By DAN KARELL
The U.S. Women’s National Team are taking their World Cup title celebrations to the Canyon of Heroes this Friday.
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the USWNT will be honored with a ticker tape parade in downtown Manhattan, with the parade beginning at 11 a.m. The parade route will take the USWNT through the Canyon of Heroes, a stretch of Broadway that begins at Battery Park and ends at City Hall.
Anyone can attend the parade, and fans can sign up for a special ceremony at City Hall that will take place following the parade. Fans can sign up for the ceremony at this link here between 2-4 p.m. on Wednesday.
The USWNT join the likes of the New York Yankees, New York Mets, New York Rangers, Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, and the astronauts from the Apollo 11 mission as teams and individuals who have been honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City.
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What do you think of this news? Do you plan on attending the event? Excited to see how far soccer has come in the USA?
Share your thoughts below.
Very, very, very awesome!
Sports is easy for Diversity. BECAUSE only the best make it to the top.
How many children of immigrants are in politics or science or entertainment in Germany for example compared to their NT and Bundesliga?
I had no idea Press or Boxx had Black fathers.
Surely there are more Hispanic and Black girls playing soccer.
Honestly race means little. I want to hear more about girls or guys from working class families who work their butts off to make it to the NT.
Think of Clint Dempsey and Sydney LeRoux. They were not super poor but they were lower income
..but LeRoux came up primarily in the Canadian youth system before making she switched. She was playing for the Vancouver Whitecaps Women when she was 15/16 before moving to the US. Her key development before 16 when her lack of funds did not impend her in Canada, but it clearly could have in the US.
Sad.
Leroux was in British Columbia, which has the ultimate pay-to-play model. Very, very expensive to join one of six Vancouver-area clubs in the Performance League. (This ultra pay-to-play league did not exist until a few years ago, so she probably never played in it.) These teams are not about development. As quozzel stated above, it exists to line the pockets of “men.” In this case, the best connected soccer men– those who run academies and camps and have fed well at the trough of youth soccer over the years. Economics are the big factor in who can play.
I know nothing about the rest of Canada, but in BC, I’d argue the diversity and economic challenges are more similar than they are different.
I’m not familiar with the Performance League, but a lot of the youth soccer teams that I’ve seen around Vancouver were usually a good mix of visible minorities and whites, and I don’t think all the clubs are pay-to-play.
I don’t believe Ontario has a pay-to-play system either, I had a co-worker who coached youth soccer in Toronto and he was mystified about the pay-to-play system the US has.
Not to be flip, but where does the money come from? Government support?
It’s easy to see why P4P doesn’t exist in other countries on the men’s side, but there has to be some way to pay the coaches and others in the US and Canada where there isn’t a pro club offering support or solidarity payments to fund it. Obviously, those don’t really exist on the women’s side of the game.
It would seem like the clubs do get their money from the provincial government. Just found this article that gives a bit more insight on the youth soccer in Canada and how private clubs have a hard time gaining traction there.
http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Canada+sits+world+soccer+rankings/9789148/story.html
finally a team WHITE AMERICA can get behind
Really? Get lost you punk!
a team Adolph Rupp would be proud to coach and racists like you cheer them on as black bodies are being murdered everyday in this country.
SMDH
Invective much?
The team is full of white girls because it’s the white girls playing soccer.
Soccer is too durn expensive in the US, which largely prices out the Latinas and the black girls. There are exceptions but not nearly enough. The “elite” clubs are super-expensive (we’re talking $1,500+ a season, mimimum, and usually much more than that, and the travel expenses the upper-echelon teams accrue are insane.)
That’s the real disconnect, and the real problem. From age 13 on, only the rich kids can afford to play at the highest levels. The elite clubs control all the parks, they control all the fields – some of them, I know firsthand, play some very dirty pool to keep it that way – and they charge through the nose while somehow maintaining their non-profit statuses.
My sincere hope is that as the game grows in the US, the pro clubs will still incurring a lot of these costs…like they do in most other nations. At that point instead of being the game of the elite, as it is here in the states, it’ll become the game of the people like it is in the rest of the world.
If you want to do some good, point your invective at the right targets – the club directors driving Range Rovers and making $160K a year as directors of “nonprofit” organizations. Bust that gravy train up, and in ten years the US women’s team will look very different. And oh yeah, be a whole lot better even than it is now.
