Entries Tagged 'Sports' ↓

I�ve got a secret I haven�t shared with very many people. It�s nothing to be ashamed of, I guess. It�s part of who I am. It�s just that when I try to talk about it, I get strange looks from people who can�t understand how I could possibly be one of them. But silence = death and I can be silent no more. It�s time to come out of the closet.

I�m a frustrated outdoorsman. Even though I haven�t had a chance to do much of it in recent years, I�m into camping, fishing, and I have a burning desire to try hunting. I have been skydiving and don�t rule out other outdoor activities either. There, I�ve said it.

I love peace and quiet, the serenity of being surrounded by trees, smelling fresh air and feeling dirt under my feet. When you live in the most urban of urban jungles, New York, getting in touch with nature means sunning yourself in Central Park. Honey, that ain�t nature.

No, I�m talking about going somewhere where your cellphone won�t get a signal. Where there aren�t one hundred thousand other people with the same idea. Some place where all you hear are the sounds of birds and insects, and at night the only light comes from the moon, if the sky is clear.

I�m an upstate New Yorker by birth, and even though I grew up in a small city, we were close enough to wilderness to go camping in the summer as kids. Dad took us fishing in lakes and streams and when I got older, we also went deep-sea fishing for blues off Long Island Sound. That was some of the most fun I�ve ever had.

From time to time I�ve asked my brothers if they were interested in going fishing and maybe getting their kids involved, you know, kinda trying to pass along the experiences we had with our Dad. But to date nothing has ever happened.

Something Keith wrote a few weeks ago rekindled my thinking on this topic. In high school, I was on the football and track teams and while I won�t pretend I was a great athlete, playing sports had me in the best physical condition of my life. I now get to the gym several times a week and while I�m in great shape for my age, frankly I�m bored by the workouts. In high school just the regular routine of practice and competition kept me in shape. It was a workout for a specific purpose. What I need, and want now, is a focus to my physical activities.

New York City offers a lot of diversions, but they�re all �city� things; theatre, restaurants, museums, shopping, etc. All things I enjoy, but I�m also drawn to less common activities and unafraid to be the odd man out. Growing up, I was the lone Black kid who knew anything about ice hockey.

Now I find myself fascinated by ESPN Outdoors and the hunting shows on OLN. I�m on the mailing lists for several catalogs. I read Field and Stream and get emails from bike manufacturers. While some people dream of exotic trips to Paris or the next Black Pride event, my fantasy vacation involves bowhunting for whitetail or sitting in a marsh awaiting a flock of southern migrating geese or maybe getting a backpack and a bike and traveling across country.

But any time you come out, you�re left wondering if you�re all alone, and this is no exception. I�ve been told my whole life Black people aren�t supposed to do such and such (usually by other Black people), and certainly Black gay men don�t do physical or athletic things (not unless we�re dancing or naked). Thinking outside boxes of our own creation is scary for some. Thus finding community around my interests remains a challenge.

It has taken me the entire World Cup to finally figure this game out.

Football�soccer, as we call it�is a test of endurance. A contest of the collective will of each team and their ability to outlast their opponents physically and mentally. Which team has enough stamina and psychological resolve to run back and forth across the pitch for 90 minutes plus stoppage time, and if necessary, two 15 minute overtime periods and if still further necessary, 5 shootouts, without dropping from exhaustion or cracking under the strain?

American sports fans looking for the high scoring of basketball, or the strategy and playmaking of American football, or even the clear delineation of offense and defense as typified by the change of innings in baseball, are wise to settle in and wait for each match to play out its course.

For most of the 2006 World Cup final between France and Italy it seemed as though �les Bleus� had the advantage over their Italian opponents. France’s Thierry Henry went down in the first minute in a seemingly innocent collision with Italian defender Fabio Cannavaro. Henry stayed on the ground, clearly dazed, for two minutes before being helped off with an ice bag held to his head.

The striker soon came back and on his first touch headed the ball towards a breaking Florent Malouda. Malouda stumbled (or dived) in the penalty area and the referee immediately signaled a penalty kick.

French captain Zinedine Zidane scored on the kick in just the seventh minute. It was the first score against the Italian team in seven games and gave France the early lead.

But the Italians put the ball into the net 12 minutes later on Marco Materazzi’s header off a corner kick. And then they held on, in a game marked by sloppiness and maliciousness. France dominated on offense putting the Italians on the defensive for most of the remaining regulation time. Italy seemed tired and unable to sustain any attack even with second half substitutions.

With both teams gasping for air, the match went into overtime, and that is when the test of wills took a decided turn. In the 110th minute, in a move that will surely be questioned across France and the entire football-loving world, Zidane lost his composure and head-butted an opponent, bringing about a red card and his ejection. It would be the last play for Zidane, who is retiring, and hardly a proud moment on which to end an illustrious career.

