It was the summer of 1986.?I was a mere six years old, and I was flipping on the television to watch cartoons.?However, there was a soccer game on at the moment: Argentina?versus some team I’ve long since forgotten.?There was a guy on the screen with what I thought was really funny hair, and I watched for a second.?And within moments, I had completely forgotten about cartoons.
The funny-haired man is known the world over by one name, and one name only: Maradona.?I didn’t know that at the time, of course. I was six… I couldn’t have pronounced that name if you promised me five pillowcases of Halloween candy. But I was absolutely transfixed by the man with the poofy hair.? The way he carried this soccer ball — with his feet, no less — and bobbed and weaved up and down the pitch, stealthily sneaking by his opponents.? He scored a goal that day that took my breath away, and still has that effect nearly thirty years later.?When the game ended I asked, or maybe begged, my parents to get me a soccer ball of my own.
That’s how I fell in love with the sport.?Soccer, football, f?tbol, the Beautiful Game… it doesn’t matter what name you give it, it’s still the greatest sport I’ve ever seen, in my own humble opinion of course.?But according to Ann Coulter, that view by itself makes me anti-American.
In a recent op-ed published in the Clarion Ledger, Coulter lambasts American soccer fans, insulting the world’s favorite sport and criticizing folks like me who love the game.?As you can imagine, this being Ann Coulter we’re talking about, the article is overloaded with snarky, witless insults, dry examples of American exceptionalism run amok, and the typical Coulter bigotry, all doused in more ignorance, anger, and flat-out stupidity than all of the hair products our aforementioned friend, Mr. Maradona, used in the whole of the 1980’s cumulatively.
And every step of the way,?Coulter proves that she knows absolutely nothing about this globally-beloved sport.? A sport which, despite Coulter’s protests, is growing in popularity in the United States by leaps and bounds, year after year after year.
An example of her unabashed ignorance?
“I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.”
I’m an American citizen.? Both of my grandparents fought in World War II, for the US, and one of them?was a decorated war hero. Want to try again, Ms. Coulter?
“This year’s Super Bowl had 111.5 million viewers.”
That’s cute.? The 2010 World Cup had well over 700 million viewers globally.? Do you need help with the math there, Ann?? Or should we break out a ruler?
“One group of sports fans with whom soccer is not `catching on’ at all, is African-Americans. They remain distinctly unimpressed by the fact that the French like it.”?
Your continued ignorance and racism is duly noted.?But you might not want to say that to Jozy Altidore, Jermaine Jones, or Damarcus Beasley… three African-American soccer players who are very, very,?very talented, are patriotic enough to represent the United States in the world’s most popular sport,?and love said sport very much. And you’ll really love the views of legendary Thierry Henry, who currently plays in the MLS for New York Red Bulls.? He’s black and French!
I could go on and on here, but the point is this: just because you don’t understand something, and are ignorant enough to form opinions about something you know absolutely nothing about (seriously, they’re called “halves,” Ann, not “periods”), doesn’t mean you get to go around questioning the patriotism of others. It’s desperate and it’s sad, and a whole lot worse.
In your article, you say that “the prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport.”? And if that’s the case, this article proves you’re one of the greatest athletes of all time. Well, at least with the humiliation part.? Though if you did manage to hurt yourself while writing this trek, I wouldn’t be all that surprised.
Let us know what you think of Ms. Coulter’s latest views on the Liberal America Facebook page.
