Recent losses abroad have led some to conclude that America sucks at everything in sports.
I’m here to reassure. It’s simply not true.
Haven’t you seen a recent Bassmasters Classic lately? I mean it’s Bubba’s and Johnny’s and Billy’s as far as the eye can see.
Call me when a Fabio or Sergio or Goran is holding up 12 pounds of largemouth and saying in broken English: “Dees lak I feesh, ees good lak. Big lak. Lots of tasty feesh.”
Sure, this year not a single American made the quarterfinals at Wimbledon -- something that hadn’t happened since ladies in tennis had to dress to Taliban standards while playing.
And this comes on the heels of our not unexpected early exit from the World Cup. At least at soccer, we know we suck.
In the spring, we cooked up and financed the first ever World Baseball Classic. And lost.
Reaching further back, our basketball program is in shambles at the international level. The utter humiliation four years ago in Indianapolis at the World Championships was supposed to be a wake up call. We finished 6th, and vowed “this will never happen again.”
Then once we had to endure the degrading process of just qualifying for the Olympics (cue outraged Jim Mora with face screwed up in rage: “Qualifying! Qualifying!!!!”) we still didn’t end up with the gold medal at Athens despite a very serious effort, with a very serious coach (Larry Brown).
The Ryder Cup saw the Euros bee-bop-and-scat all over us at our home course in Michigan! The margin was so lopsided, I think NBC cut-away for Arena Football. Our “star” players Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods were forced to play with each other, and were so not into it, you pretty much had to run a split screen to get both guys on camera at one time.
Don’t even bother getting upset about the USA in hockey. We won it all in 1980. It was the greatest team sports story of all time. I have the tape. I have the movie. I have the documentary.
And guess what? That’ll be it for us in hockey. So enjoy it.
Hell, even the most recent NBA draft saw a foreigner go No. 1. No. 1! Did you ever think you would have lived long enough to see that?
So what are we going to do about all this sucking at sports? Answer: nothing. Because there’s nothing we really CAN do about the increasing popularity of sports in other countries. We can’t stop those countries and their athletes from getting better and winning.
Because the truth is, it’s America who has been training and inspiring these other countries and athletes for years.
So we didn’t have anybody in the quarters at Wimbledon? Who cares? Maria Sharapova is Russian, but guess where she lives and trains most of the year?
Florida!
At the World Baseball Classic, we couldn’t use guys like David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, Ichiro, or Vlad Guerrero due to a technicality -- they weren’t born here! But come on, they are just as American as apple pie.
OK, maybe not Vlad. He’s been here for like 10 years and still only speaks 12 words of English.
But you get my point. American sports fans root for foreign born players in our major leagues with all the zeal they have for our own. If you hit a home run for my team, you are already 9/10 American.
Who wouldn’t want Big Papi to buy a house in your neighborhood?
Think of it this way: when does a foreign athlete really know he’s “made it?” When he signs his first huge pro contract: in America!
Besides, if you are feeling down about America’s standing on the global sports stage, remember we still own the two hottest sports on TV today: poker and NASCAR.
I’m here to reassure. It’s simply not true.
Haven’t you seen a recent Bassmasters Classic lately? I mean it’s Bubba’s and Johnny’s and Billy’s as far as the eye can see.
Call me when a Fabio or Sergio or Goran is holding up 12 pounds of largemouth and saying in broken English: “Dees lak I feesh, ees good lak. Big lak. Lots of tasty feesh.”
Sure, this year not a single American made the quarterfinals at Wimbledon -- something that hadn’t happened since ladies in tennis had to dress to Taliban standards while playing.
And this comes on the heels of our not unexpected early exit from the World Cup. At least at soccer, we know we suck.
In the spring, we cooked up and financed the first ever World Baseball Classic. And lost.
Reaching further back, our basketball program is in shambles at the international level. The utter humiliation four years ago in Indianapolis at the World Championships was supposed to be a wake up call. We finished 6th, and vowed “this will never happen again.”
Then once we had to endure the degrading process of just qualifying for the Olympics (cue outraged Jim Mora with face screwed up in rage: “Qualifying! Qualifying!!!!”) we still didn’t end up with the gold medal at Athens despite a very serious effort, with a very serious coach (Larry Brown).
The Ryder Cup saw the Euros bee-bop-and-scat all over us at our home course in Michigan! The margin was so lopsided, I think NBC cut-away for Arena Football. Our “star” players Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods were forced to play with each other, and were so not into it, you pretty much had to run a split screen to get both guys on camera at one time.
Don’t even bother getting upset about the USA in hockey. We won it all in 1980. It was the greatest team sports story of all time. I have the tape. I have the movie. I have the documentary.
And guess what? That’ll be it for us in hockey. So enjoy it.
Hell, even the most recent NBA draft saw a foreigner go No. 1. No. 1! Did you ever think you would have lived long enough to see that?
So what are we going to do about all this sucking at sports? Answer: nothing. Because there’s nothing we really CAN do about the increasing popularity of sports in other countries. We can’t stop those countries and their athletes from getting better and winning.
Because the truth is, it’s America who has been training and inspiring these other countries and athletes for years.
So we didn’t have anybody in the quarters at Wimbledon? Who cares? Maria Sharapova is Russian, but guess where she lives and trains most of the year?
Florida!
At the World Baseball Classic, we couldn’t use guys like David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, Ichiro, or Vlad Guerrero due to a technicality -- they weren’t born here! But come on, they are just as American as apple pie.
OK, maybe not Vlad. He’s been here for like 10 years and still only speaks 12 words of English.
But you get my point. American sports fans root for foreign born players in our major leagues with all the zeal they have for our own. If you hit a home run for my team, you are already 9/10 American.
Who wouldn’t want Big Papi to buy a house in your neighborhood?
Think of it this way: when does a foreign athlete really know he’s “made it?” When he signs his first huge pro contract: in America!
Besides, if you are feeling down about America’s standing on the global sports stage, remember we still own the two hottest sports on TV today: poker and NASCAR.
Steve is a native Washingtonian and has worked in sports talk radio for the last 11 years. He worked at WTEM in 1993 anchoring Team Tickers before he took a full time job with national radio network One-on-One Sports.
A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Steve has worked for WFNZ in Charlotte where his afternoon show was named "Best Radio Show." Steve continues to serve as a sports personality for WLZR in Milwaukee and does fill-in hosting for Fox Sports Radio.
