Rick Morrissey Has a Blog Called "Wake Up, Stupid"

I planned to describe Rick Morrissey's pomposity as a lead-in to this post, but that bit of self-caricaturization says more than I ever could. As does his picture, which makes him look like the sleazy, ass-grabbing boss from those sexual harassment videos.

His column today in the Chicago Tribune (sorry, registration may be required) was titled, "Wimpy soccer doesn't deliver for U.S. males." As unpopular as it may be to defend the sport of soccer on this blog, this particular column was so boorish and ignorant that we'd be remiss to let it slide. So let's do this.

If soccer doesn't toughen up, it will never be a major force in U.S.

That damned soccer--always getting pushed around and taken advantage of, letting people borrow his stuff and not getting it back. When's he just gonna learn to toughen up?

Things you won't hear from your average, red-blooded American male:
• Honey, what book do you want to discuss this month?
• Would you mind if we just cuddled tonight?
• I'm pretty clear on what Phil Donahue would have done, but what would Oprah do?
• This World Cup soccer extravaganza—it's right up there with "Wicked," wouldn't you say?

Illiterate? Check. Insensitive? Hell yeah! Watch Phil Donahue? Would, if it were 1986. Hate Oprah? You betcha! Think the World Cup is worse than "Wicked"? I don't know what "Wicked" is, but it must be some womanly crap just like the World Cup because Rick Morrissey says so, and Rick Morrisey knows what it is to be a real red-blooded, sport-fishing, steak-eating, feminist-hating, porn-loving, child-beating, wife-beating man!

Let me know if I missed any other silly, gender stereotype cliches.

Now, I bring all of this up because, for many of us red-blooded American males (RAMs),

Cute...he assigned it an acronymn.

the enduring image of the 2006 World Cup will be:
American Claudio Reyna getting the ball stolen in front of the U.S. net by Ghana's Haminu Draman and Reyna immediately being carried off the pitch on a stretcher after Draman's easy goal.

An injury. Those certainly never occur in other sports.

I'm sorry, soccer fans, but it looked awfully wimpy. That's the image, though perhaps not the reality. As it turned out, Reyna had injured his left knee and later gamely tried to play on, but the damage was done—to the game of soccer in this country. All I could see was a huge population of RAMs rolling their eyes at how soft it looked without knowing the extent of the injury.

Actually, all I could see was the ceiling because I was rolling my eyes too.

So...a guy gets carried off the field, and you and your legions of RAMs--without any evidence--assume that the injury is not serious, only to find out later--in light of some evidence--that the injury kinda was serious and that Claudio Reyna is, in fact, quite "gamely" (what??) for being able to return but is still a wimp because your initial impulse told you.

I'm not saying that Morrissey is wrong; I'm just trying to make sure I understand him correctly so that I can add "quick to judgment" and "stubborn" to my list of "Qualities I Must Adopt to Become a Real Man."

Fair or not,

No matter what you're about to write, I'm betting on "not."

one of the problems the sport has in the United States is that it seems to be perfect for the faint of heart. Players are forever falling on the grass writhing in pain after minimal contact.

Didn't you know? Rick Morrissey has played soccer competetively since he was 18 months old. In fact, he played just last week in the Chicago Tribune-Chicago Sun Times charity soccer game and scored four goals--three of them after a vicious tackle from Rick Telander--and even did a backflip after the fourth. So he understands full well how tame the contact is in soccer.

In a country that lives for NFL Sundays, it's difficult to see a man in agony one moment and up on his feet, suddenly recovered, the next. I'm sure Ozzie Guillen would have a word for this.

Hahahaha, like "fag"?? I get it!

Topical, predictable--I love it.

Is that simplistic? Is that taking a few plays out of an otherwise good sport and passing judgment? Is that throwing the baby out with the bath water? Will I ever stop asking myself questions?

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And I'd prefer if you'd stop writing altogether.

The answer is no.

But wait--that wasn't a question! You contradicted yourself! Arghh!!!! Can't... handle... the... logical... implications... world... crumbling...

These are important issues for soccer in the United States.

