regretted my decision to be a Gator.
Yet Penn State and JoePa retained a place of honor in my heart.
The charges against the monster that is Jerry Sandusky are horrifying. I can’t even wrap my brain around the reality that there could actually be people like him in this world. I am grieving for the victims just like any feeling person would be. And if they turn out to be true, I hope the justice system chews him up and spits him into a prison for the rest of his life. Actually, there’s a quote from Pulp Fiction that starts with “What now? Let me tell you what now” that would be appropriate.
But I find myself wondering whether there might be another way to look at Paterno’s role in all of this.
If he knew what was happening and put the welfare of a football team ahead of the welfare of those children, that is deplorable in every imaginable sense of the word, and he deserves to be be arrested.
But are we sure he understood what was going on?
Is it possible that he heard rumors less specific than what we’re being told he knew about -- about a close friend and long-time colleague whose name was practically synonymous in that town with charity -- and it didn’t occur to him that it could be this bad?
Isn’t it possible that the idea that this guy who spent all those many years on his staff was a child molester just seemed so patently ludicrous to JoePa that it never even crossed his mind?
Isn’t it human nature to reject the notion that someone you trust could be guilty of something so heinously, inexplicably, unforgivably awful? To assume there must have been some sort of misunderstanding, because the reality flies so thoroughly in the face of everything you know about that person?
The analogy I’ve been reading a lot is that a grown man doesn’t walk past a stranger raping a girl in an alleyway without calling the police.
Of course I agree. But I also think it’s at least possible that this situation was different -- if and only if the full picture of what McQueary witnessed wasn’t made clear to Paterno.
I guess in the end, I just cannot believe JoePa, a guy I’ve adored and looked up to nearly my entire life, could have been aware of what was happening and not done anything to stop it.
Friday, September 30, 2011
My beef with baseball
I've never been able to get much into baseball. It always seemed like such a tease. Why bother to watch a game that has a 1-in-162 chance of meaning anything at all at the end of the season? How do you get worked up for an outcome that has at most a negligible impact on your team's odds of winning a pennant? Why is it even sad when you lose? Baseball's played in series. It's as if the structure of the sport says to losing teams, "Not to worry, we'll give ya best of three."
For eleven months out of the year, my relationship with Major League Baseball consists of my Dad updating me on how many games the Rays are ahead of or behind the Yankees whenever I call home. I always roll my eyes and say, "That's nice, Dad. Only a hundred and fifty-three games to go until that number matters." I find it extraordinarily hard to get excited about anything that seems to have so little riding on it, especially because of how much time I spend watching college football. For us, "every given Saturday" isn't just a platitude. It's reality. It's life.
Every given football matchup matters, because any one loss, no matter how strong the opponent, can be enough to keep a team out of the national championship. For non-AQ teams, even going undefeated isn't necessarily enough. And it's not just the national championship that's on the line each week. One loss can disqualify a team from its conference title game or a BCS bowl altogether. That means the pressure's on every week, and it makes watching every game an event unto itself. Every snap, every pass, every rush and every kick means more when every game means everything.
Not so in baseball.
Yet, I know that's not the only thing wrong with the game in my opinion. It's a huge part of it, no doubt, but alone it's not enough to turn an otherwise exciting sport into a lifeless one. I know that's true because I watch hockey avidly despite the absurd length of its season. In fact, I almost enjoy the lower stakes. They allow for wild, unexpected swings in fortune like the one the Capitals underwent last year. Anything is possible when there's an 82-game season to be played; there's no resting on your laurels when any team could make a run for it at any given moment.
So what's the rest of my problem with baseball?
It's just boring. I mean, really. It just is. The pace of the game is slow. Minutes pass during which literally nothing happens. There isn't even a clock, for crying out loud -- talk about a metaphor for a total lack of urgency! Whereas in hockey or soccer or basketball there's a continual vying for possession, baseball is handcuffed by politeness, each team --hell, each player -- patiently waiting its turn for an exclusive, unencumbered chance to try to score.
