My thoughts on elitism...

I have heard the topic of elitism being thrown around for several months now and I want to properly focus people on what elite is. (I won't go attacking a guy who doesn't know how many houses he owns, because that's not what I am here for. In fact, I don't think I could accurately describe the situation to really grasp how crappy it is.) Anyways, since sports is my thing I will use sports to describe true elitism.

I'm an American, proud to be here--don't plan on leaving. But I will say we have an elite mentality when it comes to sports. Let's take soccer, which is great. The rest of the world eats it up. The world cup final literally has billions of people watching it... but not many of those numbers come from America.

Take Olympic Basketball and the "Redeem Team," as they have been dubbed. I understand why it is a big deal that we need to win the gold, but we have this elitist mentality that we shouldn't lose. So what do we do? Put together a team with 2 guys that are there for one skill (Tayshaun Prince and Redd), a guy who would be a great counterpunch to some of the crafty power forwards of the international game (Carlos Boozer), and Jason Kidd, whom I will not address because my opinion of him could fill seven, 20k word posts.

Even our spin on the medal count shows massive amounts of elitism. The United States will come out with more total medals than China, but China will have more gold medals. We say we won in real sports and real events. I have also heard the sentiment that if you subtract events that weren’t subjectively/arbitrarily by people, we have won just as many gold medals as China. While I do think the system is flawed, China won and minus the small children in gymnastics, they were better (gold medal wise) than us. We have the same opportunity to play badminton and table tennis like they do. Let’s be gracious.

I want to reiterate the fact that I love America and think it’s the best large place/country ever (the state of Washington is the best place in general). Yet I think it’s worth mentioning this sports elitism because it spills into other aspects of life. The fact that a country turns its nose up to the “beautiful game” and calls it a sport for wimps is a testimony. Or maybe its visible major sports talk radio widely ignoring a world athletic competition, save Michael Phelps, USA basketball and a little Usain Bolt. And for what? To talk pre-season NFL football!

Upon winning the gold medal in Olympic basketball the theme of what the “Redeem Team” did was the first gold since 2000. Last time I checked, the Olympics happen every 4 years. So basically, we didn’t win in ’04 and that’s it. It wasn’t the end of the world. The team didn’t play well, but Americans in general were generally ungracious. When the Pistons lost in the NBA finals a few years ago the media vilified the team for not giving credit to the Spurs for beating them and being better.

The American response to not winning gold in Sidney was quite similar to that of the Pistons who failed, which is funny because the world really has caught up. Argentina has 6 NBA players and one player that was a staple in the league for years. Spain has eight players that have been or will be in the NBA either last year or next year. Aside: Rudy Fernandez of the Portland Trailblazers abused the US defense, and he made Dwight Howard look bad when he dunked on him. Fernandez was born the day after I was and he plays for my new favorite team so he must be a good guy. Other teams also have NBA regulars and really talented players who can hold their own anywhere. In basketball you only need to have the best five guys on the floor…

In short, well not so much, we have to get a hold of ourselves, realize that there is more to life than America and American sports, and be a gracious people. The elitism we have in sports manifests itself in our media, politics, and lifestyles and I hate that it has spilled to my favorite thing in the world. Please guys let’s just play nice!

Salute