|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
What makes a sports expert?
Posted: Saturday February 26, 2000 12:00 PM
When former French World Cup-winning coach, Aime Jacquet, was asked, on a recent trip to the United States, to say what the Americans could do to improve the level of soccer in their country, he was diplomatically non-committal about his feelings, saying that while the exchange of ideas about soccer is important, he didn't feel qualified enough to discuss the USA's footballing future as he didn't follow U.S soccer. Expert opinion of course is at a premium in sport, and personally I would have thought Monsieur Jacquet was more than qualified to give his view. After all, soccer, and sport in general, is a universal language. And whether you're intimately familiar with the situation in a certain country or not, the same principles tend to apply wherever you are.
I raise the issue of expertise because earlier this week I had my own right to an "expert" opinion questioned in a letter to the World Sport mailbag. A viewer/reader from Trinidad and Tobago, blasted my judgement in the most vitriolic manner, over my views on which soccer leagues are the best in the world. Innocently enough, not to mention logically in my opinion, I'd written that I like the English Premier League for its pace and aggression, and Italy's Serie A for its sophistication. I also mentioned, jokingly, that the Mexican league is also one of my favorites simply because it's the one league I'm able to see at home with any regularity on commercial television here in the United States. Well that set my critic into a frenzied rant, which I shall paraphrase. Apparently I know nothing about soccer because I come from Britain and live in the U.S., where we're soccer illiterates; I didn't pick the Spanish Primera as one of the world's best; I didn't mention the league's of Brazil and Argentina; and because the English Premiership and Serie A are mediocre and over-hyped with propaganda, and populated by talentless mercenaries who simply can't play the game. Well apart from thinking that this guy's nerves must be pretty near the surface to elicit such a barbed response, his tirade also made me consider what qualifies anyone as a sporting expert more than the likes of myself and my World Sport colleagues.
We've all played sport at various levels all our lives. We've watched more hours of sport than most people would deem healthy. The diversity of the sport we cover is without parallel. And collectively, our sporting experience would total well over a hundred years. In addition, many of us have reported at some of the world's most important sporting competitions. Indeed I'm personally proud to say I have reported at almost every major international sporting event at least once. And for those who don't realize, that doesn't just involve scamming free tickets and asking a few dumb questions afterwards. We live and breathe these competitions before and during the events, which means we often know more than those actually playing. Our lives are sport. And not just one sport -- all of them. On a daily basis we're expected to have some insight into anything from an Aussie Rules football game in Melbourne to the Iditarod in Alaska, and everything in between. It's not easy, and personally I certainly don't profess to know everything. But given that the average fan's knowledge often extends no further than his own team, league, or sport, I'd say that most of us here at World Sport would make a pretty decent "phone-a-friend" on the millionaire show, assuming it was a sporting question, of course. So when we're bludgeoned with criticism, such as that I received from Mr. Trinidad and Tobago, or, as has happened in the past, sniped at by one sportsman or another for a lack of insight, it leaves a somewhat bitter taste in the mouth. We may not always share your point of view, and that's as it should be. But we ARE sports experts because it's how we earn a living and how most of us spend our spare time. We watch sport (just ask our wives). We write about sport. We live sport. Sport is what we do. So before you say -- who are these guys to be called experts? Think on. Just because our job involves something most people consider recreation or entertainment doesn't mean we play at it. Sport is our business. And like any profession, it demands expertise.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
