The mundanity of domination
-The United States Women’s Softball team successfully garnered the Athen’s 2004 Olympic gold medal yesterday by defeating Australia 5-1 in the gold medal game. Was it close you ask? No. In fact, Australia was the first team to actually score a run on the US team all Olympics! The US outscored opponents 51-1 throughout the tournament and even had to enable the “skunk” rule of ending a game at 10-0 before any long term psychological depression disorders settled into the poor teams’ players that had to face the US Women’s Softball team (something like 110-0 in international competition). In short, this was the real Dream Team this Olympics, not those underachieving, overpaid NBA boys. But my point here I guess is...who cares?
I mean who really wants to see the US Women’s Softball team paste every other country it faces? Who wanted to see the original “Dream Team” in 1992 with Magic, Bird, Drexler, Jordan & Co. beat other teams by an average of 32.5 points a game? Heck, who ever wants to see the obscenely favored win, in anything? When was the last time the US Women’s Softball team was used as an example in a halftime motivational speech? When was the last inspirational movie made about the original Dream Team? No my friends, we prefer the underdog, plain and simple.
Folks there’s a reason the 1980 US Men’s Hockey team is referred as the greatest US sports story ever and time and again coaches and non-hockey people alike use their accomplishment as motivation for their players. Nobody gives a hoot about how dominating our men’s basketball team has always been in the past. Nobody gives a hoot about how our women’s soccer or softball teams have dominated the competition in the past. We want underdogs. We want the 1980 US Men’s Hockey team, a bunch of no-name college boys going against all odds to succeed against the Soviet dominance. We want the 1954 Milan Indians (as portrayed in the movie Hoosiers), a bunch of farmer boys going against all odds to win the state title. We want Mary Lou Retton, against all odds getting the gold in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. We want small Seabiscuit instead of big and brawny War Emblem. In short, down deep, below our egotistical desire for dominance, we want David versus Goliath, and we want David to win.
It’s usually the case for all of history. Sure the Egyptians ruled most of the known world for a while, then the Babylonians kicked some arse, the Greeks then wupped up around town, then the Romans opened a can of you know what....yada, yada, yada... Sure they hold large chapters in history textbooks, but nobody really emotionally cares about those dominating powers throughout history. We’re more interested in how a small nation like Israel could survive till even today despite 4000 years of persecution. We want to know more about how William Wallace and his band of Scotsmen fought against the powers of tyranny. We want to know about how guys like George Washington and John Paul Jones fought against the powers that be to secure freedom. We want to know how a small kid with a sling and a stone could slay a giant with a really big sword. We want the underdogs, and we want them to win..
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea that I’m someone against these dominating US teams or anything. I fully support my American counterparts and acclaim their successes. I’m just saying that being the party that dominates just puts the supporting spectator in a very mundane situation. There’s really no insurmountable obstacle. It’s like you know they’re gonna win; there’s nothing to cheer for really. There’s no reason to root your team on. There’s no suspense. This sort of “capitalistic” competition, this parity, present in most major pro sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, NHL, etc., is what makes them so alluring. Though a few “dynasties” will come and go in these leagues, usually each year has a different champion. It keeps things interesting.
I don’t know, as counter-intuitive to our nature this seems, I kind of like to be the underdog.