Robbie Rogers Coming Out and What It Means to American Sports Culture

As seen on Confessions of American Soccer Junkie.

Sometimes it takes just one small moment to shake the public perception completely. In 400 simply stated words, this is what former USMNT winger Robbie Rogers managed to do. In seven short paragraphs he managed transcend his relatively small space in the American sports consciousness.

In just a few sentences he may have laid the groundwork for a shift in the culture of team sports in this country. Rogers did this by making the difficult decision to announce to the world that he was gay.

Of course, the real story is not about what Rogers means to the world, it’s about what this moment means to Rogers. He showed admirable bravery in coming out and one can only hope that making such an announcement allows him to lead a happier life. But it is that bravery, and the soccer communities quick and generous outpouring of support to it, that could prove the lasting impact.

The California German and Other National Identity Crises

My issue with Jürgen Klinsmann goes beyond the issue of deciding whether or not to put an umlaut in his name every time I type it. Surprisingly, after five long and ultimately disappointing years with Bob Bradley, I’m not exactly sure Klinsmann is the right man for the job.

This has nothing to do with the three-game winless start. It has nothing to with the fact his vaunted attacking system has struggled mightily to score goals against the type of opponents he was brought in to crush. It even has only a tiny bit to do with his insistence that Robbie Rogers is a player of international caliber. It has nearly everything to do with this one unbridled passion of Sunil Gulati and an age-old obsession with “the foreigner” that transcends sports and frankly, is getting a little well-worn in soccer circles.

All told, he was the best of a bad bunch of candidates. Bradley’s status as the country’s biggest lame duck since James Buchanan nearly even made him emote from time to time, so although many would have passively sat out the next three years, it would not have been the smoothest period for a sport that needs to capitalize on all the good press it possibly can. To replace him there really was only candidate, and it was the Jürg-meister.

Bradley wasn’t so much fired for his own failures — though there were enough of them to definitely make a convincing argument –it was certainly more of a case that Klinemann was ready to be hired. It was so blatantly obvious it was more painful to watch the parts of this clip that don’t feature the phrase “boom goes the dynamite.”. The only other time it seemed possible to get rid of Bradley without Klinsmann coming in immediately was the brief flirtation with Marcelo Bielsa. Even that merely screamed of a return to something like the early ’90’s Bora Milutinovic era, hiring a foreign coach purely for the sake of his being foreign.

American Soccer Junkies: Episode #14

In latest episode of the popular “American Soccer Junkies” podcast series, Dan Popko and Steve Fogarty break down the United States 2-0 victory over South Korea, check out how various national teamers are doing in Europe and predict the squad for this summer’s World Cup in the latest “23 for 2014.”

Check out more USMNT news and analysis at Confessions of an American Soccer Junkie.