In the sporting year that was 2006, America got drubbed. We got schooled and shamed on the world sports stage while dressed in our red, white and blue.
We were sometimes challengers.
But winners? In 2006 international competition, we were pledging allegiance to the United States of Also-Rans and starring in our own bad soap, "As the World Turns (on US)."
We stood ineptly in our soccer cleats at the World Cup, padded by our top-10 ranking, drowning in pool play.
Leaned on our putters and the world's three best golfers at the Ryder Cup, getting clubbed by Europe. Again.
Whiffed our tennis rackets, sinking down ladders to our worst year of the open era.
We weighed down hardwood at the basketball World Championships, settling for bronzes. Tumbled on Winter Olympics' Italian ice, falling from gold.
And we waited in the on-deck circle at the inaugural World Baseball Classic, watching our neighbors beat us at our supposed pastime.
We could spend 2007 recalling the ways Americans lost to the rest of the world in one of our least Star-Spangled Banner years in sports history.
We should have been (begin Brando voice) a cuhn-Ten-dah, right? We used to win gold medals in something other than half-pipe snowboarding, be No.
1 and dominate like one.
With few exceptions - golf's Tiger Woods, doubles tennis' Bryan Brothers, snowboarding's Shaun "Flying Tomato" White and a handful of Winter Olympians - 2006 gave us reason to feel like No.2.
Nations the size of Los Angeles County, ripped in pieces by wars and impoverished enough to need Sally Struthers' charity, beat us.
We lost at games we invented, sports we once ruled and competitions we were favored to win. Wait!
We did win the Tour de France with Floyd Landis ...
then we lost it when his drug test showed suspicious levels of testosterone.
Beyond 2006 not being a Summer Olympic year that would have weighed down our necks with medals, what in the world happened to US?
Considering the way we entered 2006 with bloated expectations and tumbled out in disappointment, maybe it's time to admit that we're not thatgood anymore?
Sasha Cohen, the 2006 Olympic figure skating gold-medal favorite from Newport Beach, fell early and summed up the event as "one night, four minutes and a piece of metal." Silver.
Overhyped alpine skier Bode Miller fell short in all five Olympic medal bids, earning a fifth place in the Downhill, one disqualification and two DNFs (Did Not Finish).
FIFA's seventh-ranked U.S. men's soccer team went three and out in group play.
We were shut out by the Czech Republic, 3-0; got what USA Soccer's Web site termed "a historic tie" with Italy, 1-1; then eliminated, 2-1, by Ghana.
"Regardless of our ranking, which we all within the team think is a bit too high and not right," U.S.
captain Claudio Reyna said, "we're still a small footballing nation."
American pie has gone from apple to humble.
Perhaps all the decades of dominating and cakewalking have caught up with us?
Clearly our competition and overconfidence have.
We cringed when American Phil Mickelson, needing to par the 18th hole to win the U.S.
Open, boldly went with his big-dog driver, hit a trash can and a tent before losing to Australia's Geoff Ogilvy.
We gasped when American Lindsey Jacobellis, leading by like 50 miles in Olympic snowboard cross final, decided to hot-dog before the finish. She crashed.
Switzerland's Tanja Frieden took gold.
"I've tried to put that behind me," Jacobellis said months later in Los Angeles.
We won't.
No longer can we rest on leads and laurels, hoping our opponents will roll over, supine, belly exposed, when we arrive. They're making us earn our spoils.
Remember when USA Softball won all three Olympic gold medals and, in 2004, went 9-0 in Athens, outscoring the world, 51-1?
In 2006, the Americans won the Japan Cup, but the International Olympic Committee dropped softball from the 2012 Summer Games.
Remember when American golfers won 21 and tied for a 22nd of the first 25 Ryder Cup matches from 1927 to 1983? In 11 events since 1985, the Europeans are 7-3-1.
Recall how U.S. tennis once sported some No.
1s in John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Chris Evert, Billie Jean King, Venus and Serena Williams and Lindsay Davenport? Today, only James Blake (No.4) and Andy Roddick (6) make the ATP top 25.
We lead the world in Davis Cup victories (31) but haven't won one since 1995. Russia beat us in the 2006 semifinals.
In baseball, our creation famed for "Sultan of Swat" Babe Ruth, "The Iron Horse" Lou Gehrig and "The Iron Liver" Mickey Mantle, our All-Star loaded U.
