Full Description
What does the world's favorite sport mean in the United States? Despite the common belief that it is only a women's sport, an immigrants' sport, a small kids' sport--or that hating soccer is very American, the new essays in this volume attest that soccer indeed is a very American and very popular sport, around since the 1940s.
The all-new essays address issues concerning the business of the game, the meaning of men's and women's professional, national, high school and youth soccer, the community formed by the game, the media, the referees, the hooliganism and the treatment of the sport in academe.
Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Terms xi
Introduction 1
Part I: Soccer as an American Phenomenon
1. Making the Mainstream: The Domestication of American Soccer by David Keyes 9
2. Individualism vs. Community: The Globally Strange Relationship Between the U.S. Soccer System and the U.S. School System by Andrew M. Guest 25
3. New Traditionalists: The Emergence of Modern America and the Birth of the MLS Coalition by Dennis J. Seese 43
Part II: American Soccer Economics
4. It's All Fun and Games Until No One Gets Hurt: European Soccer Leagues, Capitalism and the Movement Towards a Socialist American Model by Cliff Starkey 71
5. A Resounding Soccer Success ... in the U.S.? by Dwight Branch 84
6. "Fast-Kicking, Low-Scoring and Ties": How Popular Culture Can Help the Global Game Become America's Game by Benjamin James Dettmar 95
Part III: Soccer in American Society
7. Perceptions of Hooliganism in American Soccer by Cedrick G. Heraux 121
8. Becoming Apple Pie: Soccer as the Fifth Major Team Sport in the United States? by Glen M.E. Duerr 143
9. Pitch Perfect: How the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team Brought the Game Home by Danielle Sarver Coombs 160
Part IV: Interviews
10. Scholarship and Soccer: Alex Galarza 179
11. Japanese Referee in the MLS: Toru Kamikawa 192
Conclusion 205
About the Contributors 207
Index 211
