Red Wings Playoffs Hockey

Back again! Graduation was last week and I am officially DDS now so first and foremost I would like to say thanks to all my family and friends that made it out to Ann Arbor last week. The accomplishment has not sunken in yet but slowly and surely it will. My first experience as a doctor following graduation was ironically enough at a Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup Playoff game versus the Anaheim Ducks. This was my final event in a calendar year which saw me attend at least one sporting event for all four of Detroit pro-sports teams (if you would call the NFL Lions pro, sic): Lions vs. Bears in October, Pistons vs. Knicks in March, Tigers vs. Yanks in April and the aforementioned Red Wings. I made it a point to attend at least one game by each team and oddly enough I did it during my last year and last week in Michigan.

I went to the hockey game with my friend Paul who is a big-time fan. As we walked up to Joe Louis Arena I noticed that aside from the beggars and vendors on the streets I was one of few blacks that were going to the game (once inside, I counted 2 other people). Given the game of hockey this was totally understandable and this might not be shocking to many of you but think about it: the Wings play hockey, a mostly white suburban sport, in an arena located in downtown Detroit while the Pistons play their basketball in Auburn Hills, a suburb of Detroit that is roughly one hour north of the city... think about it. The sports cater to specific demographics yet are in totally opposite areas. Those in attendance at the hockey game mostly consisted of white males, which is not surprising, but this made me think of the demographics of the American soccer fan: are they truly soccer moms and dads with kids in tow, suburban and privileged white kids, or first generation Americans and foreigners? All three of those could be true, but is it fair to put all fans of the beautiful game in a box? Sometimes I feel as a soccer fan that I am made to choose what other sports I like, for instance, most people are surprised to find out I like football and basketball in addition to soccer and hockey. Do people make you choose between Jordans and Air Force 1s? or hip-hop and jazz music? This might be a stretch but do you get my point? Back to the game...









The pace of the game was exciting; there was a lot of back and forth action, it was fast paced with big hits and timely goals. The crowd was into it from the beginning which made the playoff atmosphere very fun. For reasons obvious to everyone I understood why blacks are not into hockey: its cold and involves skating on ice. Looking back at our African heritage it makes clear sense, we were birthed on a continent straddled on the equator so the concept of moving around on frozen water is foreign to us. At the same time though I asked myself, how come we as blacks are not more adept to playing soccer? The African's play the game very well and many of them have gone abroad to countries like Italy, England, Spain, and even the US where they have succeeded, so if we are descendants from our African ancestors how come more of us have not taken well to the game over here? Blacks that like soccer are a minority in the US but abroad it is the complete opposite. Honestly, like I said in my last post I think it is more of a cultural thing than anything but that can be changed. In all actuality hockey was in danger of falling completely out of the public view until Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby injected some long-needed youthful energy into the game and the ratings have been stronger since. When you look at other sports besides football, basketball and baseball, there is someone or something that is bigger than the game. For soccer to succeed with black America it would not hurt if there was a star that was marketed as the 'face' of the sport in the country. I will take a look at other stars in other countries and try and parallel them to their unheralded counterparts in the US. Until then enjoy the beautiful game for all that it's worth.

Champions League Semi-finals

Today was the first leg of the UEFA Champions League semi-finals between defending champs Manchester United and Arsenal. There was a lot of hype surrounding this game simply because of the success United had last year in winning. Man United also has a very large and loyal fan base so anytime you go out to watch them play in a public area you are bound to see lots of jerseys and shirts with the familiar United seal. I usually watch soccer games in Ann Arbor at a restaurant called Good Time Charley's, or Charley's for short. It's the local hangout for soccer fans in the area to get together and watch games. I've been watching games there for years and I've always been interested in the types of groups that show up and watch. You can always bet there's a large group of foreigners or international students (mostly Indian), the college soccer players who watch the sport they play, the fans who still play pick-up games at Elbel Field and will watch pretty much any game on tv featuring their team, and the fair-weather viewer. I always thought to myself that I never see a group of black kids just getting together to watch the games. I mean I know of one or two who are fans (most of the time they are the same ones I play pick-up with) but where are the others. Today I was amazed at the number of people I saw that turned out but also at the number of black faces I saw paying attention to the tv. Mind you that it's the end of the semester and usually when students finish their final exams they want to go to a bar and drink, couple that with the sunny day we had, and you get an atypically packed Charley's today. So, during the game today, I sparked up some conversations with some of the black people about their thoughts on soccer and needless to say I got some interesting responses.


