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Brad Rock: Real Salt Lake: Let's have a ball and kick around some questions
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Real answers to questions would be more interesting than common anti soccer jokes.
For example:
Why do people wear scarves to games? Answer: It is common in English soccer. Fans wear scarves with their team name and colors and then wave them at the game. Waving team flags, streamers, and banners is also common.
Why does someone beat a drum during the game? Answer: Also a common tradition in foreign soccer (especially Mexican and South American). Fans also chant and sing songs at the games. Soccer fans in English soccer often chant and sing during the entire game.
Perhaps you are pandering to the anti soccer crowd. If that's the case why waste your time trying to be clever. Just say anything remotely negative and you will send them into waves of giddiness.
Like this: Soccer is so boring.
See I just brought untold happiness to dozens of Utahns who read soccer articles and comments everday in hopes of finding any anti-soccer tidbit.
There is so much wrong with RSL in the community and you couldn't find one funny line to write down. Pathetic.
You have proven to me the need to never read another of your articles. It is your right to write them and my right to now read the Tribune over the D news if this is the best you can produce. I may dislike baseball and find it very boring,however, I have nothing against those that enjoy it and I don't go around making stupid comments about it. As for you Brad, good luck this year I have no need to read another of your articles regardless of the sport.
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No chance, eh? You lose.
Two points:
1. You just proved his point about the bandwagon. You are on the same bandwagon. You think that soccer is boring because you know little about it, which is fine. What makes you a part of the band wagon is that you actively are trying to get others to abandon their enjoyment for the game.
2. You're right about the Simpsons. If they indeed do make fun of soccer, then it has no chance. The Simpsons is a great guage for what is/will be successful in America. I'm still trying to figure out why Homer thinks that it is the Mormons when those two martians show up on his doorstep. Is he on to something with that statement as well?
I'm equally confused about how or why ANYONE EVER thought that anything written by Brad Rock was worth reading.
Yah, Yah, I can hear you asking, "you read this didn't you?". Well I'm ashamed to admit that I did read at least part of it - in sort of the same way that I glance at a rollover accident in Parley's Canyon...
For the record, look at the big makeover, and all the new players Deuchar, Borcher, Joy, Cordoba, Olave, Kovalenko. We have the best goalie tandem in MLS with Rimando and Seitz (Tim Howards backup). Questions are like what can we expect differently in RSL's game play? What other entertainment venues will be part of the construction by RSL (stores and other things will be built around). Issues like Real Samba affecting the neighborhood, or Garth Lagerway's experience.
There is a lot of good questions to be asked, and I expected to read something worthwhile. Rather, just the same old writer and his quota. Brad, perhaps you shouldn't write about RSL, or soccer in general, it seems to me that you are not qualified.
Very dissapointing.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I'll blame it on you again.
Do you really think that they are going to be happy about that?
Big mistake by Rock and the editor.
We all get that you don't like soccer, but why is it that you can't ever drop your agenda to smear what many people enjoy? You're like an ex-spouse who can't stop talking about how horrible your ex is. I know you both know people like that. I know that if I was the DN Editor that is exactly the vibe I'd like to have hitting the pages of my paper! One step away from being a tabloid! Nice work. I just canceled my subscription.
I love soccer. I don't expect everyone to appreciate soccer. I know it won't ever be bigger than MLB, NFL (National Throwball League), NBA but whoever said it was going to be? If its so bad, ignore it. I ignore NASCAR. Are you really that threatened by it? You're similar to the the youth 'throwball' coaches out there who have your pee-wees take laps and run through a soccer practice to show how macho you are... funny thing is that all the youth soccer players I knew ended up being the starters on the high school 'throwball' team. I wonder where they got their great footwork?
Answer: Don't be ridiculous. That would be like having a German win the NBA's Most Valuable Player Award."
Rock... go do a google search for the 2006/2007 NBA MVP... guess what? It's a GERMAN, Dirk Nowitzki! Ever heard of the guy? Yeah he tends to tear up the Jazz whenever he comes to town.
Thanks for making me see the light. The sport I grew up playing, watching, and loving is a joke. Today after work I will go home and throw away my jerseys, my scarves, and cancel my Fox Soccer Channel subscription. Thank God for people like you, who through there incessant need to tell people what they should like, have changed my opinion for me again. By the way, can you tell me again where to find that "Do It Yourself Homemade Torture Kit" that you use on your kids when they disagree with you?
Thanks again for your direction, I wouldn't know what to do everyday without your guidance. To think I enjoyed a sport for 34 years before you came along and set me straight. Your my saviour!
Sincerely,
Lost in Sandy (until now)
Isn't it strange that the championship for Major League Baseball is called "The World Series." Last time I checked, there are only teams from one country represented in the series. It's a general attitude in mainstream sports here that the best in America is the best in the world. That's what makes soccer great. It is played everywhere and there are great teams everywhere. These teams from different countries actually get together and play against each other in big tournaments instead of declaring themselves "world champions" when they win a domestic league.
Don't hate the beautiful game, embrace it. If you can't do that, find a three year old and challenge him or her to a game of table tennis. When you beat him, declare yourself world champion.
1. Brad Rock is ignorant about soccer. It is obvious in how he writes about it.
2. Brad Rock should not write about soccer.
3. People make mistakes, including editors and sports writers.
4. The Deseret News should show a little bit more caution in what they print. They are after all a conservative newspaper with normally great articles and opinions.
5. That being said, everyone has their own opinion even if it is based on others negative views and ignorance. The way to stop this chain is to not let it continue. That is where the Deseret News failed.
6. The simpsons is not a standard of cultural success.
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