What I will give baseball is this, however: it goes from utterly meaningless to thoroughly meaningful in a matter of seconds when the regular season ends. Though I couldn't care less about games 1 through 162, the playoffs matter quite a lot. It's those last few precious games that an entire season rides on, and because of that, the whole dynamic of the sport can be transformed. The moments between pitches go from empty, yawn-inducing wastes of time that could better be spent thinking about football to moments buzzing with tension and possibility -- not the calm before the storm, but the wait before a kiss.
So yes, in those years when the Rays have managed to make the playoffs, I have taken an interest. I've felt mildly bad about embodying the definition of bandwagon fanhood in the process, but hey. My time is valuable, and regular-season baseball simply isn't that important.
Except this year, because this year things got exciting two games early.
I started to feel uneasy Wednesday morning, when I checked in with ESPN and saw something the Rays did the night before described as "the most important triple play in major league history." I started to wonder if my strategy of waiting till the postseason to start thinking about paying attention might end up being a mistake.
For eleven months out of the year, my relationship with Major League Baseball consists of my Dad updating me on how many games the Rays are ahead of or behind the Yankees whenever I call home. I always roll my eyes and say, "That's nice, Dad. Only a hundred and fifty-three games to go until that number matters." I find it extraordinarily hard to get excited about anything that seems to have so little riding on it, especially because of how much time I spend watching college football. For us, "every given Saturday" isn't just a platitude. It's reality. It's life.
Every given football matchup matters, because any one loss, no matter how strong the opponent, can be enough to keep a team out of the national championship. For non-AQ teams, even going undefeated isn't necessarily enough. And it's not just the national championship that's on the line each week. One loss can disqualify a team from its conference title game or a BCS bowl altogether. That means the pressure's on every week, and it makes watching every game an event unto itself. Every snap, every pass, every rush and every kick means more when every game means everything.
Not so in baseball.
Yet, I know that's not the only thing wrong with the game in my opinion. It's a huge part of it, no doubt, but alone it's not enough to turn an otherwise exciting sport into a lifeless one. I know that's true because I watch hockey avidly despite the absurd length of its season. In fact, I almost enjoy the lower stakes. They allow for wild, unexpected swings in fortune like the one the Capitals underwent last year. Anything is possible when there's an 82-game season to be played; there's no resting on your laurels when any team could make a run for it at any given moment.
So what's the rest of my problem with baseball?
It's just boring. I mean, really. It just is. The pace of the game is slow. Minutes pass during which literally nothing happens. There isn't even a clock, for crying out loud -- talk about a metaphor for a total lack of urgency! Whereas in hockey or soccer or basketball there's a continual vying for possession, baseball is handcuffed by politeness, each team --hell, each player -- patiently waiting its turn for an exclusive, unencumbered chance to try to score.
What I will give baseball is this, however: it goes from utterly meaningless to thoroughly meaningful in a matter of seconds when the regular season ends. Though I couldn't care less about games 1 through 162, the playoffs matter quite a lot. It's those last few precious games that an entire season rides on, and because of that, the whole dynamic of the sport can be transformed. The moments between pitches go from empty, yawn-inducing wastes of time that could better be spent thinking about football to moments buzzing with tension and possibility -- not the calm before the storm, but the wait before a kiss.
So yes, in those years when the Rays have managed to make the playoffs, I have taken an interest. I've felt mildly bad about embodying the definition of bandwagon fanhood in the process, but hey. My time is valuable, and regular-season baseball simply isn't that important.
Except this year, because this year things got exciting two games early.
I started to feel uneasy Wednesday morning, when I checked in with ESPN and saw something the Rays did the night before described as "the most important triple play in major league history." I started to wonder if my strategy of waiting till the postseason to start thinking about paying attention might end up being a mistake.
