I'm Just Sharing

I really don’t care all that much about soccer. Truthfully, I’d been hearing about the World Cup coming up and really hadn’t been paying any attention to it. I had no interest in watching it at all.

That is, until last Friday late morning, when I was checking the news online and saw that the United States was playing England and were behind near the end of the first period. I knew how good England was, and for some reason I just had to turn it on and see if the United States team was going to come back in some fashion, which they did, tying England and ending the game in a tie. The British were probably very upset with that, but I, and most of the other Americans I was following on Twitter, were ecstatic. Since then I’ve followed every game the U.S. team has played, including that nail-biter against Slovenia when the team scored in the 91st minute. I know that I’ll be watching the U.S. team as much as possible until they’re out, but I’ll be hoping for the best.

The same type of thing happened during the Winter Olympics. The only sport I cared about initially was the women’s figure skating, but seeing that we had no real talent (not fair, but so be it) that had a chance at a gold medal, I was ready to check out and not bother with any of it. But there I was, watching the United States hockey team in the two games against Canada and rooting for them like a fool, and any other time I happened to pass by a channel showing some Olympic live footage, I’d wait to see how an American was doing before I moved on, hoping that Americans would win everything.

Being a military kid, one might imagine that I’m pretty jingoistic when it comes to supporting my country, no matter what. Oh yeah, guess I should toss in a definition for “jingoistic”, which means, in general, extreme or eccentric national loyalty that is hostile to the interests of any other nation. When it comes to sports, I’d have to agree with that statement, but only as long as an American is in the competition. Once there are no Americans that have a chance to win it all, I don’t care and I move on. No hostility involved; I just don’t care.

I’m also not hostile to almost any other nations just because they’re not the United States, though I harbor some resentments against a few countries here and there; nope, not getting it out of me. I love this country, and can’t think of anywhere else I’d want to be, but there’s no doubt that no matter where in the world we are, I support the Red, White and Blue as much as any other person. I don’t always agree with our strategy, such as going into Iraq in the first place, but I certainly support the troops for doing what they do, no matter which stupid act puts them into a position to have to do something in the first place.

Are there times when you have stronger feelings for your country than other times? Does sports send you into a frenzy at any time, like it does me, or politics, or the economy or ecology or whatever else?

Adidas Jabulani 2010 Official World Cup Match Ball

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