At 01:06 PM 11/12/2001 -0500, Oleg Shpyrko wrote.. >I am constantly surprised how soccer "pulling away talent" theory is >mentioned much more often than, say, soaring obesity levels among >teenagers.
The population of elite distance runners almost never will produce obese kids. Tendency toward obesity is linked in large part to body type. I don't see many 6-4/250 elite distance runners--they tend to play left tackle. >Actually, in view of how inactive US kids are nowadays, >I would view popularity of soccer as a huge positive factor - not >a negative one. It's about the only sport popular at high school >level that develops aerobic capacity - unlike basketball, baseball or >football - which are more "sprint for 4 seconds, walk or stand around >for the next 10 minutes" kind of sports. > >What is the common link between Aouita, Khannouchi, Vigueras, Larson, >Kagwe, Thugwane, Paul Evans, ElGuerrouj - and throw in any top >portuguese, spanish, italian, mexican or brazilian runners? > >They all started out as soccer players - developed speed and aerobic >base an young age, then switched to running. Didn't seem to hurt them. There are now many examples of soccer players (which is usually played in the fall in the US) who would have run cross country in the US. Before the 80s, those folks would have run cross country because they didn't have another athletic outlet. >If basketball didn't "steal" Paul Tergat, swimming didn't "steal" Alan Webb >and triathlons didn't "steal" Lance Armstrong, do we really believe that >soccer is "stealing" the next Bill Rodgers or Frank Shorter? Yes. We don't know how many Alan Webb's are playing midfielder instead. We would not have asked this question in 1975, if not later. Unlike other nations, soccer is a recent influence that was not there before. RMc Richard McCann