It was. Because what happened on Wednesday night was unprecedented. I honestly couldn't tell you the odds of that particular string of events unfolding. But the fan/pundit reaction immediately afterward and continuing through the next day told me all I needed to know about the magnitude of what had happened. They seemed to be experiencing what I felt after Boise State-Oklahoma in 2007, or upon the realization we were going to get a matchup between mighty Butler and even mightier VCU in last year's Final Four. It was like the comeback against Brazil by the U.S. women's national soccer team I wrote about earlier this summer. It was all of that and more. And although I couldn't tell you the odds that were defied when the Braves, the Red Sox and the New York Yankees all collapsed in spectacular fashion within minutes of each other (the Yanks having squandered a 7-0 advantage in the ninth inning alone, the Sox having squandered a probability of winning of more than 95 percent, and the Braves having squandered a 10.5-game lead in just a month), Nate Silver can -- and he says the chances were about one in 278 million.
Holy mackerel.
Holy mackerel.
I think the lesson I'm taking away from all of this is that I've been underestimating the game of baseball. I was sure it couldn't capture my imagination, and it did. I was sure it didn't have the capacity to be exciting, and it was. Major League Baseball proved me wrong. It made me feel like a kid again, when I can remember sneaking downstairs past my bedtime to watch the end of the '96 World Series, and being heartbroken by the result (I don't know why I liked the Braves so much, but I know I've never forgiven the Yankees).
Anyway, I'm not sure whether this experience is going to have any permanent ramifications on my desire to watch regular-season baseball down the line. But you can bet your bat I'll have one eye on the scores of the Rays games this weekend.
I'll probably think twice next time before off-handedly dismissing baseball fans for their silly pastime, too.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
College football is in the air
My favorite time of year is right around the corner. I got a little taste of it last night when I attended the Redskins' first exhibition game of the season against Pittsburgh. I was happy to see that despite the long string of bad years this town has suffered, Washingtonians are still willing to don their Moss jerseys, pay exorbitant prices for tickets and make the trek out to Landover to support their team.
This time, the players rewarded us by not tripping over themselves, managing even to beat last year's Super Bowl runners up. When the Skins drew first blood on a beautiful toss from Rex Grossman to Santana, the crowd went crazy, belting out "Hail to the Redskins!" with the kind of enthusiasm I normally ascribe to college fans alone. I felt tinges of familiarity. It was almost like I was back at Florida Field.
Except not really.
Therein lies the real point of this blog post: for me to profess my undying devotion to college football and assert its superiority, as compared to the pros, in every way. Sure, the level of play of the NFL game may be higher. But so are the costs of fandom, and without the college game's rewards.
The adoration of the sport among players and spectators alike at the college level is unparalleled. It's matchless. Night games at the Swamp are an unearthly experience, one in which souls for miles join together in a wave of intensity and passion that I'm sure could power Gainesville if it could only be harnessed. I imagine fans at Death Valley or the Big House or The Shoe would say the same.
There's simply no way to argue the pro game can compare. Without the wild abandon of the student section, the pomp and circumstance of the marching band, the proud ownership of the program felt by decades of alumni, how could it ever hope to?
College football is more than a game. It's more, even, than an experience. It's a lifestyle, a way of living.
It's allowing yourself to be swept away in the magic of the season. To live and breathe and die with your team, knowing they are sweating and bleeding for you. It's to joyfully sacrifice whatever else may have the audacity to happen on a Saturday between Labor Day and New Year's and to instead immerse yourself in, to borrow a tagline the Masters don't deserve, a tradition unlike any other.
It's heaven. And it's here.
Three weeks from today, UF will open up another year. I have no idea what I think is going to happen.
I've always felt a high level of comfort in talking about our prospects in the off-season. A national championship was only ever twelve games away, and I knew my team well enough to have an idea about whether we could make a run. I was well-acquainted with the coach; I understood the system, having fallen in love with college football right alongside the introduction of the spread; and the players were my classmates in an abstract but still meaningful way.
This time around is very different.
We have a whole new coaching staff running an unproven pro-style offense. More importantly, I'm now three seasons removed from being a student there myself. Virtually none of the players I'd periodically cross paths with on campus are still around. The Gators are a different monster now, and with the press having been locked out of spring practices, I feel a complete absence of any sense of what to expect.
