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VIENNA — For those of us who live outside the United States and pay attention to what happens there — as we must — one word captures everything about recent events. That words in "change."
It defines Barack Obama's campaign and victory over Hillary Clinton. It defines, it seems, an urge to bury the recent past and emphatically move on to a more inclusive, tolerant, cosmopolitan Ametuca. An America that is less rigid about what it means to be an American.
Well here's change — the new boys of summer are European soccer stars.
The decision by ESPN to broadcast all of this month's European Soccer Championship from Austria and Switzerland is, possibly, a cultural watershed moment. And in-synch with that craving for change.
A bunch of the games are on the main ESPN channel to which that tens of millions of American subscribe, some are on ESPN 2 and, incredibly, two games are on the over-the-air ABC channel. (ESPN and ABC are all part of the Disney corporation.) The final of Euro 2008, from Vienna, will be on ABC this coming Sunday, in a doubleheader with the David Beckham-led LA Galaxy playing D.C. United.
This is near revolutionary. It's not the Word Cup that's happening. The U.S. team is not involved so there's no opportunity for a bunch of American viewers of ESPN to fall into watching the tournament by accident and chant "USA! USA!" every few days as the U.S. team plays against an old enemy — not in soccer but in politics, usually — and must triumph as if by some natural right.
This is tournament European soccer only. Portugal against Germany. Turkey against the Czech Republic. The effete-looking, speedy Spanish practically dancing the ball around tall Swedes. It's soccer as old-world sport, a contrivance of chess and ballet.
In this year, of all years, it is surely significant that ESPN and ABC are airing all this. Some meaning can be extrapolated from it, because soccer acts as a cultural divide in the U.S. One the one hand, interest in the game and support for its expansion signals a progressive attitude, a willingness to see the U.S. as part of the larger world, not an isolated place, smug in its status as a world power.
On the other hand, skepticism and even derision for soccer signals American traditionalism, if not patriotism itself. Scorn for soccer is a kind of signifier of red-state or Republican attitudes. That scorn amounts to a hard-line belief that the United States is the biggest, strongest country in the world, and its sports — NFL football, major league baseball, NBA Basketball — are the best sports. They are manly games that require strength, skill and masculine fortitude. Soccer is metrosexual — David Beckham epitomizes that — polished and urbane, definitely blue state
It's that metrosexual quality that often alienates followers of traditional American sorts and American sports pundits. Visceral scorn for soccer is one of the defining attitudes of Jim Rome , the popular syndicated radio and TV commentator, and a man described on his own web site as, "Perhaps the most respected voice in the world of sports broadcasting." And, "the leading opinion-maker of his generation." Jim Rome doesn't merely dislike soccer, he looks on it with a livid abhorrence.
In one of his famous rants he declared, "Soccer is not a sport, does not need to be on my TV and my son will not be playing it." It's the mention of his son that helps us understand the root meaning here — American sports are better because they are traditional, passed on and thus defining of truly traditional American qualities.
In truth, when Jim Rome does these rants, his story is as old as the U.S, itself. The story is of the conflict, distrust and misunderstandings between European and American culture. It's a story about naïveté meeting old world guile and cunning.
And it is has been told countless times, by Henry James and others. In fact Jim Rome might not like this, but in attitude he bears a close resemblance to little Randolph Miller, the irritating younger brother of Daisy Miller in Henry James classic short story (published 1878) about a young American woman visiting Europe, one that is still studied by millions of U.S. students. As anyone who has read it knows, little Randolph firmly believes that his hometown, Schenectady, New York, is superior to everything in Europe, especially in terms of the candy to be enjoyed.
In the story Daisy Miller dies. Maybe that's what some Americans, like Jim Rome, fear about the future of traditional American sports. But she dies because she fails to understand subtleties and nuances that are over her pretty American head.
So, perhaps, with ESPN airing all this sophisticated European soccer (and it has been a superb tournament) we're back to the U.S. flirting with the mysterious nuances and stratagems of Old World Europe, as Daisy did.
It's all somehow connected to that word "change", certainly. But to return to Barack Obama's talismanic slogan - is it change we can believe in? Time and the TV ratings will tell us that.
