It's time to quit making excuses that don't exist, stop searching for answers that won't come and embrace this inalienable truth: We the American people, when it comes to sports, simply are not as good as we think we are.
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| Mickelson's not a choker. He's just not that good. (Getty Images) |
So please, for your own mental stability, stop looking for reasons for the latest U.S. debacle -- a blowout golf loss in the Ryder Cup over the weekend -- and start coming to grips with the idea that, when it comes to athletics, we're getting pretty much what we deserve.
Look around. Some of our best baseball players (Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi) and football players (members of 2004 Super Bowl team Carolina Panthers) cheat with steroids or HGH. Some of our best NBA players probably do the same, though that's an issue nobody wants to address, so forget I mentioned it. We win the Tour de France but have it taken away because our cyclist cheated. We own a share of the 100-meter world record but have that taken away because our sprinter cheated. We even suck at making performance-enhancing steroids; the ones made in this country, at BALCO, for example, are the ones that get our athletes busted.
That's the fruit of our sports system, and the roots are rotten, too. Look around.
In Pennsylvania, the father of the Shenango High quarterback pretends to be a college recruiter so he can film a Mars High practice, then watches proudly two days later as his son shreds Mars for a school-record 457 yards. Also in Pennsylvania, a youth baseball coach is found guilty of bribing an 8-year-old to bean an autistic teammate so the autistic kid won't want to play in a playoff game. At Northern Colorado, the backup punter is arrested for allegedly stabbing the starting punter in the thigh.
All in the past 10 days.
These are the schemes of the desperate, not the dominant, yet in America we still cling to our pervading sense of entitlement on the international sports scene. When we fail to win gold in basketball, it's the coach's fault, so we fire Larry Brown and George Karl and hire the best basketball coach in the world, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski.
Then when Krzyzewski fails to win gold, we blame the U.S. system for our "lack of fundamentals" and our struggles with "the international game." Nah. Screw that. Here's the problem: We're not as good as "we think we are."
It's golf, too. Tiger Woods is the best in the world, but why do we believe that our next 10 or 15 players are better than the top 10-15 in Europe? For the third consecutive time, the United States lost the Ryder Cup, and the margin is getting worse and worse.
Here's an idea. Instead of wondering why Phil Mickelson lacks the heart to handle the pressure, why don't we admit that Mickelson and Co. simply aren't good enough and move on to something more productive, like lobbying to get South America onto our side of the Ryder Cup? Maybe, in a competition of Europe vs. America, we could compete. As it is, the Ryder Cup is no competition. We're not choking. We're simply not good enough.
Good heavens, we don't even dominate our own national pastime. Don't start with the Little League World Series as proof of U.S. superiority. Yes, it's true that an American team has won the past two LLWS titles. But do you know how that tournament is rigged? There's an American bracket, and an international bracket. We wrote the rules, and under our rules, an American team will reach the title game every year. Who else has goose bumps?
Meanwhile, one in five Dominican teenagers has the tools to become a major league outfielder. The other four play shortstop.
You know what the problem is, don't you? It's the Olympics. Every four years, the United States wins, or comes awfully close to winning, the medal count. We see it as confirmation that, when it comes to the best athletes in the world, we have the best of the best.
Wrong. We pour more money and manpower into Olympics sports than anyone else. Plus, no other country can match our endless supply of slackers who will happily put off the real world to train in badminton and synchronized swimming and luge and biathlon.
No more American arrogance, OK? Let's forget about all the sports we suck at -- tennis, distance running, boxing, hockey -- and circle the wagons around the few sports we still own: the NFL and NASCAR. Europe can have the Ryder Cup. We've got the Nextel Cup.
Excuse me. I need a drink.