I'm nervous and excited and terrified and hopeful.
How amazing is it that a sport can make a person feel all that?
This time, the players rewarded us by not tripping over themselves, managing even to beat last year's Super Bowl runners up. When the Skins drew first blood on a beautiful toss from Rex Grossman to Santana, the crowd went crazy, belting out "Hail to the Redskins!" with the kind of enthusiasm I normally ascribe to college fans alone. I felt tinges of familiarity. It was almost like I was back at Florida Field.
Except not really.
Therein lies the real point of this blog post: for me to profess my undying devotion to college football and assert its superiority, as compared to the pros, in every way. Sure, the level of play of the NFL game may be higher. But so are the costs of fandom, and without the college game's rewards.
The adoration of the sport among players and spectators alike at the college level is unparalleled. It's matchless. Night games at the Swamp are an unearthly experience, one in which souls for miles join together in a wave of intensity and passion that I'm sure could power Gainesville if it could only be harnessed. I imagine fans at Death Valley or the Big House or The Shoe would say the same.
There's simply no way to argue the pro game can compare. Without the wild abandon of the student section, the pomp and circumstance of the marching band, the proud ownership of the program felt by decades of alumni, how could it ever hope to?
College football is more than a game. It's more, even, than an experience. It's a lifestyle, a way of living.
It's allowing yourself to be swept away in the magic of the season. To live and breathe and die with your team, knowing they are sweating and bleeding for you. It's to joyfully sacrifice whatever else may have the audacity to happen on a Saturday between Labor Day and New Year's and to instead immerse yourself in, to borrow a tagline the Masters don't deserve, a tradition unlike any other.
It's heaven. And it's here.
Three weeks from today, UF will open up another year. I have no idea what I think is going to happen.
I've always felt a high level of comfort in talking about our prospects in the off-season. A national championship was only ever twelve games away, and I knew my team well enough to have an idea about whether we could make a run. I was well-acquainted with the coach; I understood the system, having fallen in love with college football right alongside the introduction of the spread; and the players were my classmates in an abstract but still meaningful way.
This time around is very different.
We have a whole new coaching staff running an unproven pro-style offense. More importantly, I'm now three seasons removed from being a student there myself. Virtually none of the players I'd periodically cross paths with on campus are still around. The Gators are a different monster now, and with the press having been locked out of spring practices, I feel a complete absence of any sense of what to expect.
I'm nervous and excited and terrified and hopeful.
How amazing is it that a sport can make a person feel all that?
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Women's World Cup postmortem
Given that this blog has been exclusively dedicated to the Women's World Cup so far, it may seem out of place that I haven't yet gotten around to opining on the way this year's tourney ended. Rather than do that, however, I'm going to paste in excerpts from two blog posts I wrote four years ago -- the first after the U.S. women's team was stomped on by Brazil in the World Cup semifinals and the second after we pulled out the bronze-medal win.
September 27, 2007
I still remember my brother's away message after his Knights got killed by my Gators last year. "Mourning the massacre." Well, I can relate. Earlier today, the greatest team you've never heard of was upset in a big way.
I'm mourning for Brianna Scurry, and for Shannon Boxx, and yes, I'm even mourning for Greg Ryan (the stupid bastard). But really what I'm mourning here is soccer in America. ...
Nothing has ever succeeded in energizing Americans like wild, unadulterated successes. There was an explosion of interest after the '99 World Cup; Chastain's was the modern shot heard 'round the world. It sparked a following like no women's sport had ever before (or ever since) received, and Sports Illustrated bestowed its grandest honor on not any individual but the entire team that year.
Yet, as the latest iteration of the tournament was approaching, endemic skepticism seemed to sweep across the land. Sure, the country seemed to say, the hype was awesome while it lasted, but no American team can possibly hope to capture the cup, and the imagination of the world, without Foudy and Fawcett and Akers and Hamm...
Can they?
