|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Athletically, it's America first
Posted: Wednesday March 29, 2000 03:29 PM
Already it's been well established that American voters care nothing about what's happening abroad in the world. Well, if sport is any reflection of our society, you already knew how parochial we are. It's ironic that -- whereas this is the shining land of immigrants and all that -- we still have almost no interest in international sports whatsoever. Our national teams? We save our rooting interests for our domestic favorites -- our city's team, our college team, our high school team. This probably has a lot to do with how big we are. So what if we beat up on Guatemala or Belgium? Now, North Carolina against Florida -- that quickens the heart. It's no coincidence that the one time we really got excited about international team competition was in 1980, in ice hockey, when Uncle Sam was going up against the big, bad Soviet bear -- and not only that. For once, America was the poor l'il underdog. If anything, our interest in international sports is diminishing. Track and field is the old amusement. Does the name Marion Jones mean anything to you? Well, she's one of us -- an American sprinter -- who is an A-list celebrity just about everywhere . . . except in the U.S.A. She'll have her Warholian week of fame at the Olympics and then go back to being a prophet without endorsements in her own land. Likewise, Michael Schumacher may well be the most famous athlete in the world today, but Schumacher's a nobody here. That's because he drives a Formula One race car. We don't wanna have nothin' to do with them furriners drivin' cars. Hey, we don't like subtitles in movies either, do we now? Instead, we set up our own NASCAR racing circuit, with our red-blooded 'Mercan boys behind the wheel. Every few years, they schedule another Formula One race in the U.S. Sure enough, this September, they're trying again. It's probably the same people who keep losing money on American soccer leagues. And boy, are we choosy. In the few international sports we do pay much attention to -- basically boxing, tennis, golf and figure skating -- we drop all interest if an American isn't the champ. Essentially, the only exceptions to this rule have been Katarina Witt and now Anna Kournikova, which simply proves that not all the red-blooded 'Mercan boys are driving for NASCAR. Lennox Lewis, the current heavyweight champion, is bright and handsome. Unfortunately, Lewis isn't wearing the stars-'n'-stripes, so if he wants to draw a crowd in these 50 states, he has to fight our own resident rogue, Mike Tyson. You see, Iron Mike may be a jailbird, but he's our jailbird. Tennis is making a comeback, but every promoter is holding his breath in the knowledge that Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi probably only have a couple more good years. Do you know there are as many Moroccan men in the top 50 as Americans? Unless a 17-year-old kid from Nebraska named Andy Roddick pans out, American men's tennis will soon be drawing ratings the size of tractor pulls. Other nations can't expect to win all the time, so they learn to love sport for itself and to admire champions with other passports. But, paradoxically, as heterogeneous a nation as we are, we are really terribly provincial in our athletic devotionals. Golf may be booming right now, but think how close a call it was. Tiger Woods has an American father and a Thai mother. I'll bet you if it had been the other way round, if he had had a Thai father and an American mother, if it were Tiger Leekpai of Bangkok winning all those tournaments, golf popularity would also be down below the red-white-and-blue tractor pulls. In sports, like politics, we remain American firsters. These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the
writer.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
