The American soccer community has recently been up in arms over an anti-soccer rant that appeared on the site First Things (and subsequently in the editorial section of the Wall Street Journal), entitled "How Soccer is Ruining America: A Jeremiad"

The article spawned immediate response from across the soccer world. Here is a brief selection of those:

American Soccer News: In defense of soccer in the U.S., Part II of many
Unprofessional Foul: Evil Soccer is Ruining Our Children, But Holy War is A OK
Ginge Talks the Footy: What Did We Do To This Guy? (Ginge subsequently posted follow ups)
Big Soccer thread on the matter

The author, Stephen Webb, is a professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. In an effort to clarify Mr. Webb's intent (a question that has been hotly debated in soccer blogs), I contacted First Things via email. I was almost immediately put in touch with Mr. Webb, who has graciously responded to Match Fit USA's request for comment.

I have reproduced Mr. Webb's response verbatim.

MFUSA: Since your piece was first posted, there's been much discussion over your intent; for many who read it, it remains unclear whether it should be viewed as a satirical take, or should be taken at face value as your true opinions regarding soccer. Can you settle the issue?

Stephen Webb: The piece is satire, but I hope it was good satire, because in good satire, there is, of course, some grains of truth. I meant the piece to be a satire of the kinds of rants one finds on the far right these days. I thought that was obvious when I connected soccer to the flouridization of the water supply, which in the fifties was an object of anti-communist conspiracies from the likes of the John Birch Society. But satire only works well if it hits a nerve. That is, good satire hides the author's intent somewhat, mixing sincerity with absurdity, and I hope I was successful in that.

I do find children's soccer boring, and I do think the changing popularity of sports reflects deeper cultural changes, but I also realize that soccer is an interesting game and requires incredible fitness and skill. Part of my satire, which I hoped was obvious, was to point out in a backhanded way that I found my own youthful sports interest in baseball, with countless boring hours spent in the outfield and various humiliations at the plate, to be a very mixed blessing indeed. I am glad that neither of my sons likes baseball much and that both would rather play soccer. They get more exercise and less humiliation from soccer. Yet like people who have been through a hazing ritual, I have a certain nostalgia for the many hours I spend staring at hard balls thrown in the vicinity of my head!

I would like to add that I thought the piece had many very funny lines in it. How could people not read it and laugh! And I would like to add that the hundreds (yes hundreds) of responses I've received, most in the form of near-hate mail telling me how dumb I am, kind of prove my point that soccer players and fans are a little hyper-sensitive about their sport. You know the old saying, "I think you protest too much...." People who are overly defensive often betray the fact that they have something in deed of defending.

Having said all of that, I would say that my daughter loved the piece because she is really intelligent and has a great sense of humor, but what she loved even more were the hate emails. I have saved them all, and a couple of evenings ago we went through them one by one together, and we were both on the floor laughing so hard it took us over an hour to read them. Our favorite was one that called me a pirate (I have no idea where that came from) and another that said with theologians like me, no wonder Americans are going to church in declining numbers. I thought that was clever: the writer reversed my argument by saying that I was ruining religion in America!

Having said all of this, I teach at an all male school and am very interested in the decline of all-male bonding in America, and I do think that soccer is popular today because it is less violent, less aggressive than baseball, basketball or football, and that many American parents are attracted to it for the reasons I expressed in my article. But obviously the popularity of soccer is a symptom of these cultural changes, not a cause. I made it a cause to be provocative and funny.

I think my next blog will be about the declining reading intelligence of the average blog reader. And the real tragedy that so many Americans have lost their sense of humor in the last several decades of the culture wars.

Just as with his original piece, I suspect Mr. Webb's comments here will generate reaction from the soccer community. I do think he is accurate in saying that American soccer fans have thin skins; it's a condition I attribute to the general disdain the sport receives from most segments of American culture. It's interesting to note that Mr. Webb's satire, a piece which can easily be taken at face value, is exactly the type of abuse that causes American soccer fans to have that aforementioned thin skin.

As for his final salvo, I'll let you make of that what you will.

Feel free to share your thoughts, but be warned that any foul language, hate speech or the like will be subject to removal.