The Olympic gold
medal-winning US women’s soccer team, featuring superstar and Rochester-native
Abby Wambach, plays Iceland on Saturday night, September 25, at Frontier Field
as part of a 10-city “Fan Celebration Tour.” Iceland is ranked 17th in the FIFA
world rankings, and obviously needs a spark, like Björk showing up in a swan
suit to root on her fellow countrymen. The US is ranked second, and trails
first-place Germany by just seven rating points, despite the US semifinal
victory over Germany in Athens.

It’s great that the
US women have been so successful at team sports such as soccer, basketball, and
softball. Their success makes some people wonder why their male counterparts
don’t win every time they compete in those sports. Those same people often
conclude that the men don’t play as a team, that they’re pompous, spoiled-brat,
millionaire athletes who care only for themselves. I dismiss that as an overly
simplistic reason for failure.

There was never a
more pompous, spoiled-brat, millionaire athlete than former Buffalo Bills
defensive end Bruce Smith. In his later years, he’d hardly take part in the
Bills’ individual drills during training camp and during the season. He’d just
stand there and look on, with his arms behind his back, his helmet clasping his
hands together. Former left end Phil Hansen, on the other hand, nearly always
participated.

But no one bothered
Smith. I don’t know whether he worked out an agreement with the coaches, or if
it was just his prerogative, and the coaches gave him that leeway because he
was really great on game day. I once asked former Bills defensive line coach John
Levra, who coached Smith for many years, how he handled situations like that.
He told me that what people fail to realize about the best players who make the
most money — the so-called selfish athletes — is that they usually want to
stay the best and make even more money. Consequently, it didn’t worry him that
Smith was often a non-participant.

Many people in the US tend to presume that their men’s teams are simply the best in the world,
particularly in basketball. That goes along with their presumption that this
country is the best, and there is no other place on earth with freedom. To a
foreigner, we might be as arrogant as pompous, spoiled-brat, millionaire
athletes.

Anyway, if our men’s
teams lose, many presume it’s because the players are rich, egotistical jerks
who didn’t try hard enough. But has it occurred to anyone that perhaps the US
men aren’t as good as we think?

Basketball is a
global game. There are more than 200 pro basketball leagues. Certainly, the NBA
is the wealthiest league and many Americans populate it, but every year there
are more foreigners coming to play. It’s a paycheck that’s hard to refuse. We
really should not be surprised that the men’s team failed in its mission. Men’s
basketball is probably the most competitive pro sport on the globe, with soccer
second.

So why do the women
win at soccer, basketball, and softball, and the men lose? People should
remember that women’s team sports are just beginning to develop, whereas the
men’s team sports have been developed for a long time and are more competitive.

Therefore, it’s
little wonder that the US women should flourish. They live in a nation where
women have among the greatest freedom and opportunity of any country. They have
a head start. But as the global barriers for women hopefully fall, and more
girls participate in team sports, let’s see whether the US women can maintain their
standing, or whether they inherit the sense of entitlement and the selfishness
that the men are usually ripped for — particularly the men’s basketball team.

I must have read a million times this summer that the men’s squad could have learned a thing or
two from the women’s basketball team, which won Olympic gold. Now if the men
won the gold and the women didn’t, I wonder whether people would talk about
what the women’s team could learn from the men. Like, I’m so sure.

I don’t want to
minimize the women’s soccer, basketball, or softball teams’ accomplishments
this summer. They are the best in the world. Just don’t forget that the men
face a more competitive landscape at the moment. And they didn’t lose just
because they are pompous.

Sometimes, my fellow
Americans, there actually are other countries that do things better than we do.

This article appears in Sep 22-28, 2004.