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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Wish I had written this

I am not familiar with Stinson Carter who is identified on The Huffington Post as a "journalist, novelist, screenwriter and playwright." I do not know what novels, screenplays or plays he has written, but he did compose a fine journalist piece this morning on the aforementioned Huffington blog concerning yesterday's Algeria-U.S.A. World Cup contest, the last three paragraphs of which were:

Perhaps the very fact that soccer has not been widely embraced by America until now has preserved it as one of the least tainted of American sports; maybe its purity lies in its obscurity. These men on our National Team mean so much more to us now because they meant nothing to us a month ago. They are not celebrities, they are not multi-millionaires, and we don't read about their lives in grocery store checkout lines. So, when we see them out on the field, we don't see our vain ambitions in them. We see ourselves in them. And what we saw yesterday filled us with pride and self-respect at a time when we really need it.  
We are in perhaps one of the most challenging eras of American history. With a Gulf Coast in peril, an overseas war with no end in sight, and an economy still in the grip of an historic financial slump, it's hard to face our realities. But yesterday, the young men of our National soccer team showed us something that affirmed the inner greatness of a troubled people. They showed us why we must always continue to believe that great things can happen to those who work hard and refuse to give up.

However far we go in this World Cup, we have already won a glimpse of the strength at our core. Perhaps soccer will become huge in America one day. But let's remember it as it is now, while what makes it big is that it is still small. While one little tap of a ball into a net by a young man a few thousand miles away has the power to make us see the greatness in soccer and remind us of the greatness in ourselves. So of all the things that happened yesterday, let's remember it as the day when the sport that didn't matter showed us what matters most.
Very well said.

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