S. team went 3-3 at the World Baseball Classic.
We lost to Canada in pool play, then Korea and Mexico.
We were out before the semifinals.
"For so long we have been the teachers (of baseball) around the world," said Team USA manager Buck Martinez. "Now I think there's something to be learned from teams like Korea and Japan: execution and work ethic.
"
Two points! Which, incidentally, our basketball players could have used at worlds.
The U.
S. men have won three of the past five Olympic basketball golds; the women, five of the past six. But at the 2006 FIBA World Championships, both belly-flopped for bronze.
Even with this generation's Dream Teamers of Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, the top-ranked U.S. team fell to Greece, 101-95, in the semifinals.
"It kind of shocked us," Anthony said.
The U.S.
women lost in the semifinals to Russia, 75-68, then beat Brazil for bronze.
"The talent level worldwide has sky-rocketed," said U.S.
men's coach Mike Krzyzewski after beating Argentina to medal. "No one is going to win this or the Olympics every time from now on because there are just too many good players. Basketball has grown so much.
...
I think our guys know what they are up against."
It's US against the world.
Maybe all those years stewing in America's shadows and watching us swagger, boast and talk trash with a silver foot in our mouth are coming back to haunt us.
Tripping up the richest, most powerful nation of 300-plus million could be motivation.
"There's nothing sweeter than beating the Americans," said gleeful Spaniard Sergio Garcia after his European team whomped the United States, 181/2-91/2, at the 36th Ryder Cup.
The Europeans' margin of victory could have set instead of tied a record had Englishman Paul McGinley not conceded a 25-foot birdie putt to American J.
J. Henry on the 18th hole, halving their match.
But by then, the Americans knew they had lost their fifth of the past six biennial events.
U.S. golfer David Toms cited poor team chemistry: "A lot of our guys played pretty good golf individually this week.
As a team we just didn't seem to play great at times. We just didn't pick each other up when we needed to like they did."
The world power shift shows in top 25 rankings, where Woods (eight victories, including two majors) is No.
1; Jim Furyk, No.2; Mickelson, No.3; but Europe outnumbers America, 9-6.
In golf, like other sports, we're not making the cut.
Perhaps these international contests just mean more to the rest of the world?
Obviously, Americans in sports without established pro leagues prize the world and Olympic stage.
They have spent their childhoods in private lessons, ice rinks and training facilities to represent America and pose for a Wheaties box.
But for the U.S.
athletes who make a luxurious living with pro sports contracts, saving their A-games for playing in A-merica is just smart.
Major League Baseball, the NFL, NBA and NHL pay in the patriotism of $100 Ben Franklins and $50 Ulysses S. Grants.
That adds up to millions and more if you're on the 2006 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, Super Bowl winning Pittsburgh Steelers, NBA champion Miami Heat or Stanley Cup hoisting Carolina Hurricanes.
With the rewards remaining at home and exhaustion and injury to risk while playing pro-bono abroad, world competition could be a no-win proposition.
San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds didn't play in the World Baseball Classic. Mickelson didn't play the Ryder Cup (though the scorecards showed him there). NBA stars Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal didn't play at the World Championship.
But Clippers forward Elton Brand, coming off a career season, gave up his summer to play for Team USA. What thanks did he get for being a patriot? None.
He got criticized for coming into NBA looking tired and a step slow.
Seeing the costs outweigh the benefits of international competition, America's top athletes could be kept home.
And at home, some say, is where the mediocrity begins.
Retiring tennis legend Agassi tried being positive about Blake, Roddick and the future of U.S. tennis.
"But the reality is that we need to grow the sport at the grass-roots level," said Agassi at this year's Countrywide Classic held at UCLA Tennis Center. "Today's (American) kids are gravitating toward the other sports and not getting the resources to develop their tennis skills."
After the Americans' Ryder Cup defeat, Woods spoke of the U.
S. team's lack of young, experienced Americans.
"They have a younger crop of players that are playing well," referring to the 12-man European team that included Garcia (28) and three others age 30 or younger.
America's youngest golfers, Woods, Vaughn Taylor and Zach Johnson, were 30.
"We have to think about the future," said Woods, his words extending to all sports.
Or we will have to be content with what we can't change: the past.
News RSS