An Honest
Day’s Word
SO, I'm watching the Women's World Cup finals in my office yesterday, the repeat, that is. Many missing the point
of women’s winA couple of guys walk in and start giving me grief. "What's this doing on?" they groused.
They made a couple more remarks about a nothing-nothing, boring game.
I was ready with the red cards and sent them off.
If a baseball game goes 0-0 for 14 innings, I replied, it is hailed as a brilliant pitchers' duel. Male sportswriters gush and drool even more than normal.
Heaven forbid women get a share of the spotlight, I told them. What America needs more of is monosyllabic jocks whose vocabulary of words with more than four letters is slim at best.
At least they can make their penalty kicks. That's more than I can say for Shaquille O'Neal at the free throw line.
The Super Bore, I mean Bowl, should be so close.
I soon realized I had cleared the office and was free to watch the most admirable athletes I have seen in years.
Athletes who are respectful of the fans. And polite. And gracious. And the best in the world at their sport.
Team members are going to reap lucrative endorsement deals, I'm sure.
I would think that, after years of doling out millions to goof-ball men like Dennis Rodman and Albert Belle, companies will be lined up to sign players who are actually decent human beings as well as superb athletes.
Good on them.
Here's hoping Brandi Chastain makes a ton of endorsement cash for the "temporary insanity" of whipping off her jersey after scoring on the fifth U.S. penalty kick.
Speaking of which, what's all the fuss over Chastain's act?
She scores on the fifth penalty kick, is filled with the emotion of victory and whips off her jersey.
Guys do it all the time. It's not like she was bare-chested in front of those 90,000 fans in the stands and 40 million more on television.
Even female sportswriters composed the easiest possible leads, somehow tying Chastain's mostly nude photo in Gear magazine to her act of pure elation.
Did they all miss the real story a few kicks before?
Or were they simply mesmerized by Chastain's biceps, which are awesome.
Didn't nine out of 10 penalty kicks end up in the back of the net? Maybe I'm wrong, but wasn't the one save by U.S. goalie Brianna Scurry really the play that won it?
And how did so many writers miss the point of the entire World Cup?
Many missed it badly, including a couple at the two dailies in this town.
Guys who should know better.
They opined that even though the matches were hugely popular at the box office, soccer's glean won't last.
That might be partially right. There still are too many inadequate fields and soccer stadiums in this country.
And men's soccer hasn't progressed as well as the women's game.
But this three-week spectacle wasn't just about soccer. More important, it was a harbinger of the popularity of women's athletics as a whole.
The World Cup proved beyond a doubt that Americans are more than willing to spend their money watching great female athletes at the stadiums and on television.
Celebrate that.
