Dammit Greg Couch, stop living in a golden era that only existed in your own mind!

Greg Couch of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote a truly stupifying piece yesterday. He says his attention was caught Sunday when three Americans won on the same day (Tiger Woods winning the British Open, Floyd Landis winning Le Tour, and James Blake beating Andy Roddick in some tennis tournament that only die-hard tennis enthusiasts would have heard of.)

He says these yankee triumphs are more the exception than the rule, citing American collapses in international competition over the past three years. He says the reason why American teams don't succeed any more is because kids don't have fun in sports.

Huh?

Let's for just a second assume he has successfully diagnosed the problem. If pressure has gotten to kids in sports over the last three decades, and winning has become the only objective, then it would seem to follow that the kids who survived little leagues and peewee leagues and Pop Warner would be the best equipped and talented (the ones where winning was constant and the game stayed fun), and the best-suited to pressure-filled situations. However, Couch's premise doesn't match his conclusion. If the best kids grew up to become the best athletes in an era where fun has lost its emphasis, wouldn't these athletes be dominating due to superior mental and physical superiority? Think about it for a second.

Likewise, hasn't the last 30 years or so seen the rise of the "participation trophy" and the mantra of "Everyone is a winner, we don't keep score?"

As if his faulty premises and ridiculous concusion weren't enough, Couch's argument straight-on contradicts itself later on. He says that after World War II and economic recovery in affected countries, more countries besides the United States were able to devote resources to training and scouting and generally equipping the world's best athletes for competition. However, this flat-out contradicts his earlier point, saying that kids need to learn to play the game informally and not be bogged down in the pressure situations of organized competition and instruction. He sarcastically refers to the addition of chalk lines and bases at the park where he used to play little league as "Improvements?". While Couch may have a point muddled in there somewhere, it's completely lost because he can't decide whether teams succeed by increased investment in better training or by less infrastructure and less instruction!

Couch also has very shaky ground to stand on when examining US successes and failures in international competition. "U.S. Soccer didn't win a game at the World Cup and lost to Ghana." The print edition of the Sun-Times carried a picture of Claudio Reyna and the words "Underachieved" under it. Underachieved? Not to anyone who's watched more than 20 minutes of soccer before in their lives. It doesn't take a full-blown soccer hooligan to know that the US hasn't really made a name for themselves in international competition. His assessment of Team USA's fortunes at the World Baseball Classic? He mentions that they lost to Canada. One tournament is enough to uproot the entire system and bring about a return to a golden age of pickup games and sandlot ball producing major leaguers.

His most egregious abuse of the facts was, "No Americans made the Wimbledon quarterfinals."
This is just flat out wrong, as in 2006, Americans took second in mixed doubles and won Mens' doubles. Even if he wants to apply this categorization to the singles competitors only, one year of shortcoming in Couch's mind is enough to erase the fact that 11 of the last 16 Ladies' finalists have been Americans. On the Mens' side, 13 of the last 30 finalists have been Americans. The next closest country has FOUR of the last 30, and he just happens to be a player named Roger Federer. You might have heard of him. He's been the number one player in the world for the last two years.

He says "we hear less about American sports successes than about the fattening of America." But news reports contain reports on the growing childhood obesity epidemic and ways to lose weight seemingly constantly. Of course we're going to hear less about American success in international competitions that sometimes only come once every four years.

Remember why he wrote this article in the first place? Because of Tiger, Floyd and the other guy all winning on the same day. Tiger Woods's dad started teaching him how to play golf when he was three and won the Junior World Golf Championships when he was 9. Somehow intense instruction and worldwide competition didn't seem to keep him from succeeding on an international stage. Maybe he'd be winning every tournament if he only focused on having fun as a kid. Floyd Landis was named junior national champion at age 17. Somehow competition was able to work for him. As for tennis, while I can't find anything on this guy, past champions Venus and Serena Williams began winning tournaments when they were barely older than toddlers.

He also cites examples of the demise of fun by observing kids saying "we won we won" during the end-of-game handshake in a little league game as if this were something new. I know I can remember saying that in the handshake line for little league. It didn't happen often because my team always sucked (total coincidence when paired with my general sucking at baseball). While power-mad parents heckling kids and putting intense pressure on them are out there, and even on the rise perhaps, they remain the exception to the rule.

But of course if we all played hooky from school, walked through the fence with the loose board in it, threw down some old newspapers for bases and just played pickup, sandlot ball all day, Americans would dominate international competition. Not friggin likely Greg. So put your shoebox full of baseball cards away and stop reminiscing about a golden age that only existed in your own mind and on the Little Rascals.