The American Treble is proud to present a new series that will be leading up to the start of World Cup. Ryan Prior, a seasoned sports writer, is currently in South Africa and will be giving us the 'Sights and Sounds' of the host nation. Ryan is currently attending the University of Georgia and we are happy that he could take some time out to write a few articles for us. With out any further delay here is his first article for American Treble.
As a sportswriter, you get to witness some very special events. I’ve seen the euphoria of the vociferous fans of the UGA Bulldogs, the No. 1 ranked college football team in 2008. I’ve watched as a community united to celebrate its boys winning a Little League World Series, with those champion young people dancing center stage while a mayor and city leaders shower accolades on the 12-year-old shoulders emerging as graceful representatives not just of a community or state, but of an entire country. I’ve interviewed athletes that are now NFL stars, and I’ve talked golf with athletes who will go on to play on the PGA tour. I’ve interviewed a player for Team USA men’s softball who spoke eloquently about his desire to play for the name on the “front of the shirt, not the back of the shirt.” I’ve seen how sports can become something far more than a competition, how a single team or event can become a force representative of something far greater than just a bunch of guys hitting a ball around. Sports are not just a physical contest, but an indicator of character at the deepest level, and can come to be one of the most popular weathervanes for the human condition.
It’s been my joy to take part in these celebrations and delight in these revelations, but I have so far only tasted the magnanimity and pageantry of the sporting world. I’ve seen events that have united a community in admiration or galvanized a state in passion, but I have never witnessed a worldwide sporting spectacle on the scale of the World Cup, an event that, if only for a single month, has come to embody the same characteristics of the fabled Olympics of ancient Greece, legendary for their ability to put wars on hold. In 2006, we saw as the otherworldly Chelsea striker Didier Drogba issued a statement to the Ivory Coast people, imploring them to stop the civil war ongoing in their country so that everyone could cheer the Ivory Coast on in peace. And it worked. We saw Ghana’s famous gold mines diverting electrical power from mining operations toward the nation’s televisions, so that Ghanians in the most impoverished villages could see their idol Michael Essien deal a defeat to the world’s mightiest superpower.
I remember wishing luck to proud Italians walking English streets, donning their nation’s flag as capes, as they prepared for the 2006 World Cup final, and then that evening hearing jubilant drivers beeping car horns and hundreds of fans gathered in the streets of a foreign land all jumping up and down to a single mystical acclamation “Italia! Italia!”
There’s nothing like it in the world, and I have the fortune to be in South Africa witness the mounting excitement of the world’s greatest sporting spectacle making its debut on African soil. I’ve partnered with the American Treble to bring you exclusive updates from the ground and some background information on how the socio-political force known as football is changing the culture and outlook of the proud South African people.
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