THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 17, 1994 TAG: 9407170171
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
As our baseball and apple pie culture bids farewell today to the World Cup, we are forced ask: Has middle America learned anything from the world's game?
Have we learned to correctly pronounce a foreign name containing no consonants? Appreciated the beauty of a precise cross field pass?
But most of all, have we learned why it's necessary for players to protect their manhood as leather balls are fired at their equivalents? Apparently not.
After our newspaper printed a picture last Sunday of Netherlands players cupping their privates in a penultimate penalty kick, reader reaction was ballsy.
The picture ran in newspapers throughout the country and in this week's Sports Illustrated. But you would have thought these guys burned flags or drowned cats.
Asking a soccer player not to protect his privates during a penalty kick is like asking a hockey goalie to save naked. But based on reader reactions, that's exactly what some want.
For those not in the know, soccer requires penalty kicks. During these, the opposing players form a human wall a few feet from where the ball will be kicked. They know not where it will be kicked and therefore shield their anatomy as the ball travels between 60 and 70 mph past them.
In women's soccer, the women protect their chests by folding their arms.
But these simple truths did not satisfy readers like Lorraine Culpepper of Portsmouth, who was outraged by the photo.
``I thought it was crude,'' she said. ``It was poor taste. It was like a 5-year-old thumbing their nose at the world. Childish I guess. I looked at it and went: Oooooooooo!''
Culpepper was then told the men were not gesturing to upset the world but protecting what was naturally theirs.
Her reaction?
``That was not protection,'' she said. ``That didn't look to me like protection. I may have misunderstood it. I honestly don't believe that's why they were doing it.''
Janet Trenkle of Virginia Beach empathized with the foreigner in her. ``I thought it was an inappropriate picture,'' she said. ``But I suppose someone foreign seeing a baseball game might have the same reaction to what those players do.''
She was also not aware this was common practice in soccer games. ``It was not something I knew at all,'' she said. ``I frankly don't approve of the baseball players that spit at odd moments and grope at odd moments. It just seems it could be done in different ways. It's just something I'm not comfortable with.''
So as we bid farewell to Baggio and those fruity Dutch with their orange clog caps, have we come away a little richer, a little broader minded?
When it comes to penalty kicks, we're still a little, shall we say, testy? ILLUSTRATION: Photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Branco scored the game-winning free-kick goal in Brazil's 3-2
victory over the Netherlands.
by CNB