Soccer hater, and NPR legend retires after 37 years. "I have survived so long because I've been blessed with talented and gracious colleagues, and with a top brass who let me choose my topics every week and then allowed me to express opinions that were not always popular. Well, someone had to stand up to the yackety-yak soccer cult." Deford must really hate soccer to put this line in his last piece. To bad for him the soccer cult has succeeded despite all these old media guys hate of the game. You have to wonder if the soccer cult forced him into retirement? Farewell Frank DeFord. Soccer Hater. Never Bald pic.twitter.com/09LxeCmV6F— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) May 3, 2017
Ding Dong the warlock is gone. Grandpa Munster rides off into the sunset. The encyclopedic definition of chauvinism and xenophobia manifested through American sports journalism.
I'm always amazed by people who think there's a moral dimension to their personal preferences. There are a lot of things I like. I don't think there's anything wrong with the people who don't like them. There are some things I like which most people don't. I don't assume that's a character flaw on my part. EDIT: To be clear, I'm aiming that comment at Deford. The idea that "somebody had to stand up to" soccer fans is hilarious and pathetic. That said, I suspect he was mostly kidding/trolling. Whatevs, enjoy your retirement. He's somebody other people have been listening to for decades, I sorta get why he wanted to take one last shot before he leave the public arena.
This is the part that bothers me, because IMO it was uncalled for. It's not like he'd been attacked on that front recently and the occasion certainly didn't call for him to toss out anything vitriolic, and yet there you go. What's more his opinion on the matter was always close minded, which I thought a shame because he was a gifted writer in general. Position bargainers are simply adult children digging in their heels and plugging their ears to things that don't go their way, and Mr. DeFord was that way regarding soccer. Often he let his personal tastes skew his objectivity, which is regrettable in his profession and the reason many of his chided him for such takes. But whatever. Thanks for playing, enjoy your retirement, now the rest of us can move on to things that matter.
Funny how the anti-soccer guys like to take unprovoked shots at the sport and then try to play the victim card when they get called out for their dumb-assery. Every sport has detractors, but being someone who was too young to remember the peak anti-soccer vitriol of the 1980s/early 1990s, I always wonder what is it about soccer haters that makes them feel the need to be so loud in voicing their objection to it. It's not like anti-golf, anti-hockey, anti-baseball people, etc. are churning out "Why (fill in sport here) sucks" columns during those sports' major events. Nor do they allow the mere mention of the sport to drive them out of the way to attack those sports on Twitter, article comment sections, forums, etc. I guess soccer fans should consider it a badge of honor/victory that the sport triggers Deford so much that he obsesses over it to the point of allowing it to occupy his farewell message. Oh well. should be a net positive for soccer as more guys in his age group leave the industry over the next decade.
When I played as a kid in the 70's and 80's in north metro Atlanta I recall meeting kids/families that regarded the sport with disdain. Not sure if they merely felt it threatened their hallowed sports of youth baseball and football or had some genuine distaste for it as some "commie" sport, but plenty of folks were at the least reluctant to embrace it. Didn't help when you had some proponents with their grandiose statements about the future of the sport that lead to the whole urban legend about "pro soccer someday surpassing the NFL!" (or however the phrase was turned). Somewhere along the way the narrative was received less as people supporting soccer and more as people threatening established sports, so naturally the most zealous pushed back. Hence the appeal for characters like Mr. DeFord. Hockey at least had the NHL and an established base in Canada and the northeast.
Sadly, seems like those baseless "soccer will pass football!" claims were what gave rise to the baseless "soccer will never make it in the US!" claims that exist in certain circles today. Whenever soccer cynics uses the "I've been hearing about soccer's rise since the 70s and 80s and it never happened!" argument to diminish the sport, I wonder if it's a reaction to baseless "soccer will pass football!" claims that came at a time where conditions for sustained growth (grassroots participation, stable domestic league, exposure to the sport via TV/internet/video games, USMNT World Cup appearances, etc) were no where near what they are today. Those proclamations from soccer zealots, which turned out false after the NASL collapsed, are probably why older soccer haters still continue to insist that soccer will never "make it" in the US.
The one thing I will point out is soccer fans do tend to be a little thin skinned around criticism of the sport. I remember listening to a sports call in show in the early '00's where the host was going through some "tricks" he uses to get calls on slow days. One of them was to say something bad about soccer and watch the board light up. Having said that it does seem like even now there is a desire by people who don't like soccer to be overt about it. Rather than a simple, "I don't care for it", they feel obliged to make a big moral statement. Which reminds me of an article I read in the paper after the US was knocked out of the '98 World Cup celebrating our elimination. The columnist was positively giddy that he wouldn't have to watch anymore soccer and openly hoped that this would be the end of soccer in the US (yeah how'd that go for you.) But here's the thing, I wasn't mad, I actually felt sorry for him. Whether you actually are a big soccer fan or not the World Cup is basically one giant world wide party that he was storming out of before it got really good. Ironically that article came out the day before that Argentina-England match with Owen's goal, that Argentine free kick, Beckham's Red Card, and Penalties. So basically I never get mad at Soccer haters, just shake my head and feel slightly sorry for them.
As long as we're memorializing Frank Deford, we might as well acknowledge his epic trolling of U.S. soccer fans. A masterpiece of its kind: pic.twitter.com/rPY1FR1ATS— Mark Mravic (@MarkMravic) May 29, 2017
I didn't realize DeFord died. I knew he retired from NPR recently but his death happened quite under the radar for me. The story of the death of his 8 year old daughter is touching. Now he is with her. But I didn't like Deford. He was was chauvinistic and xenophobic, and that came out through his anti soccer rants. I view his passing as symbolic of the American sports dinosaurs who treat soccer with disdain. May he rest in peace. May God be with him. God bless his little girl. But, also, Ding Dong.