Monday, September 18, 2006
The Unbearable Lightness of Populism
It is not a title for a new movie. But if it was, the starring actors would be John McEnroe, Patrick McEnroe, Mary Carillo, and Tracy Austin, along with the USTA and American tennis parents as the supporting cast.
The two-week long bashing of foreign-born tennis players participating in college tennis during the U.S. Open telecast was so excessive that at one point it was beginning to sound like the whining of pro-American car interest groups wanting limits put on Japanese cars because they are unable to make their product up to par with the competitor. Oh, and isn't it convenient to throw in always some manipulation of nationalistic feelings in the mix?
Of course, it is no surprise that the USTA is standing tall and strong behind this argument and supports the parents "one hundred percent." What reason could be more convenient and more popular than placing the blame on the foreign college athletes for the USTA to shadow its own shortcomings in the subject of improving American tennis?
Foreign athletes already have to go through many more complicated procedures which cost sometimes 10 times more than the typical application fee of an American to get accepted into colleges and earn the right to play with a scholarship. Now as if that is not enough, American parents are complaining and want them banned because these willing athletes are taking away their precious children's scholarships away?
Who says that a good portion of foreign players that play NCAA tennis don't end up staying in the United States, settle in this country, eventually become Americans and maybe even model citizens? Who says they don't end up being a better American than the one that you "oh so heartily" claim whose scholarship is being taken away? Has anyone done a study on the GPA of Americans occupying the athletic scholarships versus the international ones, and maybe analyze the outcome to determine who takes their education more seriously? While it is typical to accuse a foreign player of doing so, has no American amateur tennis player gone overseas and earned money in some tournament somewhere and played college tennis later?
Here is a simple solution for the disgruntled "I want everything to fall in my lap" type of parent: get your child to work harder on the court! Tell your child to become a serious tennis player, to drop the Nintendo or PlayStation, not to check the messages on Facebook or MySpace 10 times a day, to quit asking for a pair of new popular shoes that just entered the market, or three of the newest rackets just advertised on TV every single time he/she enters the clubhouse (never mind that you may have created that behavior by your own actions). Teach him/her to get his/her lazy self up off the couch and call other friends to meet and play at the local club and not just settle down for the four times a week tennis lessons with the local pro that you and your spouse just financed and scheduled for him while he/she is on the phone chatting with his/her buddies.
Is it not outrageous that Germany, Czech Republic, France, and other smaller nations have more juniors ranked in the world than American juniors? To blame the foreign college players for the failure of American tennis in general is a sad excuse for those who view perfection when they look in the mirror and project blame onto others when the mirror image gets distorted.
Could the problem be that foreigners are more interested in just playing tennis and getting an education than which fraternity or sorority to join or how nice the campus of the school is, or how "sweet" the tennis facilities are in the school? Could it be that many American juniors, during a recruiting trip, ask the coach how many rackets and outfits they will be getting once they are on the team, whereas most foreigners will want to know how many hours a day they will be practicing and how many tournaments or dual matches are to be played during the tennis season?
Could it even be that most foreigners are simply wanting the scholarships more than Americans? Imagine an American junior wanting to go to the school that his/her heart belongs to, even though he/she knows that he/she will not receive a scholarship and maybe not even get to play on the team. Now imagine that same player being offered a full scholarship to another school of lesser or better level in tennis maybe, but equal in academics. Finally, imagine that the player chooses to go and pay in some cases close to $100,000 over the four years instead of going to the school that did offer the scholarship, simply because he/she "does not want to" go that school.
Well, you don't have to imagine it! It happens frequently, multiple times a year in the U.S.! Just ask the people in the business.
Furthermore, can you imagine a parent choosing to pay that considerable figure to the first school simply because he/she does not want to say that his/her child is a "blah blah tiger" or "blah blah wildcat" (in this case blah blah being the school that offers the child the full scholarship)? It is not science fiction, folks! Not only does it happen, but the parent will even admit it and say it out loud and clear.
There is one thing that is not imaginable, however: a foreign tennis player refusing a scholarship to play on a college team and picking another where he/she is not offered one simply because he/she feels allegiance to the school or for any of the reasons mentioned above. What is even laughable would be the father of a tennis player from Czech Republic, for example, saying that he would rather pay a fortune for his child to get an education at a certain school rather than getting a free ride elsewhere because he can't stand being the father of a child going to that "elsewhere."
I will finish by saying that I was deeply saddened when, in the name of popularity with the audience, Tracy Austin (someone that I admired watching as a player) stooped to a very low level when, during a match on TV, she went on a three-minute-long bashing of foreigners doing this and that to American tennis followed by a classic display of hypocrisy by adding, "Don't get me wrong, I am not against foreigners, but limit them to two players per team."
Excuse me? Would Tracy like to play the role of the judge and jury also by volunteering perhaps to pick which two foreigners out of 10 that applied for the scholarship are more deserving than the others? Or if she does not care to do so, could she appoint and inform us who she thinks will be qualified enough to make those picks?
That quote sound more like a person saying, "Don't get me wrong! I have many friends who are blah blah," when it's obvious they are prejudiced towards the group of people representing in that quote the "blah blah" race or nationality or origin.
That's it for now. I have had enough bashing the populist bashers. Take care, everyone!