You know, bloggers get a rarely deserved rap for being a bunch of blowhards who don’t know what they are talking about. Yet people with their own talk shows and columns will blurt out ridiculous statements that get accepted as fact from ‘experts’, until the bloggers call them on it. How ironic.
Neal Boortz decided that kids in America are being ‘wussified’ thanks, in part, to soccer:
A new report shows that one-fifth of children are kept inside due to “dangers” in the neighborhood. And you wonder what is contributing to the wussification of America. This is also why so many mothers have their precious little kids playing soccer. Nobody throws anything at them, an they won’t get hit.
Emphasis mine. I just chuckle at this, but it’s also clear this guy has never been to a youth soccer match above church league recreational. And even in Rec, there ARE things thrown AND kicked at you (the ball) and you’ll definitely get hit with either the ball, or another kid going for the ball (or an elbow). There is a reason soccer has the highest injury rate (where an injury requires the stoppage of the event and attention by a coach or medical personnel) of all major youth sports. Football has far more ‘serious injuries’ that require outside medical attention, but even so, soccer sends plenty of kids to ERs. When you have kids running full tilt with no padding after a fast moving object (the ball), collisions are going to happen. One of my standby emails to new soccer parents is the one that says ‘Soccer is a contact sport‘. It surprises a number of people who aren’t expecting the level of contact that goes on in a soccer match.
I’ll admit I had to email Neal and call him out on this (yeah I know it probably never got read), making the point that had he actually watched competitive youth soccer, he might change his tune. Perfect example – some of our travel teams practice right near the community football field. After football practice ended, a couple of the football players started jawing at the soccer players for being wimps while they practiced, etc. So the soccer players told them to take all their pads off and come out on the field for some pickup. None did – they quickly discovered they had to ‘be somewhere’.
Ah well – I’ve wasted enough typing on a blowhard like Neal Boortz. It’s hard to take a man serious who says:
Soccer moms … better watch out for those pesky soccer goals!
Soccer goal safety is a serious issue. It’s not funny.
(H/T CEJK)
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January 12th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Soccer is for wussies no matter what you say.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
I am only here because I can’t believe people like Johny Flash are still holding this kind of argument.
Soccer is not only the #1 sport in the world, from brazil to iceland, but soccer athletes are more physically fitter(is that a word) than most sports in the world. Football is based on 45 minutes of strategy while soccer are two half of 45 minutes each of endurance and plays.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Johny Flash plays tennis or water polo,
May 12th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
For the life of me I can’t understand why soccer is popular. It’s about as boring as watching golf. I’ll stick with football and baseball. Iceland and Brazil can keep their soccer.
May 2nd, 2010 at 4:46 am
My kid plays soccer, baseball and hockey. In HS, I played baseball, hockey and football. Without question, baseball takes the most mental grit out of all these sports. You have to wait (sometimes an entire game!) for the ball to be hit to you and then you alone are on the “stage” to make the play. Unlike a missed blocking assignment in football that gets lost in the shuffle. Offensively, hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in all of sport- my opinion. All this said, since the discussion is about Soccer, I cannot disagree that Soccer can be a physical game at times, albeit very boring to watch, but fun to play.
June 11th, 2011 at 6:23 am
Are you serious! Football players don’t go to the hospital unless they need life support. Soccer players go for twisted ankles. If anyone wants to tell me that soccer players are as tough as football players I’ll ask the Varsity soccer team from my high school to fight the JV football team. All we will get from the soccer team and their wussy parents are excuses as to why they wont. Everyone knows it.
June 29th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
I would like to know the last time a soccer player went to the hospital for a TWISTED ANKLE. As for the fighting of the two teams…soccer players know how to play a game without ramming at each other like bulls. They get much more exercise (running around for 90 MINUTES!) so saying they’re wimps would be a HUGE lie. So before you say anything watch a youth soccer game.