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Ann Coulter's musings on soccer a sign of her moral decay

Page history last edited by Alex Backer, Ph.D. 9 years, 8 months ago

Ann Coulter’s musings on soccer a sign of her moral decay

 

Last week, The Clarion-Ledger published a rant against soccer, immigrants and women by Ann Coulter saying that any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation’s moral decay. Her essay reflects little more than her ignorance.

 

First, Coulter argues that individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer. Clearly she is unaware of the fact that Pele’ won three World Cups for Brazil, that Maradona single-handedly won a World Cup for Argentina, that Messi & James Rodriguez single-handedly took their countries to the next round of this year’s World Cup.

 

Not that there’s anything wrong with team achievements, which include the landing on the Moon, the American Revolution and the winning of the Second World War.

 

Then, she writes that in no other sport does “athletic talent finds so little expression”, so much so that girls can play with boys. I dare her to play soccer with me and a bunch of my teammates. As for no athletic talent; I dare her to attempt James Rodriguez’ first-touch goal after bringing the ball down with his chest, or Van Persie’s “Flying Dutchman” header goal, or the wonderful dance of a goal by the Colombian team against Uruguay in today’s second half. Not that the fact that girls can play something too means that something requires no athletic talent. Indeed, girls are better than boys at some sports --gymnastics, for example.

 

Third, Coulter complains about soccer’s few goals. What she doesn’t realize is that it’s precisely the scarcity of goals that makes soccer so exciting and goals so much of a celebration for soccer fans. There are two reasons for this.

 

The first is that anything commonplace is not celebrated. Christmas would not be special if it happened weekly, the World Cup would not be a celebrated event if it happened monthly, and the same is true for goals. A basketball game is usually over well before the end of the match, because the score difference between opponents is so big that it cannot be overcome. This is seldom the case with soccer --witness both World Cup games played Sunday, which were turned around in the last ten minutes of game time. How many doubles have you seen drive a stadium to erupt in euphoria? Soccer goals, in contrast, drive fans crazy. Think of it this way: if basketball is all foreplay, goals constitute veritable orgasms of sport.

 

The second is that the scarcity of goals make soccer unpredictable and democratic, allowing weaker teams to stage an upset of stronger ones. Unpredictability is the essence of good sport and well as good showmanship. Whilst the law of large numbers, which states that a sample’s average won’t deviate much from the true underlying average in the limit of many samples, implies that a basketball game almost invariably goes to the best team, a soccer game can have any result: witness the fact that the World Cup’s reigning champion, Spain, went home after the first round, whilst a team like Costa Rica, with almost no World Cup history, won the toughest group in the World Cup, ahead of Spain, England and Uruguay, each of whom have won at least a World Cup. Soccer allows for David vs. Goliath stories, and makes for a great show. After all, who wants to go see a sport where the outcome is pretty much known before the start?

 

Then, Coulter wrote that “The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport.” If she doesn’t think soccer provides either, she doesn’t know about the Colombian player who got killed because he scored a goal against his own team in the 1994 World Cup held in the US. Soccer stars are veritable Gods in their countries.

 

She then goes on to resent the fact that hands cannot be used in soccer. I presume she thinks she was conceived with her parents’ hands.

 

She resents what she calls soccer’s force-fed nature, and does not believe it is “catching on”. She seems to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that the FIFA World Cup is the world's most widely viewed sporting event. The Super Bowl did not even make the top 3. An estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 FIFA World Cup held in Germany and the 2010 event in South Africa was broadcast to 204 countries on 245 different channels.

 

She claims that soccer is not catching on among African Americans, apparently unaware that a full third of the US national soccer team appears to have African American ancestry.

 

Coulter also resents the fact that soccer is foreign. So I’m guessing she walks to work, because the automobile was invented abroad, and that she shits on a bowl, because the toilet is a foreign abomination.

 

She then compares soccer to the metric system, ignoring the fact that a soccer field’s dimensions are set in whole yards, not meters.

 

Finally, Coulter turns her hatred toward immigrants, and claims that no American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. Perhaps if she went a little beyond great-grandfathers, she’d realize her family is made of immigrants, too, to a land whose true original Americans are gracious enough to share it with her.

 

If more Americans are enjoying the global feast of the FIFA World Cup today, it’s because more and more Americans have learned to look beyond their own belly buttons, belying an increasingly global awareness that does America good and should make us --if not Ms. Coulter-- proud.

 

--Alex Bäcker

 

Dr. Bäcker is a native American, defined as someone native to the Americas, and a first generation immigrant to the United States. He has played soccer his whole life, and has coached many AYSO teams, including to a championship win. When he is not defending soccer, he runs QLess, a company dedicated to extend enjoyable lifespan by eliminating waiting in line from the face of the Earth.

 

 

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