The bottom line was, these girls had one chance to reignite this country's nascent passion for the greatest sport the world has ever known, and just one way to do it. They had to at least earn a championship berth, and in the process take the world by storm. They had to win, and do it big, making household names of Solo, Tarpley, Osborne, Lloyd... they had to, they had to, they had to, and they didn't.
This morning, bad coaching and worse officiating extinguished our hopes of bringing home title number three. One hell of an impressive 21-year-old named Marta led Brazil to a 4-0 rout of the United States and left me mourning the massacre of my all-time favorite game.
September 30, 2007The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?
Eureka, we're alive! A couple closing thoughts:
- Despite Germany's unprecedented eleven-nothing win in the tournament opener, and their clinching of the Cup this morning, Marta of Brazil still managed to walk away with the Golden Boot. They're already calling her the best female player in the world -- right up there with countryman Ronaldinho for the men.
- Power striker Abby Wambach scored six goals in six consecutive world cup games. What a feat. That's the kind of thing they used to look to Mia for. She is widely considered to be the heart of the U.S. team, and at 27, she'll be around to lead us on to victory for many years to come. Keep an eye out.
- Hats off to captain Kristine Lilly. I knew this was to be her last World Cup; something I didn't realize is that she's the only person to have appeared in all five, having made her international debut some -- count 'em -- twenty years ago. She stepped off the field in the 88th minute of the third-place game to deafening applause by an audience that seemed to understand instinctively the weight of the event. I was reminded in a powerful way of Michelle Akers's historic exit from the title game in '99, when the world stood and cheered for someone they recognized as the greatest women's player of her time.
Monday, July 11, 2011
A modest reflection on USA-Brazil
There was a match during the European soccer championships in 2008 in which Turkey defied the odds by making a spectacular last-minute comeback from two goals down to advance. At the time, I called it the "Boise State-Oklahoma of professional soccer," a reference to the Broncos' breathtaking Fiesta Bowl upset of the Sooners in 2007. It was, in other words, the greatest game that I had ever seen.
That's no longer the case. The Turkey game has been supplanted.
Yesterday's performance by the U.S. women's national team to defeat Brazil in the Women's World Cup quarterfinals was unlike anything I've ever witnessed. It was stunning. Just stunning.
The sheer act of athleticism that is surviving a soccer game at that level under normal circumstances is something I think goes underappreciated by most. In no other team sport I can think of are so few subs allowed. In no sport, therefore, does such a large proportion of the players remain on the field (or court or diamond) the entire time. In no other sport is play virtually continuous -- no commercial breaks, no time-outs by the captains or the coach. In no other sport is a game ninety minutes long, not sixty as in hockey or football or forty as in college basketball. Ninety minutes of all-out physical exertion. Ninety minutes. That in itself it amazing, when you really think about it.
During the knockout phases of World Cup soccer, games that end in ties go another thirty minutes. That brings the total to two full hours of play. No additional substitutions. Not even a break between overtime halves. At the end of such matches, players tend to be, understandably, exhausted beyond words. It's what they can only hope two-a-day wind sprints and suicides and stadiums in the heat prepared them for.
To play 120 minutes and come out with a win is a big accomplishment. The U.S. did it down a man for nearly half the game. They did it against the No. 1 footballer in the world and a team of cry-baby dive-artist cheaters. They did it despite refs who were, charitably, out of their minds. They did it on an impossible goal by their star striker (a Gator, might I add) and a keeper with her honor on the line. And they did it twelve years to the day after the '99 Women's World Cup final where a different team of Americans made history on penalty kicks.
Truth is so much stranger than fiction.
That's no longer the case. The Turkey game has been supplanted.
Yesterday's performance by the U.S. women's national team to defeat Brazil in the Women's World Cup quarterfinals was unlike anything I've ever witnessed. It was stunning. Just stunning.
The sheer act of athleticism that is surviving a soccer game at that level under normal circumstances is something I think goes underappreciated by most. In no other team sport I can think of are so few subs allowed. In no sport, therefore, does such a large proportion of the players remain on the field (or court or diamond) the entire time. In no other sport is play virtually continuous -- no commercial breaks, no time-outs by the captains or the coach. In no other sport is a game ninety minutes long, not sixty as in hockey or football or forty as in college basketball. Ninety minutes of all-out physical exertion. Ninety minutes. That in itself it amazing, when you really think about it.