There are fundamental reasons why the sport hasn't taken off in this country the way its proponents have hoped it would for the last 30 years. There is something basically flawed about the game—or at least flawed in combination with something very elemental to our country.

We like things a little rough around here.

The player being carried off on a stretcher, the stretcher held by two men, it's so … so … so overly dramatic, so over the top as to be almost comical.

Take note Chicago paramedics: if you're ever called to Rick Morrissey's house after a freak swivel-chair accident, do not bring a stretcher. Let him drag that torn ligament down all five flights of stairs (I assume he lives in a mansion) and into the ambulance, lest his RAM neighbors point and laugh at his wimpiness.

Until soccer figures out a way to toughen itself up, it never, ever will be a force in the United States.

Again, why is he talking about soccer like it's a five year-old me?

For a nation raised on bare-fisted, county-fair boxing matches,

Did Rick once watch "Gentleman" Jim Corbett fight an eskimo for 120 rounds and still demand his nickel back? What living American was raised on bare-fisted boxing matches? How long ago was this even legal? Why does he keep using these stupid cliches?

for a nation whose pastime still includes beanball wars and raised spikes, the sight of all these theatrics is just too much to take.

Right, just like when NFL players kneel down and pray around an immobilized player while paramedics carefully take him off the field. What a bunch of stupid theatrics. Not good medical procedure, not solemn concern for fellow man. Theatrics.

We're not big on nuance.

I guess you're not big on any sport then. Or you just can't be bothered to understand them.

The onus is not on the rest of us in this country to embrace soccer. The onus is on soccer to deliver a product that meets the needs of our culture.

What??? A gazillion year-old sport that the rest of the world loves just fine in its current state should adapt itself (again, his personification of soccer is out of control) so that Americans will appreciate it--not for its unique qualities as sport but for sheer violence? What?

And, frankly, seeing players perform the suicide scenes in "Romeo and Juliet" with dramatic precision after every collision just doesn't fit us.

If somebody did that in an NFL game, he would get carted off the field all right—because someone else likely would have acted on a homicidal instinct.

"Uncontrollable homicidal rage." I'll add that one to my list also.

Tied in with all of this is that, in a tournament that has been full of incredible athleticism, the U.S. team lacked toughness. Would a U.S. team member like to start lifting weights? That probably would be a good idea for 2010. Did you happen to check out the upper bodies of Ghana's players? Think that might help a little while battling for the ball?

Our display didn't look close to the best athletes a nation of 280 million people could muster up.

But it's one thing to lack speed, which the United States surely did. It's another to be outmuscled, which the United States surely was. That's called a lack of training and preparation. And we looked like the rich kids who had the money to buy all the best equipment but didn't know how to play the game.

I don't even know where to begin. What's his evidence for any of those claims? Did he attend their weight-training sessions? Does he have the slightest knowledge of proper weight training for soccer? Did the U.S. really look outmuscled? underprepared? like rich kids? Or is Rick Morrissey just saying so because it allows him to impress whatever claim he wants onto a readership that mostly did not watch the game and probably knows even less about soccer than he does?

Also, I can't stand that "we're America and we're huge and rich and should be able to win at everything because we're America" attitude that people adopt when talking international competition. I especially hate when people employ that attitude regarding sports and athletes that they care nothing about and have no part in. "I don't know your name nor do I like your sport, but if you lose, you make me look bad."

The World Cup, in all its glory and weakness, is on stage. The play has been impressive, the pageantry almost as impressive. There's a lot to like about something this big.

But for us RAMs, there needs to be something a little more RAMly, for lack of a better term.

"Violent"?

There needs to be a lot more players like England's Wayne Rooney, who was spitting fire when he was taken out of a recent game against Sweden, and fewer guys getting escorted off the pitch. On a stretcher.

"Soccer sucks because there's too many medics doing their job by exercising caution with injured players, and there's no tough soccer players except the one I just mentioned and the one I mentioned earlier when I was trying to illustrate how wimpy soccer players are, only to show how tough that player turned out to be after further inspection."

Sweet googly moogly.