It couldn�t have come at a worse time. The game was headed towards a shootout and the French team was without its leader and top scoring threat in penalty kick situations. It may have proved to be all the advantage the Italians would need.

In the shootout, Andrea Pirlo, Materazzi, Daniele De Rossi and Alessandro Del Piero all easily beat France goalkeeper Fabien Barthez. The difference was the miss by rarely used David Trezeguet, which hit the crossbar on France’s second attempt. With Italy leading 4-3 in shootouts, Fabio Grosso could win it all, or by missing, give France a chance to tie. His left footed kick into the net sank the French and lifted Italy to its fourth World Cup title.

What was evident even to the casual observer is that both teams left it all on the field. Exhaustion was their shared experience, only victory allowed the Italians enough second wind to celebrate. When you consider how passionate football fans are in other parts of the world, it is this same type of �putting everything into it� that makes them so fanatical. Perhaps because scoring doesn�t happen often or easily, you can�t hold back, sit back on your heels or just play out the clock, as so often happens in our favorite sports.

This was more soccer/football than I�ve watched at any previous point in my life. I can honestly say I enjoyed every minute. More than a billion people watched the final worldwide, more than any other sporting event anywhere. Despite the uninspiring performance by the U.S. team, Americans watched in record numbers. But has the sport really made any new fans?

I think the World Cup is a special event that like the World Series, Super Bowl, Wimbledon or the Tour de France, generates interest even among those who are not regular followers of those respective sports. It�s a spectacle that happens once every four years, but in the interim, offers little to satisfy those who have caught the bug.

I believe the jury is still out on whether it will ever become a major sport in America. But I also know I can hardly wait until 2010.

In the long tradition of single-named football stars, I now wish to be referred to as Bernardinho. I may even rip my shirt off and run around the living room.

Ok, I can�t claim that I always know what�s going or why when I�m watching the matches, but I�ve come down with a serious case of World Cup fever. Even though there still isn�t a whole lot of scoring going on�as I�ve suggested, an impediment to growing a solid fan base in America�the competitiveness of each game coupled with the obvious nationalism makes each game exciting to watch.

After watching several contests I�ve even started to recognize some unique characteristics of the sport. For example:

� There seems to be no rhyme or reason why referees give some players a yellow card and others a red card. But all of the referees seem to be carding far more players than anyone thinks is necessary. As we like to say in baseball, nobody pays money to see the umpires. Keep the cards in your pockets fellas.

� Players �flop� a lot. Flopping–the act of falling to the ground at the slightest touch from an opponent, in hopes of getting the referee to card that opponent. Even some of the best players in the world flop. Hollywood doesn�t see this kind of acting.

� When a player flops to the ground but the referee doesn�t call anything, upon getting up, he will throw his arms in the air and affect a wide-eyed look of disbelief.

� When a player knocks another player to the ground and the referee cards him, he will throw his arms in the air and affect a wide-eyed look of disbelief.

� When a referee either makes a questionable call or misses an obvious infraction, the coach on the sideline will throw his arms in the air and affect a wide-eyed look of disbelief.

� Second half substitutions are often the key to victory. By the second half, the starters are exhausted from running around and a rested substitute usually has the energy necessary to make a push for a score. I�ve seen it in several matches.

� Players of African descent are on practically every team. At least the winning ones.

With France�s 1-0 victory over defending World Cup Champion Brazil Saturday on a beautiful tap-in by Thierry Henry in the 57th minute, the stage is now set for an all-European quarterfinal. Host nation Germany faces Italy on July 4, while Portugal, who defeated England in a shootout, takes on the French a day later. The final is July 9.

Now, some of my friends and I are so caught up in this that we are already contemplating a trip to the next World Cup in 2010 in South Africa. Anybody want to come along?

The 18th FIFA World Cup begins in Munich, Germany today with a game between Costa Rica and the host German team. Millions of people the world over will skip out on work and school and be glued to their televisions and radios, to follow the first of a month�s worth of games, culminating with the World Cup Finals on Sunday, July 9. It is a sporting event that has the entire world in its grip it seems everywhere except in the United States.

For almost as long as I�ve been alive, people have been saying, �Soccer is about to take off in the U.S.� In my 46 years it hasn�t, and isn�t likely to in my lifetime.

I�m not suggesting to you that soccer, or football as it is called in the rest of the world, isn�t at times an interesting sport. There are youth leagues in just about every community in this country. The term �soccer mom� reflects the fact that kids all over America are involved in leagues where parents regularly have to drive them to games. But the higher up you go, from high school to college to professional leagues and international competition, participation and fan interest drops off precipitously. The rest of the world can�t seem to understand why we don�t love �the beautiful game� the way they do.

The answer merely requires a basic understanding of the American mindset.

