Pride and Prejudice

When did we last care together?

1980?

When the Miracle Ice captured our imagination and beat the big bad Russians and then won the Gold a couple days later, a nation, after years and years of hatred toward our Cold War rivals, rejoiced. We, Americans, had triumped over evil and beaten the Russians at a game that they had dominated, had done so for years.

I don't think we've cared since. No, this isn't about Sox fans jeering Yankees, or Red Wings booing Blackhawks, or USC beating UCLA. Its about us all caring about the same team, at the same time, and beating everyone else in the world.

We don't care. And I'm jealous of those who do. Watch the World Cup of Hockey? Maybe you do. But we don't spend half a year plotting and scheming over rosters and lineups like the Canadiens do. Or even the Swedes. After Canada's victory in the Salt Lake 2002 games, the sound you heard above you was the entire nation, exhaling. They hadn't won an Olympic Gold since the 1940's. And the pursuit of the gold started with the dogged pursuit of perhaps, the greatest player of all time, Gretzky. The Great One. If your most prominent athlete cares....then what about those in Medicine Hat?

EURO 2004. France and England. The English and French staged an epic battle, and once again the British disengrated before everyone's very eyes. Beckham missed another PK. Yawn....except every single pub in the Yorkshire, London, Essex...was filled with fans, an entire country hanging on the fate of not London's team, not Manchester, but England. ENGLAND.

And why? Why don't we care? Is it easier to hate each other than to cheer together? Too easy to root for the enemy in NY or Seattle than the enemy we do not know? Come to expect domination and then if we don't, shrug it off to indifference?Or only care about sports that we invent?

Meanwhile...our nation, cheers for the demise of the Olympic Basketball team. Openly cheers for Americans to lose playing the game we invented. Thinks its funny when we come in 6th in the 2002 Worlds. This isn't about an Olympic Gold Medal, I hear E-bay has those. Its about pride and being the very best in the world and having bargoers in Boise, San Diego, and Bangor standing on stools, as if it was the Super Bowl winning field goal attempt on the line, and not feeling it necessary to rub it in your rival's face across the street.

Maybe we're the Not-So United States of America.