The Politics Of Sports
So . . . I'm officially obsessed with the WNT and Hope Solo.
Seriously. Because the tournament's been over two weeks now (right?) and I'm still totally into it. That alone is a good enough indication. I've been watching the live streamed matches on Sundays, watching all kinds of videos on YouTube and have kept up with the comings and goings of the team members on Twitter and Facebook. I've also found an awesome tumblr for Hope Solo (well, I think it's really just all the posts that have her tagged in them) and am delighting in what I hope will become a real meme: Passive-Aggressive Hope Solo.
(credit to Thrace)
But I really know this a true obsession because I've been doing loads of research on the history of this team. And what a history it has. And I've become completely fascinated by the 2007 World Cup, in which Hope Solo was kicked off the team because of controversial statements she made against then coach Greg Ryan after he benched in the semifinals against Brazil for veteran Briana Scurry.
Want to see what went down after the US lost 0-4?
Now, after she made those statements, she was ostracized. The team wouldn't let her attend the bronze medal match against Norway. She didn't get to attend the medal ceremony. They wouldn't let her eat with them in the cafeteria. If she was waiting for an elevator with them, they'd let her get on alone and get on the next one. She wasn't allowed to fly back to the US, all the way from China, on the same plane.
Ridiculous.
Now, I'm not a soccer expert. I mean, of course not. I know way more now than I knew a month ago, but that's a credit to my obsessive nature. If I like something, I learn the shit out of it. But I'm still a novice and it's been interesting to figure out the dynamics of this event.
It was put out there that Hope was kicked out because she broke this kind of unwritten rule of women's sports, in that she called out the coach and, in essence, a teammate. In public.
I don't think it's obvious that she probably should have kept her thoughts in a private setting, right? The coach's decision to bench her in the most important game of the tournament made no sense. None of the commentators understood it. Everyone agreed it was a bad decision and Hope's personal thoughts didn't really add anything to what everyone already knew. He made an idiot move. She'd played three shut out games and had been the starting goal keeper for a while at that point. Scurry hadn't even played a match in, like, three months. Everyone knows, even novices, that you don't bench your hot hand for a cold one, even if that cold hand has a good match history against the opponent.
And he paid for it.
Still . . . The consequences for her words didn't seem to fit the crime. Her teammates (not all of them, but the bigger veteran players . . . apparently), that she threw her teammate under the bus, which was wrong. And then what did they do? They threw her under the bus. Talk about super hypocritical. And they didn't even just throw her under the bus. They threw her under the bus and then kicked the body afterward.
Overkill, thy name is 2007 WNT.
Embarrassing.
What's really interesting to me is that there are still fans who are mad at Hope for that incident. I was reading on a message board some posts from earlier in the WWC and they were like, "She sucks! She's a big mouth! She's a horrible teammate!" And all of their "evidence" was from the 2007 WWC.
But there seems to be an obvious context that those people are missing: She was grieving, hardcore, her father, who had died only a few months previously. Most reports indicate that, for as much as she loved him, there were a lot of unresolved issues there. He was an interesting guy who lead an interesting life, and they had a loving and complicated relationship. She dedicated the tournament to him. She spread some of his ashes in the goal at the start of each game. The failure to win the tournament was, in a way, a failure towards him. So, upset that she was benched, upset that they had lost, upset that she couldn't win the cup in her father's memory . . . I'm actually surprised she didn't go off even more.
And should it have been such a deal in the first place? It seems like male athletes shoot their mouths off constantly and don't get castigated for it in this kind of manner. It seems like women are expected to be best friends on and off the field. I've watched all the videos that US Soccer puts out on YouTube and all of the WNT videos show the women engaging in fun group activities, loving being around each other. They're expected to be a happy unit. So if one of them upsets that unit . . . All hell breaks loose.
Conversely, I think that male athletes can get away with a lot of shit. If Landon Donovan or Tim Howard said something like that about their coach . . . I wonder if it would have snowballed in the same way?
Fascinating. The politics of sports and the politics of gendered sports. Gotta love it.
