Americans’ Soccer Victory Leaves Little to Imagination
Saturday’s soccer game did help to close the gender gap between men and women’s sports. However, Bill Plaschke’s cover story Sunday demonstrated how much work still must be done. Rather than simply describing the game or the actions of the players, his article was obsessed with the fact that Chastain “stripped down to her shorts and sports bra.” His writing was sprinkled with gender-biased comments such as “ponytailed and earringed wonders” and “heroes come in all shapes, sizes, and shades of lipstick.”
Championship male athletes would never be patronized this way. It is unfortunate that instead of promoting women’s sports, this article only worked to perpetuate the idea that although we as Americans like to win at everything, women’s sports are still tongue-in-cheek athletics.
STEPHANIE SULLIVAN
Cypress
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I’ve played soccer since I was 6 years old. The only role models the sport presented (outside of family and local high school stars) were some undoubtedly amazing male players from Argentina or Brazil, and even if someone else had heard of them, they often disappointed fans with a drug-related arrest or some such disgrace.
Now I can look at a pack of 6-year-old girls on the field in a huddle, all kicking away at a soccer ball, and know that there are real women they can strive to emulate. And if they want to grow up to become a soccer star, it is no longer an unlikely dream.
SARAH C. MCCREARY
Hollywood
*
When Pete Sampras whipped off his shirt and threw it into the crowd after his win at Wimbledon, the incident did not merit mention in your coverage of the tournament. Yet when Brandi Chastain takes off her shirt and reveals--gasp--a sports bra after the Women’s World Cup finals, both Bill Plaschke and Mike Penner see fit to rhapsodize about it at length.
With this World Cup victory, the team made great strides toward equality for women in the sports world. Your coverage, however, showed how far from equality women still are in the sports pages.
AMY KIND
Pasadena
*
You know a sport is in trouble when:
1. You play 120 minutes and there is no scoring.
2. The world champion is determined by a contrived, point-blank, schoolyard shootout.
3. The game’s highlight is a player who takes her shirt off.
This is known as shooting yourself in the foot.
BOB SMITH
Los Angeles
*
This is written with apologies to my three grown daughters, but soccer--men’s and women’s--is going nowhere on a professional level in the United States. Soccer has been rightfully called the sport of the future and always will be! Who but the most rabid soccer fan can get excited over 120 minutes of scoreless regulation and overtime play? The win over China again shows how Americans love a winner, especially when it’s wrapped in the American flag. Men’s pro soccer has not caught on in the U.S. and women’s will not either. Sorry, but on a boys’ level, soccer is for those who can’t make their local Little League team.
RON COOPER
La Crescenta
*
Those who complain that there isn’t enough scoring in soccer simply don’t get it. More and more of your readers know about the most popular sport in the world. If you weren’t on the edge of your seat watching the minutes count down while watching the U.S. and China going at each other during that 120-minute slugfest, then you need to pack it up and lie down, because the fat lady just sang and you are already dead.
LINDEN GRAY
Hacienda Heights
*
Oh, puh-leeze. Spare me another month of hype for women’s soccer. Send this tedious sport back to Europe, where they enjoy cricket and croquet.
If you look up “boring” in Webster’s, it will give you “soccer” as a synonym.
I’m glad the ladies got their day in the sun, and I’m happy the U.S. won the World Cup, but this was the most incredible three-hour yawn I’ve ever endured.
Personally, I think all that bouncing the ball off one’s head leads to mental deterioration--for fans and players alike. Give me a long touchdown pass, a slam over the center-field wall or a fastbreak any time.
BARBRA ZUANICH-FRIEDMAN
Woodland Hills
*
And I’ll take two fillings . . . anything so as not to endure another moment of Women’s World Cup soccer.
BOB MANGOLD
Portola Hills
*
I’m sure Jim Murray would have said it better, but I’ll do my best: The World Series was determined today by a home run derby, the Super Bowl by a punt, pass and kick contest, the NBA championship by a game of horse, the U.S. Open by a putting playoff, the Kentucky Derby by a one-furlong sprint, the Indy 500 by a one-lap race, and the Women’s World Cup by penalty kicks.
Every coach agrees it is unsatisfactory, but they can’t think of a better way. How about letting them play until someone actually scores?
P.J. GENDELL
Beverly Hills
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Not to diminish the accomplishments of the U.S. women’s soccer team, but in reality, they are only world champions of penalty kicking. They are co-world champions with China in the game of soccer. Rules for playoff soccer must change.
BERNARD PETERS
Placentia
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A lithe California blond named Brandi--on her knees in black underwear. Thank you for your front page photo. After 35 years of trying to interest American men in soccer, you finally found the formula.
MARTIN LEWIS
Los Angeles
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I admit it! I got sucked in by the media hype surrounding Women’s World Cup Soccer and spent a beautiful Saturday afternoon watching the finals between the U.S. and China on television. Never has so much been made out of so little! The players seemed to be running in slow motion and showed surprisingly low ball-handling skills. These were the two best women’s teams? Then, after 120 minutes of no scoring, the game was decided using a format that could only have been created by Vince McMahon.
For those who are advocates of the game of soccer and women’s sports, this event is best forgotten.
BEVERLY GRENFELL
Whittier
*
Wow! A soccer match in Los Angeles where the stadium wasn’t filled with fans waving the opposing team’s flag and booing the American team and players.
Much better than the men’s games.
TED PERLMAN
Van Nuys
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While reading Randy Harvey’s holier-than-thou comments regarding Brandi Chastain’s spontaneous celebration after scoring her winning penalty kick and her “salty” description of Michelle Akers, I was thinking:
Mr. Harvey should stick to covering figure skating, or, better yet, he should be banished from the sports section, along with that other paragon of political correctness, Bill Plaschke.
GREG GARNET
Canoga Park
*
America’s women ran up and down the Rose Bowl at full tilt for 120 minutes in 86-degree sunshine. Why can’t our multimillionaire baseball players, who spend much of each game standing still, run full speed for 90 feet to first base?
GORDON COHN
Long Beach
*
ABC’s coverage of Saturday’s soccer match revisited a lost art in broadcasting. Silence. When Brandi Chastain put the ball into the back of the net and the Rose Bowl’s 90,000-plus crowd erupted in cheers, ABC’s commentators did something sorely lacking in modern sportscasting--they stopped talking. Bravo.
There are seminal moments in sports and Chastain’s penalty kick was one of them. There was nothing the broadcasters could have said to heighten that moment and they deftly resisted chatty commentary allowing the television audience to soak in the moment.
Sometimes it’s not a matter of what you say. It’s knowing when not to say anything at all.
KEN REED
Los Angeles
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Just out of curiosity, who were those people in red uniforms who occasionally interfered with ABC’s superb coverage of Saturday’s all-American soccer final?
RICK MITTLEMAN
Tarzana
