So I am in New Orleans listening to my favorite radio station in the “big easy” yesterday as two sports radio personalities discuss world cup football. Their opinions seem to be that it was boring, that the objective of the game did not appear to be winning; the game could not make sense if it ended in a tie, even inadvertent touching of the ball was illegal, and the goalkeeper was only confined to the six yards box and on and on it went. If I did not know the game, I too would have voted no to watching the world cup on television which was the subject of their online poll.  Now a lot of the miss-information came from callers and to be honest a lot of the corrections came from the callers too. You would expect however that noted broadcasters would have taken time to familiarize themselves with the game.  I felt, as one of the billions of fans of “the beautiful game” around the world, who will rearrange our schedules to enjoy the world’s most popular sport at its highest level; highly disrespected.

Now you may say that I am taking this a little bit personally and to some degree you wiould be right, but not totally. You see when I first came to the United States I did not understand American football. Even if you get over the fact that the ball is always in someone hands, or two American teams can play for the world championship, the game did not seem to make sense. To the untrained eye the more you watched the less the game seems pointless. It’s funny that I learned a lot about the game listening to the same guys who seem to be insulting me now. I knew back then if they were so passionate about the game along with millions who watched on television and filled the stands, there were things about the game that I was missing, so I kept on watching. As the rules and objectives of the game became more obvious to me I became an avid fan.

Our American attitude toward the world cup soccer in general can be understood in the context of our overall view of the world. While we boast about our role as the leader of the free world, few nations are as ignorant about the rest of the world per capita as the United States. It’s the nature of rich and powerful nations to become arrogant and blind to nothing but their own self interest. As the most generous of nations we only relate to others in their adversity but not their passions and their joy.  We are spoon fed by talking heads in our culture whose primary role is entertainment. I was not disappointed as much by my favorite color commentator and product pitch man as in myself. Having learned so much about Saints footfall listening to him and his colleagues, I elevated him to a place he neither asked for nor deserved. Listening to him defend his position after my comment was hilarious.  The journey of the Nation of South Africa after having been banned for decades from international sport, to hosting the confederations cup and now the greatest international single sport event is a story that even the average person should know. It is a story as noble as the Saints story to the super bowl from Katrina. A story so powerful, that it was appreciated around the world even by people who don’t have a clue about what is happening on an American football field.

The truth is, in our present culture, ideas and opinions such as this one are accepted as fact. We are too bombarded with information to pursue truth. As a result we accept the narrative that suits us best.  The danger is that more and more we have become personality driven and have given more credibility to celebrity as oppose to fact or truth.  What my favorite station taught me this week is the importance of perspective, asking the right questions and digging a little deeper for the truth.  More importantly I learned, that “just because you hear it on the radio, see it on television, read it in the newspaper or on the internet, that doesn’t make it true!

“It’s just a thought”.

EF

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