Stephen Webb [professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College] wrote an article «Soceer Is Ruining America» for the Wall Street Journal on the 12th of March 2009. He wrote about soccer being a «game for girls», «foreign invasion», «limits use to feet», and a «liberal’s dream of tragedy».
He considers football [soccer] inferior to baseball and used unrelated topics to disparage the sport. The underwriter loves all sports including football [soccer] and it is more than what was described by Professor Webb. The US has fans that love football [soccer] just like other sports since the USA was founded on the premise of «the right to happiness».
The USA is a country where all types of sports are played including the ones that have received recent publicity. While there are communities that have baseball, there are communities that have football [soccer] as the only source of pride and comfort for an adolescent child while waiting for his parents in an after school program.
The US Soccer Foundation have Urban Youth Programs created on the basis that children need places to play, grow, and learn. There are places where there are no sports related activities after school. The development of multi sports fields as well as those used for football [soccer] from abandoned sport concrete areas in cooperation with community leaders has been one example.
The Soccer for Success Program of the US Soccer Foundation have had success stories in Chicago, Illinois Washington DC, Houston, Texas, and Los Angeles, California. The Illinois Soccer Youth Foundation [using a grant from the US Soccer Foundation] has provided soccer as an alternative to drugs and gangs in Chicago’s Inner City.
The Urban Soccer Initiative in Washington DC is active in Ward 8 in the capital of the USA. Ward 8 is an area where drugs and alcohol go hand in hand with gang activity. The US Soccer Foundation has helped the Urban Soccer Initiative as well as the United Soccer Club in the transformation of an abandoned parking lot into a soccer field.
The process has even expanded into other wards of Washington DC and have provided children with an alternative to the dangers of drugs and alcohol in the capital. The Houston Dynamo as well as other organizations in the city have also developed programs for the people who live in the worst communities in their city.
While there have been detractors of football [soccer], the response of the underwriter has been to tell the author of the Wall Street Journal article that there are US Citizens who love football [soccer]. There are people who have traveled far and wide to see a game. It appears that the author does not take into account the people who watch the World Cup on TV or the Internet.
The advice for Professor Webb is that he should look at the webpage of US Soccer and the US Soccer Foundation as well as visit the areas of America that have been blighted. If it were not for soccer, maybe Professor Webb would have written an article about the growing delinquents in America.
El Noticiero de Alvarez Galloso 