Would you say that that affects genders equally or is it more prone to filtering out latina and black girls than it is to filtering out latino and black boys? If so… Why?
As a guy who’s coached both club soccer and school soccer, it’s much worse on the female end.
The main reason, I think, is because there’s more “paying” customers at the girl’s side and the clubs don’t have to work quite so hard. There isn’t nearly the choice menu for female athletes there is for men – it’s basically down to soccer, volleyball, and basketball – and so while their older brothers are dabbling in football, baseball, and whatever else, if you’re an elite female athlete you pretty much play soccer. Which means the local youth clubs that control soccer have a lot more control and can institute as low as a 15% “conversion” rate between their rec and select teams (USSF wants around 40%), and that means they don’t have to mess around with scholarships and they can charge through the nose. If you can’t afford to pay, well, tough.
It’s artificial. of course, and designed to funnel as much money as possible into the pockets of the men – it’s always men; I have never seen a female club director – who run the clubs.
Try that crap with the guys and some local Latin club of backyard ballers who practice down at the factory lot are going to clean you out. So to stay competitive, the clubs have to be a lot more inclusive with the guys…which means including – and scholarshipping – Latino players who can’t afford to pay your obscene rates.
Not that the big elite clubs like it, mind – they don’t, and usually only scholarship 2-3 a team of the very best Latin players, while the rest are usually still very white – but there is a lot more opportunity for Latino males than there is for Latinas. Clubs that ignore the Latin players end up getting killed by them on the field.
Thanks for the coach’s perspective. It basically confirms what I’d only guessed at from refereeing.
Not entirely wrong. Canada has a population of around 35 million and were able to have 5 black players on their team. The US with a population 10 times the size has one. That’s a pretty alarming disparity of diversity.
Sports in the US is cultural… canada doesnt have inner city basketball, in the US young black girls gravitate toward basketball. Even the ones with college scholarships quit soccer when they graduate.
Canada does have inner city basketball, the difference is that Canada doesn’t offer athletic scholarships for higher education, so only the exceptionally talented Canadian basketball players are good enough to get picked up by a US college and then make the leap to the NBA. As far as the cultural argument goes, the US has a good size population of African and Caribbean immigrants, so theoretically there should be a pretty good pool to draw from. Cost is probably still a major hurdle I assume.
Under estimate the cultural pull of basketball in the urban areas in the USA at your own peril.
Also, comparing the African-American population to the Afro-Canadian population is always dangerous. Afro-Canadians disproportionately are of Caribbean heritage compared to Americans.
I’ve lived in both countries, therefore I must be an expert 🙂
I’ve also lived in both countries. And yes Canada’s black population is largely made up of Caribbean and African immigrants, but I’d argue that you could find the same type of immigration patterns in places like Florida, New York, and California that would probably dwarf the black population of the whole of Canada.
Canada’s black population is only 3% of the country and a chunk of that population is concentrated in Toronto and Montreal. Yet they have been able to get a pretty good representation of the black community on both their men’s and women’s national teams.
How many non-demi-Teutonic African-Americans are there on the the current US Mens team? Most of the non-Germanic melanin is Hispanic.
Jozy and who?
Off the top of my head Yedlin, Zardes, Hamid, Sean Johnson, Gyau, Edu, Beaz, Timmy Howard, Gooch – all in the past year. Plus the various players with Latino backgrounds. It’s a pretty diverse roster.
I’ll grant you Yedlin, Zardes, Howard, and Hamid (even though he’s an alternate), but you’re puffing up the list with those others. Sean Johnson? Gooch? Edu? Guys that got a cap or two for a cup of coffee don’t really count as being in the team.
Remember that the response is mainly to JCC talking about black players. I agree that Latinos are well-represented. My point is that non-German black players in the roster are represented at a lower percentage than in the population. That said: I’m not sure the distinction between teutonic and non-teutonic African Americans is important or relevant.
I’m gonna just stop there and leave it at that. The whole discussion seems a bit “pre-1993 RSA” for my liking. I hope y’all understand.
The percentage of non-hispanic AA in the general US population is 12% so proportional would be 2 or 3.
That being said, I think the key issue is that everywhere else in the world , soccer/football is the dominion of the humble/working class/poor, but in America, it is the domain of the upper middle class or middle class. It is almost a status symbol or sign that you have made it if your daughter or son plays club soccer here. It is rarely played in the inner city and then the whole pay to play garbage.