Let's end on a controversy-resolved note, okay?
Seriously. Because the tournament's been over two weeks now (right?) and I'm still totally into it. That alone is a good enough indication. I've been watching the live streamed matches on Sundays, watching all kinds of videos on YouTube and have kept up with the comings and goings of the team members on Twitter and Facebook. I've also found an awesome tumblr for Hope Solo (well, I think it's really just all the posts that have her tagged in them) and am delighting in what I hope will become a real meme: Passive-Aggressive Hope Solo.
(credit to Thrace)
But I really know this a true obsession because I've been doing loads of research on the history of this team. And what a history it has. And I've become completely fascinated by the 2007 World Cup, in which Hope Solo was kicked off the team because of controversial statements she made against then coach Greg Ryan after he benched in the semifinals against Brazil for veteran Briana Scurry.
Want to see what went down after the US lost 0-4?
Click to viewNow, after she made those statements, she was ostracized. The team wouldn't let her attend the bronze medal match against Norway. She didn't get to attend the medal ceremony. They wouldn't let her eat with them in the cafeteria. If she was waiting for an elevator with them, they'd let her get on alone and get on the next one. She wasn't allowed to fly back to the US, all the way from China, on the same plane.
Ridiculous.
Now, I'm not a soccer expert. I mean, of course not. I know way more now than I knew a month ago, but that's a credit to my obsessive nature. If I like something, I learn the shit out of it. But I'm still a novice and it's been interesting to figure out the dynamics of this event.
It was put out there that Hope was kicked out because she broke this kind of unwritten rule of women's sports, in that she called out the coach and, in essence, a teammate. In public.
I don't think it's obvious that she probably should have kept her thoughts in a private setting, right? The coach's decision to bench her in the most important game of the tournament made no sense. None of the commentators understood it. Everyone agreed it was a bad decision and Hope's personal thoughts didn't really add anything to what everyone already knew. He made an idiot move. She'd played three shut out games and had been the starting goal keeper for a while at that point. Scurry hadn't even played a match in, like, three months. Everyone knows, even novices, that you don't bench your hot hand for a cold one, even if that cold hand has a good match history against the opponent.
And he paid for it.
Still . . . The consequences for her words didn't seem to fit the crime. Her teammates (not all of them, but the bigger veteran players . . . apparently), that she threw her teammate under the bus, which was wrong. And then what did they do? They threw her under the bus. Talk about super hypocritical. And they didn't even just throw her under the bus. They threw her under the bus and then kicked the body afterward.
Overkill, thy name is 2007 WNT.
Embarrassing.
What's really interesting to me is that there are still fans who are mad at Hope for that incident. I was reading on a message board some posts from earlier in the WWC and they were like, "She sucks! She's a big mouth! She's a horrible teammate!" And all of their "evidence" was from the 2007 WWC.
But there seems to be an obvious context that those people are missing: She was grieving, hardcore, her father, who had died only a few months previously. Most reports indicate that, for as much as she loved him, there were a lot of unresolved issues there. He was an interesting guy who lead an interesting life, and they had a loving and complicated relationship. She dedicated the tournament to him. She spread some of his ashes in the goal at the start of each game. The failure to win the tournament was, in a way, a failure towards him. So, upset that she was benched, upset that they had lost, upset that she couldn't win the cup in her father's memory . . . I'm actually surprised she didn't go off even more.
And should it have been such a deal in the first place? It seems like male athletes shoot their mouths off constantly and don't get castigated for it in this kind of manner. It seems like women are expected to be best friends on and off the field. I've watched all the videos that US Soccer puts out on YouTube and all of the WNT videos show the women engaging in fun group activities, loving being around each other. They're expected to be a happy unit. So if one of them upsets that unit . . . All hell breaks loose.
Conversely, I think that male athletes can get away with a lot of shit. If Landon Donovan or Tim Howard said something like that about their coach . . . I wonder if it would have snowballed in the same way?
Fascinating. The politics of sports and the politics of gendered sports. Gotta love it.
Let's end on a controversy-resolved note, okay?