What would sports be without journalists to moralize about them? One Bill Plaschke took the occasion of the success of the U.S. women's soccer team to idealize American female athletes, then to criticize male athletes for not living up to that ideal.
Women have a higher level of sensitivity and recognition that they might not be able to overcome errors with strength, speed or reaction," she said. "Men always think, oh, I'll get there."
In other words, women athletes believe they need one another, and men sometimes don't.
I could have told you that much from sitting on a ragged lawn chair for hours as my two daughters and one son played soccer when they were children. Watching my girls' teams was an unforgettable delight. Watching my son's teams was an unrequited pain.
The girls would hold their positions and make the right passes and constantly encourage. The boys would all chase after the ball and yell at one another.
Ah, those silly males. But if men and women are naturally different in their approach to sports, why not appreciate each on their own terms? Or, if Plaschke prefers women's sports, why can't he just enjoy them on their own terms, rather than using them as a vehicle for criticizing male athletes? Why does a man have to be more like a woman? Isn't it kind of cruel to hold men to a feminine ideal they cannot possible live up to? Why do women's accomplishments have to be about men?
The women shouldn't take it too personally. For most sportswriters, sports is only an excuse to pass moral judgment on athletes, teams, entire sports and even entire societies. Of course it all goes far beyond vulgar wins and losses, except that ultimately the moralizing sportswriter is a frontrunner who sees athletic success as the measure of character. Thus:
"If I was [sic] asked to assemble a team of American athletes to compete against similarly composed teams from the rest of the world in any sport...I would take a team of women. I would take a team that would play like a team [bla, bla, bla]...I would take a group like the U.S. women's soccer team, and not because it is playing Japan on Sunday for the World Cup championship, but because of how it played in reaching this stage..."
yet
"I would take groups like the women's teams that have won three of the four Olympic soccer gold medals, six of the nine basketball gold medals, and three of the four softball gold medals in such overpowering fashion that the International Olympic Committee eliminated the sport."
So you'd take them becaues they win. Which is true: U.S. female teams are better relative to international women than male teams are relative to international men, or at least it seems like it. This is an apples and oranges comparison, in that it says nothing about the female teams in comparison with the male teams. Moreover, if women are innately morally superior, this should be the case throughout the world.
Contradicting his innate superiority argument is his obligatory Title IX mention. If it is true, as all sportswriters believe and none demonstrate, that that legislation is responsible for U.S. women's athletic dominance, then you can hardly blame our men for the fact that U.S. women are better relative to international women than U.S. men are relative to international men. The government simply gives U.S. women a huge boost relative to other women. Another explanation in the article, also contradicting the innate superiority thesis, is that money and fame have corrupted men- another sports journalism cliche. Are people trying less hard because there is money and glory involved? Glory has been the motive behind athletic success since 776 BC. Why else would you compete?
One thing we could consider is the transition from individual to team sports. We still have individual sports, of course. Women now play them (tennis, golf, car racing, boxing), complicating Platsche's argument. But men play team sports- even if they haven't integrated the individual to the team to the extent Platsche would like, the attempt at team sports is a step in the right direction by Platscheite standards. By the nature of the game of basketball and the natural distribution of talent among males, one player will often dominate the game in a way that may not be true of women's basketball; but when one player imposes his will, that is no less real basketball than the women's game, or the brand of basketball played by men's teams who have no really good players and turn to teamwork by necessity. Baseball/softball is a series of one-on-one matchups; a pitcher can dominate the game if the fielding is at a high enough level to make him/her the main variable, but a hitter cannot dominate very much because hitters have to take turns. You can of course bunt, usually on the coach's orders, but whether you should do so is a strategic, not a moral, question. (Is stealing bases selfish or unselfish? It is strategically similar to a bunt.) In football, offensive linemen have to, and do, work together as a team (and do not usually get much individual glory), while receivers can pretty much be as selfish as they want (although it helps marginally if they block well). Quarterbacks are complicated, as they can get inordinate amounts of individual glory, but have to pursue team goals in order to do so.
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