Like I said: if you don’t view the German-African Americans differently, than the others, then that me is well represented. I don’t know that it’s right to, but it does speak to the lack of “native” soccer development in AA or other lower socio-economic American communities. Maybe that’s changing a bit…
I know you are trolling, but you do know that 1 is married to a black basket player (Lauren Holiday) and 2 players on the team have African American fathers:
– Sydney Leroux (father is a college baseball coach in Canada)
– Christen Press (father, Cody Press, is an investment banker at Bank of America, was the Dartmouth University football captain in the 70’s and whose father was the Dean of Howard University School of Medicine).
I only know about Press because I talked about how attractive she was and my, 2 friends who went to Dartmouth, told me about her dad (I looked it up and they were right).
That being said, it is striking that the team has gotten less diverse. The ’99 team had 1 or 2 players of Asia descent and 2 or so players of African American descent. Even the early 2000 teams were more diverse. but the 2010- 2015 is very white. Now, I don’t care too much because I cheer for the best players and sometimes racially monotonous basketball and hockey teams. However, it always strikes me as a little weird seeing all teams I played on were racially & ethnically mixed, my college men’s team (and women’s team) had Black, Asian and Latino kids on it. This is coming from a guy who went to Ivy League school with a lot of upper middle class kids. That being said, a bit part of it is the pay for play structure that squeezes out most people of all races and ethnicities.
Shannon Boxx also has an African American father. Just saying because you forgot about her. There are 3 players with African American fathers on the team.
Having to say “hey, one of our players is married to a black man” is all you need to say to prove the lack of diversity on this team.
The most disturbing thing is that Jill Ellis (as the U20 coach at the time) actually told Teresa Noyola to go play for Mexico instead, despite having come up through the US system and wanting to represent the US
http://www.colorlines.com/articles/icymi-mexican-american-soccer-star-was-turned-away-mostly-white-us-team
I read that article yesterday. I was pretty shocked to learn that half of Mexico’s national team are Americans. There’s definitely more to it than just how expensive soccer is in the US, though it plays a huge part.
Chill out, dude. Those girls were not good enough to make the USWNT so Mexico was their only option to play international soccer. Look at the number of German-Americans on our men’s team. They are not here playing for the USMNT because Germany excluded them for some racially motivated reasons.
Funny enough the German men’s team is still more diverse than the USWNT.
I think the country that has the best representation of their country in both men and women’s soccer is France. I still haven’t seen a national team that comes close to representing just about every ethnic group of that country. That’s a model I think most countries with diverse populations should aim for.
The Mexicans do a good job of getting eligible players early (the U17 & U20 squads are usually 1/2 Mexican-Americans). Most wouldn’t make the US, but know the line to the NT is shorter with Mexico.
It’s getting to be pretty common to recruit the US for players. The Philippines, Jamaica, T&T, Haiti have a good number of Yanks on their squads and would take more. That’s not counting the ones who are in the US for HS or college, but aren’t US-eligible.
Hey, I agree, but I was responding to that moron saying a team White America can be proud of who clearly failed to see that 2 of those white women are married to black men (Holiday, Solo) and 3 of those women have African American fathers.
I find it a little weird that US teams looks so objectively white (and has been since about 2010), I would say the same if it was all black, Latino, Asia, Native America. Then again, I grew up in the NY city suburbs where youth soccer teams are more diverse with the exception of California or Texas.
yep, Amy Rodriguez is 2nd generation Cuban, and Alex Morgan is married to a Hispanic, I think…
Today, the only hispanic with a chance to make the USWNT roster is forward Sofia Huerta. After playing for youth mexican teams in her teens she has stated that she is committing herself to play for the US women’s senior team.
She’s good and with Abby leaving and A.Rod getting older some spots will open up. Good luck to her, I think Horan, Kegan, Ohai, and others are ahead of her.
But keep these minorities in mind from the U20, Natalie Pugh and Ashley Sanchez. You will start hearing their names in 3-4 years.
Noyola played exactly _zero_ games for the Mexican WNT at the WC. A team that earned 1 point and scored 2 goals in group play.
i, as a mexican american, had no problem wearing my USA Gadsen flag soccer shirt on Sunday. About 12 years ago when I was 20 or so, the US men’s team was for a brief period almost all white. I recall stepping back a bit from my hardcore support. However, this is a different age with different leadership. The most power person in the world is a Kenyan-American, and the most powerful person in soccer is an African American (L. Lynch). The rebel flag is coming down. Its a new age, and yes I can support white americans.
