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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 2011)
sportsed@>clackamas. edu The Clackamas Print"? W ednesday, N ov 2, 2011 Soccer a 'goal’ w ith soccer city, USA Steve Purdy fightsfar the ball against the Vancouver Whitecapsoffense a t F C D a lla s on A p r il 17, 2 0 1 1 . A tten d a n c e f a r T im bers gam es has- increased greatly since th e s ta d iu m ’s Merlo Field, home o f the University o f Portland Pilots on Oct. 1 7 ,2 0 1 0 . expansion in th e su m m e r o f 2 0 1 0 a n d is regarded as one o f th e most, ra b id in. M a jo r League Soccer. By John W illiam Howard Sports Editor It wasn’t long ago that nobody cared about soc cer. In fact, in m u c h o f the country that’s still the case. 1 . ' ' • • . . • H atred o f soccer can be attributed to m any different factors. N o t the least o f . those is that Americans simply like to be the best at everything. We’re basically the only people th at play American Football — except for ; the Canadians but who really Counts them? T h é U nited States absolutely dominates everyone at basketball. W hile ja p a n and the D om inican Republic have m ade strides with basèball, they still lag behind. Americans are rabid fans o f all those sports an d why not? W e invented them , after all. T h at story is different w ith soccer. Soccer origi nated in Europe, taking on European rules and ide als, w hich differ greatly from w hat the US is used to. Americans are king o f the quick-fix. Just think o f the microwave, oven; drive-thru restaurants and diet pills. Instant gratification is built into o u r brains and if som ething isn’t exciting right away, we quickly find it boring and return to som ething éke. T h at’s w hy soccer ju st doesn’t attract m ost Americans. Soccer is a long, low-scoring game. There is plenty o f dram a and action, b ut little to ‘show’ for it. Americans like scores that are easy to understand, w ith num bers in the tens and hundreds that show the flow o f the game and make it simple to understand w hat happened. Soccer can be the complete opposite. Two teams can battle defensively and score in the 9 0th m inute, o r a team can p u t in a goal inside the 1st m inute and will be held scoreless the rest o f the game. T he slow’ pace is com bined w ith the idea that soccer players are whiners, fakers and generally over- dramatic. Anybody w ho has searched on YouTube for professional soccer will know that there are plenty o f examples o f players bum ping wrists and falling to the ground holding their ankles. T h e truth is, the sport o f soccer doesn’t allow tim e to stop for players to state their case to the officials, so they often have to over exaggerate things in order to get the attention o f the referee. Americans dismiss that as softness, opting for the m ore masculine’ sport of football, where the players àré covered ih. protective pads from head to toe. N ow don’t get m e wrong, I love football. I just happen to be from Pbrtland, where we’te a little dif ferent than the rest o f thex country. ; Portland is a place where soccer has n ot only scraped a living, it has thrived. D ating back fur ther d ia n the early 1920s, when a local team was rumored- to have played sailors from a British freighter, soccer gained a foothold in the area’s cul ture. W ere a'city where we like things with adistinct European twinge. W ejik e scarves (even during the summer), wé like the rain, we like being green and face it: we like soccer. W hile the. m ost visible representation o f soccer fever is the Timbers, whose jum p to M ajor League Soccer sparked an even larger and more rabid fol lowing m an before, the soccer m ovem ent can be seen at all levels, o f the game, starting with youth sports. » Over the past decade or so, soccer has become the m ost popular sport for children to play eclips ing youth football, basketball and even little-league baseball. M uch o f that sucœss can be attributed to the simplicity o f the sport at the youth level. Soccer involves kicking a ball, while baseball, basketball and football require m ore -practice and m ore skill to get the basics o f dribbling, passing and hitting down. A dd in that football is expensive and dangerous, it rains too m uch in the Northwest to play baseball year round and basketball requires a hoop to make it fun and you get why soccer has done so well here: It’s an inexpensive, low-contact sport that can be played anywhere that there is enough grassy space to kick the ball. W ith the large fàn base, â strong pool o f talent, soccer has m ade leaps and bounds in the region. In 2002 and 2ÔÔ5, the University o f Portland women’s program w on the NCA A cham pionship and since has produced four current m embers o f the U S . national team, including star M egan Rapinoe. Even closer to hom e, the Clackamas C om m unity College women’s team took back to back N W AACC titles in 2004-05 and another in 2007, while winning the Southern Region five times since 2002. N ow it makes sense w hy the University o f Portland Pilots are a national women’s soccer power. We can understand why JELD -W EN field fills to the brim every tim e that the Tim bers play or the US W om en’s National Team visits. Soccer is p art o f our culture here. It’s in our blood. It’s been built from the ground up and isn’t likely to fade any tim e soon. Upcoming Events O Women’s Vollyball Tim e/date________ Clackamas @ Mt Hood CC ' (• •• | Women’s Soccer 7pm Friday Nov. 4 - :. Tim e/date Clackamas vs Lane 1pm Wednesday Nov. 2 P layo ff Q u a r t e r f i n a l 1 2 p m Saturday Nov. 5 O p p o ne n t TBD Time TBA Saturday Nov. 12 Cross Country Time/date NWAACC Championships @ E v e re tt CC T 3:00pm Saturday Nov. 12 W ashington S tate U niversity ^ V ancouver Learn about— ? Academic programs Application process Campus life Paying for college da, RSVP, direct iver.wsu.edu /pn
