Our Male Olympians Are Slipping!

In the past three Olympiads, including this one, American women have been dominating the medal count for Team USA, particularly in team sports. A lot of Americans, particularly those who believe we have the right to win everything, can't understand why the men haven't done as well.

I'll tell you why - the men suck.

Don't take my word for it. Just look at all the men's teams that aren't at Athens. Take soccer. While the women are favored medal contenders, the men's team didn't even qualify. (Oh, well, we can always root for the team representing our fifty-first state, Iraq.) While we're represented in the women-only sport of softball, the men's baseball team is personae non grata, unable to defend their gold medal in Sydney against Cuba and Japan. The men's field hockey team isn't in Athens either. To be fair, neither are the women, but at least the women, unlike the men, don't bear the stigma of an Olympic record of 28 games lost, one game tied, and no games won. (Hey, that's nearly a perfect record!)

At least we can point to our success in men's basketball. (Oops, maybe I spoke too soon . . ..)

So why do the men in this country suck at team sports so much these days? Actually, I don't give a ##!!**++!. I'm not here to offer pointers for anyone. But when Olympic historian Bud Greenspan talks about the U.S. having the strongest national team ever when we can't even compete in a game we invented and we almost lose to Greece in another sport we invented, you have to wonder what the ##!!**++! he's talking about. We Americans think we can win at anything and everything, and so we expect to dominate the Games in every conceivable way possible. This is nonsense, of course - no country can dominate the whole shabang, and such boasting can, in other countries at least, be chalked up to good old-fashioned patriotism. But we seem to believe our own bragging to the point where we actually expect to win a medal in everything, including every men's team sport - when we have enough trouble in the ones we're supposed to be good at (I'll cite our nightmarish basketball team again). Do we really think we deserve the chance to win a gold medal in team handball, a sport we as a people suck so much in, even the women's team couldn't qualify for it?

I suppose we could improve our athletic quality in men's team sports, but since this is obviously not going to happen any time soon, least of all in field hockey - when was the last time junior field hockey leagues in this country were open to boys? - we could at least admit our shortcomings. That won't happen either. Because whenever we suck, bite, chomp, or eat it at something, we simply ignore the problem and change the subject. We'd be much better off if we followed the Irish model.

Let me explain. Except for Michelle Smith's three swimming gold medals at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta - victories held under suspicion since Smith failed a drug test in 1998 - Ireland has pretty much never won a medal of any kind in swimming. Kind of ironic for an island country so strongly connected to the sea, I know, but that's not the issue here. The issue is that, for whatever reason, Ireland is not a swimming powerhouse like, say, Equatorial Guinea (joke). Certainly not like Australia, anyway. Sadly, there is no way anyone in Ireland - not even Michelle Smith - can reverse their longstanding national habit of sucking at swimming. But the Irish, bless their hearts, not only admit this, they laugh about it. The Irish Olympic Committee has always looked at the bright side; they openly say that while their swimmers may not win a lot of races, the good news is that none of them have ever drowned.

Too bad we can't have the same attitude. We'd be better off if we made light of our suckiness at team handball and console ourselves with the fact that at least the ball never knocked anyone on our team out cold. (At least I don't think it ever did.) It would be an optimistic way of looking at our pathetic men's teams, and it would help us find a silver lining in place of a silver medal. It would re-affirm our reputation as an optimistic people. Instead, every four years at the Games, we try to divert attention from our suckiness at men's field hockey or men's soccer by pointing to the women, or, better yet, accuse someone in another sport of cheating, and hope no one will notice our lesser athletes.

This year, it won't work. Everyone is paying attention to the U.S. men's basketball team. And they're not exactly reinforcing our winning reputation in that sport now.

Regarding the men's basketball team, by the way - what the ##!!**++!?