Allow me to gloat. I will be watching from my office window at 80 Broadway. My first parade at the Canyon. Could not be happier for these women. Well done!
Gcc, if you had any intelligence you could deconstruct your own canned argument.
I am so proud of our country and very happy they are getting honored this way. They deserve it.
After hearing about the FIFA payout comparisons to the men, although no surprise, the lack of respect Blatter has given them, I am proud that we are leading the way to equality in the world.
USWNT proved doubters wrong in a big way.Thrilled…..
Now, let’s get that Gold Cup……
My word. If jeans companies aren’t lining up their endorsement deals already for this team, their PR execs have no eyes.
Dunno if I’ve ever seen a collection of girls who make jeans look that good.
Hey Levis…if you’re missing this, you need an eye doctor. Apparently that combo of womanly curves and training-pitch-developed leg muscles creates the perfect jeans model…who knew?
Yeah man, just what the women’s game needs, sexist advertising.
Exactly how is it sexist to use women to sell women’s clothing?
Would that be more or less sexist than selling sunscreen?
Calling women “sexy” or, in my case, saying “looks good”, is not sexist. Or if you find it so, you lean so far left it makes my eyes glaze.
The key to “sexist” to be true is twofold:
[b]1) objectification[/b] – in other words, rendering women as objects to be possessed, as non-people, as things that exist to serve (or service) men…
…and/or
[b]2) minimalization or trivialization[/b] – or the belief that women are somehow less capable than, or intrinsically worth less than, men…you see the constant proliferation of this in the so-called “glass ceiling” that many female professionals face…and sorry, you see it in the comments section of almost every article posted about the women’s game.
From what I’ve seen, actually, the Brits (and Europeans in general) are far more guilty of both of the above than Americans are…and South Americans, don’t even get me started. But it exists plenty here, too.
I actually like and respect women. I also find attractive ones…attractive, and if a woman chooses to take that as an insult, demeaning, or somehow “sexist”…well, that’s on her, not on me.
Where Sepp Blatter got into trouble, by the way, was his dismissive, contemptuous, offhanded attitude towards women, where he basically said: “soccer girls are pretty…they need to wear shorter shorts.” In other words…both objectification, and trivialization were in play. (He didn’t even know who Alex Morgan was when he handed her the Woman’s Player of the Year Award, for instance. That’s a lack of respect, Sepp.)
What made that comment sexist was the lack of qualifiers…and the suggestion that the only thing they had going for them was nice butts.
I actually agree with Blatter’s comment. They do. And “sexying it up” probably wouldn’t hurt the woman’s game…though making it mandatory is intrinsically demeaning. The line society is dancing is the matter of choice – female soccer players should not be compelled to wear short shorts if they weren’t comfortable doing do…basically, the line to be observed there is the the women should be allowed to be as sexy as they WANT to be…in much the same manner as men are often allowed to customize the fit of their club kits. You think Ronaldo isn’t trying to “sexy it up” by making himself look as good as possible? He makes a lot of money off looking good, and nobody notices or cares even if it does draw the constant snarky comments about what a narcissist he is. The key is…women are not dolls, to be dressed skimpily up for the entertainment of men if they are not comfortable with it.
But as ESPN’s “Body Issue” shows, plenty of them are quite comfortable with it. And denying women the right to showcase their sexuality is leaning too far the other way…towards old-fashioned puritanism, actually.
And at the end of the day, the women’s game needs money. And sponsors. And jeans companies have a boatload of money…and spend a lot of it on women who aren’t half as substantial or deserving as the US girls are.
So I stand by my comment, sorry.
Did you see CR7 selling that weird, fake Japanese exercise gizmo? Sexy, and it probably moves product even if the product is crap.
pretty much everyone in the know commenting on the game Sunday says Carli Lloyd’s marketability just shot through the roof. However, she looks like Charles Bronson. You’ll know its sexist if she is bypassed for AlexMorgan, Hope Solo, and Syndey Leroux for ad. There is no reason whatsoever any of the those three mentioned should get a single ad. Alex did nothing. Hope offers a can of worms. If Carli isn’t getting the bucks, and “a more attractive” teammate is then yes its sexist.