During the knockout phases of World Cup soccer, games that end in ties go another thirty minutes. That brings the total to two full hours of play. No additional substitutions. Not even a break between overtime halves. At the end of such matches, players tend to be, understandably, exhausted beyond words. It's what they can only hope two-a-day wind sprints and suicides and stadiums in the heat prepared them for.
To play 120 minutes and come out with a win is a big accomplishment. The U.S. did it down a man for nearly half the game. They did it against the No. 1 footballer in the world and a team of cry-baby dive-artist cheaters. They did it despite refs who were, charitably, out of their minds. They did it on an impossible goal by their star striker (a Gator, might I add) and a keeper with her honor on the line. And they did it twelve years to the day after the '99 Women's World Cup final where a different team of Americans made history on penalty kicks.
Truth is so much stranger than fiction.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Why the Women's World Cup matters
It was a year ago that I realized soccer had caught on in America.
I'd met some friends at an Irish pub in Dupont to watch the USA-England game on the first Saturday of the 2010 World Cup. We got there early to secure seats, have brunch and watch Argentina play. When we arrived, the place was nearly dead. But over the course of the next three hours, something miraculous happened.
People started showing up. First the tables started to fill. Then it was standing room only. Then people began sitting cross-legged on the floor along the walls. They kept on coming and sitting until they had taken up every inch of space between and around the tables and were spilling out onto the sidewalk.
The waitstaff physically couldn't get to us to bring us the food we'd ordered. For weeks, the restaurant had been advertising two-for-one mimosas and Bloody Marys on game days -- before the match had even started, they'd run out of champagne. And Bloody Mary mix.
It was insane.
And the really remarkable thing was that it wasn't just the pub we were at. People were spilling out of every bar and restaurant in the neighborhood. Crowds descended on Dupont Circle, where a couple of big projector screens had been set up to air the games. They were wearing American flags and authentic football jerseys. Their faces were painted and, yes, they carried vuvuzelas.
And I thought, it's finally happened. America has finally discovered the beautiful game.
One might argue Americans aren't truly soccer fans. That they still don't follow the domestic league or know much about the players. They don't have fantasy teams, and most of them probably don't even really understand the rules. We're mostly in it for the excuse to be raucous and drunk in public before noon. But is that really all that different from the way the general public looks at American football? Isn't that too just an excuse to grill burgers and play bean-bag toss, and aren't most people inebriated beyond the point where a true sportsman's appreciation of the game is possible before kickoff, anyway?
I don't know. I guess my point is not that this is the peak of America's love affair with soccer. On the contrary, I think this is just the beginning. I think someday, average Joes will look forward to World Cup football with almost the intensity that I do. That eventually, the kind of fanaticism I witnessed on that Saturday last year will be expected when the tourney rolls around.
When that day comes, I think those who study sports culture (and are honest with themselves) will look back and agree it all started at the Rose Bowl on July 10, 1999.
America discovered soccer the moment Brandi Chastain slipped a shot past China's goalkeeper to clinch the Women's World Cup, ripped her jersey off and fell, euphoric, to the ground. It was a special moment for a lot of little girls like me who already lived and breathed the sport and got to watch our heroes Mia and Michelle and Briana and Kristine bring its highest honor home. But it was also, I think, an important moment for a lot of other people -- like our dads, who went in not caring an ounce about women's professional soccer but couldn't help but be swept up in the excitement of the tournament. Regular sports enthusiasts had no choice but to pay attention. "Oh, so that's what soccer looks like. Huh. It's rather entertaining, isn't it..."
That was a bigger moment in sports history than I think almost anyone realizes, because it was the moment that made a women's sport relevant for maybe the only time in history, that made a women's sport more popular in America than its male counterpart. Female athletes became household names. (And if you don't believe me, consider who graced SI's cover as the 1999 Sportsman of the Year.)
