The analogy of Meb as "a ringer on the company softball team" is certainly not the best analogy. In distance running countries serve as sort of "teams" just as the Yankees or Red Sox are baseball teams. Some Yankees fans will say that Derek Jeter is a real Yankee and Alex Rodriguez is not because he hasn't always been a Yankee but if ARod hits the World Series winning home run tonight they will all celebrate a World Series win. Players in other sports tend to be dismissed as not true members of a team when they do poorly like with ARod in past playoff experiences. However, guys like Meb are dismissed as not truly American when they do well. I am American and Meb now runs for my favorite team(and has for some time) so I will cheer him on and be happy for his acomplishments when he runs well and promotes American distance running.
I'm very disappointed that Mr. Rovell is not aware Salazar was born in Cuba. He seems to trace the last true American winner to the 1982 race. That's what I consider racist or maybe just ignorant in the article. Because Salazar can pass for white people, some don't even think about where he's from (Cuba) while Meb gets scrutinized and Salazar is hailed as a hero.
Better Post wrote:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33603449Seems Rovell is going back on his statements and doing the research. Good thing he did the research second and then wrote the article. It only made for great posting here on LetsRun.
"Frankly I didn't account for the fact that virtually all of Keflezighi's running experience came as a US citizen."
When did Meb get his U.S. citizenship? Wasn't it after his time at UCLA? He was already a highly accomplished runner at that point, so this appears to be another thing that Rovell gets wrong.
this article is garbage plain and simple. Regardless of his nationality we should all be singing his praises for a race well run and well won. If there were more people like Meb out there being responsible citizens and less dickballs out there like Rovell writing nonsense that would be something.
My advice to Rovell is to go back and write articles for his high school newspaper. That is how this prepubescent crap reads and that is all it is. Go eat a big bag of shit Rovell.
TDF wrote:
Well the last American winner of the NYC Marathon was Alberto Salazar. He was born in Cuba!
Gawd! Just to clarify: In the article Rovell brings up how Africa is a distance running factory with lots of success. An African born, US citizen doesn't really give a lot of validity to the success of US running.
Using his analogy, if you hire A-Rod at your company strictly to play on the company volleyball team, it's not really a big deal. But, hiring A-Rod to play on the softball team is a different story.
If the US had a horrible boxing history, and then hailed Salazar as the man to return glory to US boxing, Rovell would have a problem with it.
danno wrote:
ming ding xiong wrote:He wouldn't have said that about someone who moved to America at 12 from Europe or Japan or Nicaragua.
How exactly do you know this?
Well... he didn't mention the fact that Salazar was born in Cuba. That's evidence enough for me.
rovell should now write an article saying how the yankees WS victory was hollow because they have players that weren't born in the US