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No World Cup Shown Here!!! |
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Cup fever? Not even a sniffle here
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Rick Morrissey
June 20, 2002
By now you probably have heard of World Cup fever, a malady that makes otherwise normal American men insist on being called by just one name, a la Pele or Maradona or Ronaldo.
And so you've noticed that your next-door neighbor has taken to introducing himself to strangers as, "just Kenny."
You've noticed that World Cup fever has made pregnant women paint their bellies to look like soccer balls and that it has made their husbands, already exhausted by the mood swings, tell them they "look wonderful, not a pound over
180." You've also noticed angry welts on the husbands' heads.
I myself don't have the fever, though I might have the belly.
The antithesis of World Cup fever is World Cup rage, which is sort of like 'roid rage but without the acne. World Cup rage makes non-soccer fans howl at the moon over the injustice of a painfully boring sport being given center stage
in a country that wouldn't know a free kick from a kickstand.
I don't have full-blown World Cup rage, but I am a carrier.
Right now I'm somewhere between not caring about the tournament and wishing it all would go away. This will make me an enemy of the One World Through Soccer people, though I'm used to being in this position.
You might recall that I once wrote a column ridiculing a Swedish lawmaker for nominating soccer for the Nobel Peace Prize. How, I wondered, could you give a prize to a sport that, while peaceful on the field, is one, long, run-on
newspaper story of riots, stabbings and collapsing stadium seats?
You also might recall that, in response to that column, I went to a Fire game last spring with a reader who hoped to convert me to soccer. When I found out that he had come all the way from New Jersey to take me to a game at Soldier
Field, I had one thought: restraining order. But I came away with an appreciation of soccer fans' zeal and the electric atmosphere inside a stadium.
As for the sport itself, my attitude hasn't changed. I'm told that in the federal prison system, reruns of soccer matches often are used to break the most hardened criminals.
Now we're hearing again about a growth spurt for soccer in the United States. We hear this every five years or so, and the sport continues to stand as tall as Danny DeVito. We're still waiting for the Women's United Soccer Association
to take off, three years after World Cup fever struck here.
More than 90,000 people crammed into the Rose Bowl when the U.S. women's team won a shootout over China in 1999 and Brandi Chastain celebrated by introducing America to her sports bra.
Last week, Chastain scored two goals for the San Jose CyberRays in a 4-3 victory over the New York Power. The crowd in San Jose was announced at 6,605. The stadium holds 26,000 for soccer. It could be that Brandi is keeping her shirt
on these days.
In the current World Cup craze, soccer fans again need to differentiate between true love and patriotism. Just because Americans are waking up at 1:30 a.m. to watch the United States take on South Korea doesn't mean they're on their
way to being converted. Most of these people would root for stagnant water if it were colored red, white and blue. This is called patriotism, folks, not the signs of conversion.
True love is wearing a Manchester United jersey to your wedding. True love is knowing that Pele composed the soundtrack for the 1977 film "Pele." True love is being angry over what you consider to be Pele's Oscar snub.
I'm not going to lie to you. It's hard being a non-soccer fan these days. We're surrounded. Even though we're in the majority in this country, it feels as if we're outnumbered. The U.S. team has been winning, and Americans are suckers
for that sort of thing.
We risk being called unpatriotic. So here many of us sit, biting our tongues until they bleed. Why, yes, that 2-0 victory over Mexico certainly was chock-full of action! Maybe not.
The fad these days is to set the alarm for 1 a.m. and head for the pub to catch live World Cup action from Asia. You won't find those of us in the silent majority at these places.
But we're out there, and we're proud. For those of you looking for peace, the best place to be is Higgins' Tavern, 3259 N. Racine Ave. A sign in front of the bar says, "Positively No World Cup Soccer Shown Here."
My heroes.
Copyright (c) 2002, The Chicago Tribune
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This article originally appeared at:
http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/cs-0206200331jun20.column
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