I first spoke to Essien who is a 23 year-old grad student. I asked him first what he was doing there and he said to watch the game. His answer was solid enough that I figured he would give some good insight and we would have a good conversation. I then asked how he got involved with soccer and he said his father is Nigerian and his mom is African-American and he first started playing when he was 5 with his dad in the backyard. He said since then soccer has been a passion of his, watching it on all types of levels. Essien is from Atlanta and said he attended some Olympic soccer games in 1996 when the games were in town. He also lived in England for some time and played with and hung around other people that were fans which only added to his interest in the sport. When asked who his favorite teams were he said Chelsea on the club level and France on an international level. His reasoning behind this was the fact that those two teams feature a lot of blacks; his favorite player is star Didier Drogba of Chelsea. Growing up in Atlanta, Essien participated in many soccer-related aspects. He played and also was a referee and often wondered to himself why blacks were not more involved with the sport. He said most of his black friends were very athletic, which helps in any sport, but also that blacks were fast, had good awareness and natural smarts when it came to excelling at other sports. He never understood why this never translated onto the soccer field. His brief explanation was that there was a lack of exposure to it. From a young age Essien grew up around it and given that his father was Nigerian it was a part of his culture. This made me think, is soccer more of a cultural sport than anything?

You can look at some sports and make direct correlations to one's culture to see their participation. Soccer, often called the world's game, is embraced by many cultures, from Africans to Europeans, Asians and Latinos. Throughout time soccer has continued to thrive in many of the aforementioned cultures, but if that is the case, how come African-Americans are not culturally in-tune with soccer, aren't blacks ingrained with the same African culture that gave us our strong family values, our rhythm and blues and other so-called black music, our eating and drinking habits? It seems to me that the part of our 'athletic' culture involving soccer was lost during the slave trade and our early years in America. What are the explanations for that? Think about it, what are your thoughts?

Next I spoke with Nicole, who is also a grad student. She is from the DC area which in US-terms has a strong soccer community associated with it. She told me that she has heard of the MLS team, DC United, and she knows who Freddy Adu is, so I figured to myself that she knows a little something-something. Outside of her local region, she does not know too much more about soccer. She likes it because she said the black men that played it are 'cute' (typical female response, labeling everything with that term, I hate that) and would watch it more if there were more black males playing so she could look at their faces. Although she is a soccer 'newbie' I appreciated her honest commentary, case in point, she closed with this statement, "I want to go to the World Cup (South Africa 2010), will DC United be playing?". Enough said.

Lastly I spoke briefly with Ricky and Monique. They were not sitting at our table but were definitely in tune to the big game on the tv. I asked them what they were doing there and they said they would not miss this game for anything. I figured this as much as Ricky had on an Arsenal jersey. I sat with them for 5 minutes during which United had a good chance on goal. This caused many at Charley's 'ahh' including Ricky. When he did it though I noticed a familiar sound, an accent in his voice. I then asked him where he was from and he said his family was from Jamaica. Surprised to meet a fellow yardie we shook hands and talked a little bit more. After exchanging pleasantries I left to go back to my table. Then I thought, with the exception of Nicole, most of the other blacks watching the game were first-generation Americans. Does that have something to do with how we follow the game, as black Americans or Americans in general. For instance, basketball and football are the kings in the black American sports scene, but how did it get to be like that? I will explore all of my thoughts on it in the next post, until then enjoy the Beautiful game for all that it's worth.

Wide World Of Soccer

Welcome to my new blog! This is intended for soccer fanatics like myself who follow the game deeply. However there will be a twist; it will focus on mostly black soccer players. All too often our plights are overshadowed and my goals are to shed some light on our experiences.

I have been influenced by the book, Souled Out, by Shaun Powell. After reading the book I thought to myself, how come no one ever covers soccer and specifically Major League Soccer from the perspective of the black experience? As a soccer player myself, I have been ridiculed, harassed, and made fun of by my friends to the tunes of, "black people don't play soccer", and "soccer is a game for wimps", so on and so forth but that never stopped me. I started off learning the game from my father at the age of 4 where I was the only black player on my team with the Spencerport Soccer Club. As I grew older and played on more teams all too often I was still the only black player but that never stopped my desire to play the game I grew to love.

By the age of 12 I was heavily involved with my local club team, the Greece Cobras Soccer Club, based out of Greece, NY. I had some cousins that also played in the same system and then it dawned on me, was my experience in soccer tied to my West Indian (Jamaican and Haitian) heritage?. All of my cousins and the other black kids that played with me had West Indian roots, but was soccer something that was in our culture or was I thinking about it too much? Regardless, anyone that sees me on the streets does not consider me West Indian, they see a black man, so therefore my experience has been shared with other blacks of non-West Indian heritage, hence my blog.

I graduated from Penn State University in 2005 with a BS in biology and I will be completing my dental degree from the University of Michigan in May 2009. In addition to my science background I was a sociology minor. Topics of race as it pertains to society in general have always intrigued me and with the added layer of sports involved makes it all that more interesting. I have always had a dream of covering sports for my local newspaper. Growing up, I used to read the newspaper all the time and I went straight to the sports section. I grew up watching SportsCenter religiously, waking up early in the summer and watching the same episode 3-4 times, all in a row. I often found myself memorizing numbers such as NBA scoring averages, soccer goals in a year, retired jersey numbers... I learned my multiplication tables by watching football (it was easy to keep track of multiples of 7).

I will be updating this page ever so often, highlighting outstanding performances on the domestic and foreign front, and also taking a look at famous historical players. In no way do I hope to offend anyone, this is a hobby of mine and I hope you can find some enjoyment out of reading it.