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Elite Soccer?

August 5, 2014

Every four years, the Winter Olympics brings obscure cold-weather sports to American homes; and a few months after that, the World Cup brings the world’s most popular game to the American conscience and conversation.

Predictably, those who don’t understand or don’t like soccer ridiculed the sport, while the sport’s devotees ignored ugly blemishes on the face of the “beautiful game.”

It’s my hope that those who play or coach school-based soccer, or who aspire to, saw the spacing, the strategy and the one-on-one skills of soccer at its highest level on its biggest stage. It really is beautiful!

But I wish even more that those who play or coach school-based soccer, or hope to, will ignore the feigning and the flopping. Grown, athletic men seemed to be tripped up by the slightest push or pull, and then tumbled with comical force, and then trembled dramatically as they held their head or gripped an ankle with both hands.

Oh, there were times when the shoves were real and forceful and the injuries were real and painful; but the vast majority of the players who fell were faking both incident and injury.

At times last month I thought I was watching World Wrestling Federation actors, not World Cup athletes. And in that regard, I prefer our high school version of the world’s highest profile sport.

The Most Important Decisions

October 13, 2015

During the course of contests, coaches and officials make many mistakes – not as many as spectators might think, of course – but mistakes certainly do happen. In the heat of competition, most are quickly forgotten.

Those mistakes that occur near the end of games or are caught on camera can live longer than dozens of more consequential decisions earlier in the event that might later be determined to be incorrect in the 20/20 hindsight of “Monday morning quarterbacking.” But it is extraordinarily rare that any decision during a contest defines a career, or ends it.

No, the decisions that do most to damage, detour or destroy a coaching or officiating career are those made away from the contest. A bad impulse during a social outing, indiscreet comments or conduct caught on video and sent worldwide overnight, or an inappropriate email or website search ... these are the decisions that end up defining the career.

The stakes may be higher for decisions made away from the sport by coaches and officials than the decisions they make in the athletic arena. Every week’s sports news tells me this is correct. Hundreds or even thousands of people may witness a judgment call during a contest, while millions upon millions will be exposed to poor judgment exercised away from the contest.