My dad is like that too. He's from the baseball/football school, probably never saw a game of soccer until my brother and I were kids. He has watched one game which was that Champions League final (I think) where Liverpool were down three and came back. Then he said, if all games were like that, there'd be more viewers. Well duh, dad. My all-time favorite generational quote was from a cable tech up in Rochester, NY. I intered for the Rhinos in '99 (good year) and was working the phones in the front office just before the game. They guy came in to set up a bunch of VCRs because the game was being televised regionally on whatever passed for regional Fox Sports in those days. So we're shooting the ball and he says that he can't understand the popularity of soccer, it's all his kids want to play. "Back in my day," he says "soccer was just a sport for sissies, f*gs, and foreigners." I mean, can you sum up an attitude any better than that?
My dad grew up playing football and always said that the kids on the soccer team were the ones not good enough or tough enough to play football. I had the same attitude instilled in me growing up and played football all 4 years of high school. However, a friend got me watching the UEFA Champions League and immediately fell in love with the passion and atmosphere of European games. Soon, I preferred watching soccer to football and now soccer is all I watch.
We had a football player in high school that always talked shit about soccer and then we invited him to play indoor one winter. He played one gameand about died, didn't sow up to anymore games and didn't say a word about soccer after that.
This is not an uncommon sentiment. We moved to Westerville from, quite literally, the northern most county that is certifiably Appalachia (Carroll County, Ohio). My mom eventually got a job at a middle school and worked with a lady named Elsie Goodman. Her husband, I think his name was Les, was an English ex-pat that helped start up WASP (which is now WASA) soccer. She/He/They told my mom that, in order for me to help make some new friends, I should sign up to play. This was like 1981. Until then, I had never even heard of soccer. My dad was a Browns fan, plain and simple, and a golfer. I believe ours is really the first generation (yes, there are individual exceptions) where the parents not only know what soccer is, likely played soccer, but might even actively WATCH professional soccer.
I agree and I think as the young generation of today gets older, soccer will become more and more mainstream in this country.
Indeed it is. Carroll County might be Appalachia, but don't forget about their neighbors, the Harrison Hicks. (As told to me by someone else.) Seriously, where else is the County Fair Demolition Derby one of the summer's most looked forward to events?