Sports Patriotism

Sometimes, these things just write themselves.

I was listening to the Bill Simmons podcast, The B.S. Report, last night while I was walking Allie. One of the guests was a guy named Dave Jacoby, who writes for Simmons' new website Grantland.com and is known as the "Czar of Reality TV."

Anyway, they were talking about the women's World Cup and how it's so difficult for women's sports to get widespread attention. But when you throw the American flag on it, the game changes.

Jacoby said at one point, "I want to know where the U.S. Debate team is performing because I will show up with my face painted."

A little about me: the two most athletic people in my family while I was growing up were by far my mom and my aunt. My aunt played D-1 college basketball and was an all-star at pretty much every sport she ever tried when she was growing up. She later coached women's basketball at Seton Hall for 25 years.

My mom hurt both her knees pretty badly in high school, but I bet she could have played college ball, too, if not for that. To this day, though, she can hit a basket from any place on the floor. Nothing but net. Every time.

Not only that, but I grew up going to women's basketball games at Seton Hall. Many of my earliest memories are of sitting in Walsh Gym with my grandmother watching my aunt coach her teams.

Then in college, when I was first starting at the newspaper, my main beat (which I genuinely enjoyed covering) was women's soccer at N.C. State.

So all of that goes to saying I recognize I'm probably a little more predisposed to women's sports than a lot of guys might be otherwise.

But if you can't get excited about what the U.S. women's national team has been doing at this World Cup -- I mean. I don't know what there is to say to someone like you. Just look at the last two matches: Sunday's ultra-dramatic come-from-behind win over Brazil and today's semifinal win over France.

Sunday's quarterfinal match against Brazil was everything you look for in sports.

The U.S. team went up early, got screwed by some questionable officiating, lost a player to a red card and had to play the final hour of game time down a man. Brazil went up early in extra time on a fluky ridiculous goal by Marta, and things looked incredibly bleak.

Then the magic happened. In the final minute of injury time in the final period of extra time, Megan Rapinoe played an absolutely brilliant cross into the box to find Abby "The Beast" Wambach sprinting in for a perfect header to tie the game.

What can you say about that moment? It was an eruption of emotions. To be so close to elimination only to rip the game back into your favor. Just wow. The game was decided by penalty kicks, and all five U.S. players made their shots. My future wife, Hope Solo, came up with the one key save she needed, and that's the game, folks. Simply amazing.

It got a little misty up in this piece a couple of times.

And then today, the semifinals against France. Let's be honest. If the U.S. had lost today, some of the magic and mystique of Sunday's win would have been diminished.

The perfect analogy I heard across sports radio and TV was the Miracle on Ice. The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey victory over the U.S.S.R. was not the gold medal game. If Team USA hadn't gone on to win the gold medal after defeating the Soviets, would that first monumental upset still be referred to with the reverence it is today? I don't know.

And the thing about today's game is France seemed to dominate possession most of the game. Aside from the early first goal for the U.S., it was all France. Both teams had some near misses, but until the U.S. scored the two goals at the end to put the game out of reach, France controlled the flow of the game.

But those two goals, man. Games can turn on an instant. And the team that had previously been dominating the entire contest can be thrown back on its heels in the blink of an eye. Especially when Abby Wambach is on the other team.

Wambach put the team up with another header, of course -- this time off a corner kick. She's just a beast, man. And then my other future wife, Alex Morgan, put the game out of reach with the team's third goal with eight minutes to play.

When you consider that most people don't watch the WNBA, and most people probably don't even know there's a women's professional soccer league in the U.S., why do we get so wrapped up in this? It's obvious: sports patriotism.

Dave Jacoby had it right. If it gives us a chance to paint our faces, scream the national anthem and drape ourselves in American flags, we're all in. And why shouldn't we be? Everyone likes a little patriotism now and then.

The way I see it, there are only two real occasions where it's OK to refer to a team as "we." Your college and your country.

I am as die-hard a Yankee fan as you will find. I always like to say if the Yankees ever played N.C. State somehow, I'd probably still root for the Yankees because that's my blood. That's what I grew up doing. I cannot imagine it being any other way.

But I cannot refer to the Yankees as we. I'm not on the team. I don't work for the team (as much as I'd like to). I was, however, a student at N.C. State -- the best university in the entire country -- so I will always refer to N.C. State's sports teams as we. Also, I am a U.S. citizen, so I don't feel strange saying "we" when talking about the national teams.

So when we play Japan in the World Cup final on Sunday, I will be watching. I will be a nervous wreck because I don't know how else to watch sports. And I will be cheering like crazy for my future wives Solo and Morgan, for Abby Wambach and for the rest of the team to kick some ass.

Let's GO.

-BG