Thinking about this problem

Yesterday I was talking with a friend about the problem of the lack of men's soccer popularity in the United States.

I think one problem is the lack of an American men's soccer role model. Freddy Adu had promise, but I don't know what happened to him. Every young kid growing up wants to be the next Derek Jeter, Lebron James, or Peyton Manning. They don't have an American soccer player who they see a lot and can look up to.

I think the other problem for men's soccer is that it is a fall sport. In America we consider football to be the toughest sport to play. In our culture "a real man" plays football. High School's have pep rallies for the homecoming football game. The athletes that get the most attention in high school play football. I had no idea who played on the men's soccer team at my high school, but I knew and all the teachers knew who played football. In our culture you get more respect if you play football and therefore I think that if most guys were forced to try one fall sport that they would try football.

A lot of young boys grow up and our encouraged to be big and strong so they can play football. (I think you can say almost the same thing about basketball, baseball or hockey...I just don't think they quite compare to the pressure to play football) I can think of two examples from husky sport where we saw this fast athletic kid and a couple of us went "Oh man he's going to be a great defensive tackle one day" and for another kindergartner we saw we thought "oh man he's going to be a hard hitting linebacker one day." Soccer never crossed our minds in class.

The more I watch soccer the more I realize how tough the sport is. As a matter of fact I think I know how tough it is. Before I understood and appreciated the game I didn't think that it was tough. When I saw a soccer player with a cast on I thought to myself "how could you get injured by kicking a ball around." Now that I watch the game I see tons of injuries. Now that I've played the game I understand that going up for a header is really risky. I've also messed up my ankle a couple of times already.

I don't think women's soccer has the same problem that the men do with regards to having a competing fall sport and lack of role models.

In America, our most successful soccer teams have been the United States Women's National Team. I bet that if you walked down the street and asked someone about United States soccer that most would talk about the 1999 Women's World Cup team.

I think that there is more societal pressure on an athletic male to play football than there is for an athletic female to play a certain sport. If your strong and athletic and male it's almost like you have to try football. If your a strong and athletic female I don't think there is any societal pressure to play a certain sport over another...although I'm not female so I can't call myself an expert on that at all. That's just an assumption.

I think that women's soccer HAS the role models that men's soccer doesn't have...and therefore I think it makes girls a little more likely to try soccer than another sport. I don't even think any women's basketball player (even though the most famous professional women's league in the country is the WNBA) has had an impact on female athletics the way Mia Hamm has. She is a role model to so many female athletes and she plays soccer.

I think it's much easier to grow women's soccer than men's soccer right now because of those reasons. I hope that as more people become educated about soccer (The World Cup is a good opportunity) and how tough the sport really is, that more young guys play the game. It's a tough sport that is fun to watch and play...and I admit that I never thought that I would say that.

Men's Soccer in the United States could use the male equivalent of Mia Hamm (maybe we will see one in a World Cup soon) and would benefit greatly if it got just half the respect that American football gets.

I do think that respect will grow as more and more people become educated about the sport and as more and more hispanics become a part of American culture.