It didn't last, of course, our love of women's soccer. But I believe it primed this nation to appreciate the (men's) game. Think about it: Team USA's following has gotten larger and more invested with every passing World Cup in the twelve years since that day.
That's why I get so excited for Women's World Cup soccer. Because there's always a chance something miraculous could happen. That the country might be forced to stop and take note of not just the greatest game in all of sports but some of the greatest athletes. Against all odds. In a world where even women don't care about women's sports, where even I don't care about women's sports. Except this one.
I'd met some friends at an Irish pub in Dupont to watch the USA-England game on the first Saturday of the 2010 World Cup. We got there early to secure seats, have brunch and watch Argentina play. When we arrived, the place was nearly dead. But over the course of the next three hours, something miraculous happened.
People started showing up. First the tables started to fill. Then it was standing room only. Then people began sitting cross-legged on the floor along the walls. They kept on coming and sitting until they had taken up every inch of space between and around the tables and were spilling out onto the sidewalk.
The waitstaff physically couldn't get to us to bring us the food we'd ordered. For weeks, the restaurant had been advertising two-for-one mimosas and Bloody Marys on game days -- before the match had even started, they'd run out of champagne. And Bloody Mary mix.
It was insane.
And the really remarkable thing was that it wasn't just the pub we were at. People were spilling out of every bar and restaurant in the neighborhood. Crowds descended on Dupont Circle, where a couple of big projector screens had been set up to air the games. They were wearing American flags and authentic football jerseys. Their faces were painted and, yes, they carried vuvuzelas.
And I thought, it's finally happened. America has finally discovered the beautiful game.
One might argue Americans aren't truly soccer fans. That they still don't follow the domestic league or know much about the players. They don't have fantasy teams, and most of them probably don't even really understand the rules. We're mostly in it for the excuse to be raucous and drunk in public before noon. But is that really all that different from the way the general public looks at American football? Isn't that too just an excuse to grill burgers and play bean-bag toss, and aren't most people inebriated beyond the point where a true sportsman's appreciation of the game is possible before kickoff, anyway?
I don't know. I guess my point is not that this is the peak of America's love affair with soccer. On the contrary, I think this is just the beginning. I think someday, average Joes will look forward to World Cup football with almost the intensity that I do. That eventually, the kind of fanaticism I witnessed on that Saturday last year will be expected when the tourney rolls around.
When that day comes, I think those who study sports culture (and are honest with themselves) will look back and agree it all started at the Rose Bowl on July 10, 1999.
America discovered soccer the moment Brandi Chastain slipped a shot past China's goalkeeper to clinch the Women's World Cup, ripped her jersey off and fell, euphoric, to the ground. It was a special moment for a lot of little girls like me who already lived and breathed the sport and got to watch our heroes Mia and Michelle and Briana and Kristine bring its highest honor home. But it was also, I think, an important moment for a lot of other people -- like our dads, who went in not caring an ounce about women's professional soccer but couldn't help but be swept up in the excitement of the tournament. Regular sports enthusiasts had no choice but to pay attention. "Oh, so that's what soccer looks like. Huh. It's rather entertaining, isn't it..."
That was a bigger moment in sports history than I think almost anyone realizes, because it was the moment that made a women's sport relevant for maybe the only time in history, that made a women's sport more popular in America than its male counterpart. Female athletes became household names. (And if you don't believe me, consider who graced SI's cover as the 1999 Sportsman of the Year.)
It didn't last, of course, our love of women's soccer. But I believe it primed this nation to appreciate the (men's) game. Think about it: Team USA's following has gotten larger and more invested with every passing World Cup in the twelve years since that day.
That's why I get so excited for Women's World Cup soccer. Because there's always a chance something miraculous could happen. That the country might be forced to stop and take note of not just the greatest game in all of sports but some of the greatest athletes. Against all odds. In a world where even women don't care about women's sports, where even I don't care about women's sports. Except this one.
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