You mean how Beckham got the most advertising money because he was the best player when he played or offered more than any of his contemporaries in the world or even his own team (Scholes, Giggs).
And I still stand by my comment that you and Sepp Blatter are both incredibly sexist. Sorry. =)
How, exactly?
I love blind invective. It’s as above reason and debate as a religious argument.
No reasoned arguments, no dialogue, just…an almost reflexive clutching of the moral high ground, no matter of whether it makes any kind of sense or not.
Liberation of the female sexuality is a huge part of what women fought for. Go too far the other direction, and you might as well cover them with a burka…and hey, you’re right back to objectification again.
Dude why are you upset? I’m just stating my opinion of you. You might not you believe you’re a sexist and that’s cool. But I believe you are. No biggie. Live and let live.
Upset? You insulted me, moron. You still haven’t stated what about my viewpoint is sexist, or erroneous.
You don’t insult somebody and end with …”but it’s just my opinion, it’s all cool.”
If you’re truly standing on the moral high ground, state your reasons. Rationally. Educate me.
This is called a “dialogue”.
Do you not know what that is?
My, my quozzel, you are quite feisty this morning. I’m not here to educate you. I believe people have a right to their own viewpoints and if you carry sexist viewpoints that’s your prerogative. My opinion is that your first idea to marketing the women’s team is no different than Sepp Blatter’s. Sure you can try to sugarcoat it with a nice academic response like you attempted to do, but that still doesn’t detract from your intent to objectify first and foremost. Again if that’s how you roll and that’s caused you no issues in life, more power to you. Human nature is not to change behaviour until it affects them negatively. That’s your right as a human. So keep on being sexist until it no longer benefits you to do so. =)
So in other words, you can’t explain it, you just equate any comment about a woman’s attractiveness as “sexist”, and are amazed everyone can’t see as clearly as you.
Is this is a reflex puritan reaction, or just a promotion of asexuality? I’m never sure.
I do know the women who are the most stringent advocates of this position are usually very angry women, and the men who for whatever reason advocate it are invariably Beta-male drones. Usually very snippy, elitist ones, who somehow mistake their lack of testosterone for intrinsic virtue.
I do reject the notion that just having all men become sexless drones is a viable answer. Check the mass proliferation of male suicide in Japan to the rising wave of asexual Japanese to see where that path goes…and it terrifies me when I see that ethos starting to take root here.
I personally see the rise of a sexless ethos as a mortal threat to the human condition…and I am a humanist, first and foremost. Which makes me clash head-on with both strident leftists and strident right-wing reactionaries alike…and it’s…amazing, how similar the two extremes actually are.
Particularly, neither extreme seems to get any. Which to my mind is why both extremes are all crazy-like.
Ha! I knew I could get you to drop that faux academic facade you annoyingly like to portray on here. I see you are just one of those angry MRA-types that likes to read Return of Kings and A Voice for Men. =)
Get off your high horse, It is not that sexist. In case you don’t know, male athletes are also chosen (to a certain extent) that they are good s well as PHYSICALLY attractive and well spoken.
… and I lean left
Jeans. That’s it.
He didn’t propose Fleshlights or anything horrible.
Just jeans
Lighten up
but like tight jeans, right? and with a couple of butt shots? no, of course that wouldn’t be sexist
Sigh.
You’re right. You’ve convinced me. Burkas for everybody.
All right, ladies, cover up, head to toe, now. Because that’ll set you free. Look how well it works in the Middle East.
Awesome to see this happen!
Well deserved! First women to walk the Canyon!
Nope. Not even close.
First women’s athletic team I think.
If you ignore female Olympians, probably.
Most of the prior non-Olympians were astronauts, heads-of-state, and Amelia Earhart.
first female athletes in 50 years. First women’s sports team.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ticker-tape-parade-would-be-historic-honor-for-u-s-womens-soccer-team-1436288188
Yes, that’s true, but it is neither the first woman so honored nor the first female athlete so honored. At a certain point the category for which something is a “first” becomes self-parody, and it does not help anyone to overstate the novelty of an event. Agnigrin is guilty of the latter, and you sir are guilty of the former – though the former is the lesser of the two sins.
First USWNT, ok
Happy now?
See? The hyperbole wasn’t even necessary!