First, we didn�t invent it. It isn�t our game. Americans will import television sets or fabrics or fruits and vegetables, but we don�t import our culture. We like to think of that stuff as our own special province. We might take it and change it into something uniquely American, like indoor soccer–a game played on a hockey-sized rink and only in this country�but we aren�t accepting the world�s game hook, line and sinker. Xenophobic as it sounds, it�s just too foreign.

There�s not enough scoring. A soccer match can go 90 minutes only to have the final score �1-nil.� (And we don�t use words like nil around here either. It�s zero, or zip, or nothing, but never nil.) That�s simply not enough. American sports fans like to see scoring, witness basketball and football, our two favorite sports. Running up the score is exciting. It�s an example of one team�s domination of another. Low scoring is dull and a sign of weakness.

The game also doesn�t have sustained and clearly identifiable periods of offense and defense. An attacker advances the ball only to have it taken away by a defender who moves it forward only to have it stripped by an opposing player, and on it goes. This constant shifting of possession grows tedious for sports fans accustomed to seeing one team sustain a drive and their opponent man a defensive stop. Even basketball and hockey, with similar styles of fluid action, enable fans to see exactly when one team is moving in for a score. Strategy laid out in black and white is easier to comprehend and builds excitement toward the realization of an impending outcome. Too much time is spent in a soccer match waiting for a play to develop. That requires an understanding and appreciation for subtlety and nuance, ebbs and flows and change that comes with patience, time and sustained effort.

The World Cup only happens every four years. The three years in between is more than enough time for Americans to lose interest or move on to something else. Ours is a consumer-driven society. We have many things competing for our entertainment dollars, many options to keep ourselves amused beyond sports. You can�t expect a sport that hasn�t gained a foothold to hold onto its tenuous grasp with such long gaps. And professional soccer in this country, in the form of the MLS, doesn�t even draw as well as horse racing.

The best players in the game are not from the United States. Hockey suffers from this problem as well, to a lesser degree. Most Americans can�t name anybody on the U.S. squad, let alone identify the game�s best, and American soccer players are not in that group. Brazil�s Ronaldinho may be known around the globe, but he�d be just another cute brotha with a jheri curl if he walked down any street in the United States. Conversely, while some of the best baseball players in America are from Latin American countries, they are playing our game, here. In essence, they have assimilated.

The NBA and NHL finals are underway, baseball season is heating up and NFL teams will go to training camp in July. The U.S. would have to win the World Cup before anyone would take notice here. We know that will never happen.

Now, I�m not suggesting America�s reasons for ignoring soccer are rational or drawn from an enlightened world view. Clearly they aren�t. They are valid only in that they are the obstacles to be overcome before anyone will embrace the game. But they are precisely part of the (many) reasons why people so despise us. The insular, elitist �we�re important, you�re not� position we take not just around sports but in most of our foreign affairs.

We call our Major League Baseball championship the World Series, even though only American teams play in it. We call our game football and the world�s game soccer, even though in our game, touching the ball with one�s foot is done only on kickoffs, punts, field goals and extra points. We send NBA players to the Olympics to push around smaller countries and win by large margins (although the balance of power in international basketball seems to now be shifting). Sport, as an extension of U.S. foreign policy and prevailing American sentiment, dictates that we define the rules of engagement and deem important only those things where we dominate. Soccer is not one of them.

I won�t pretend to be an avid soccer�uh, football fan, but I will pay attention to the games, watching when I can, following scores when I can�t. As a citizen of the world who happens to reside in the United States, I want to join my fellow world citizens in participating in this international spectacle that comes along every four years. I don�t think that�s asking too much of my time.

Last Friday the track and field community thought it had a new world record in the men�s 100-meter dash. American sprinter Justin Gatlin was believed to have run a time of 9.76 seconds at the Qatar Grand Prix, which would have broken the 9.77 time set by rival Jamaican runner Asafa Powell.

But it now turns out Gatlin only equaled the record and will have to share it with Powell. A timing error prompted the sport’s governing body Wednesday to take away Gatlin’s announced record. The International Association of Athletics Federations said his time was recorded at 9.766, and should have been manually rounded up to 9.77.

Gatlin’s time has now been adjusted to 9.77 and, pending ratification, will equal the record set by Powell in Athens, Greece, on June 14, 2005.

The IAAF uses times recorded to one-hundredth of a second, with figures always rounded up. A spokesman for the IAAF said this was the first time a world record has been taken away days later because of a timing adjustment.

Understandably, Gatlin was unhappy with this turn of events. In a statement posted on the USA Track and Field website, he said, “It is very disappointing to me that it has taken five days to determine the official time of a race with this significance. I remain confident that I am the World’s Fastest Man and I look forward to proving it once again. My parents raised me to be a good sport but I don’t want to share the World Record.”

The 24-year-old Brooklyn, New York native is the reigning Olympic and World Champion in the 100.