Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="BlueMAB, post: 3269658, member: 920"] The thought that with a population of over 300 million, we have a large enough talent pool to compete with the rest of the world in basketball, football, baseball, AND hockey....but NOT soccer... is really moronic. It's specious, oversimplified, and just dumb. If Lebron James was a professional soccer player, he'd look entirely different. Or he'd have to be a goalie; you can't carry that much weight and run as much as is needed in soccer. He'd be an amazing keeper, but goalkeeping has almost always been the strongest part of the team. It's a matter of focus. Our kids don't focus on soccer from a very young age the way they do in other countries. through their academies. I don't know why you'd even mention hockey. Canada doesn't have more/better athletes than the US. But their national team is typically better in hockey because they care more than we do. The US has only won 2 gold medals in hockey (1960 & 1980). [I]Canada has 9 gold medals in Hockey despite having a smaller population than the state of California.[/I] The Dominican Republic doesn't have the population or the resources America does. It's practically a third-world country with a population of 10 million. But they have more foreign born players in MLB than any other country. 1 in 8 MLB players are Dominican. Why...? 1) they are wildly passionate about baseball 2) the professional clubs have invested in identifying and training talent at a young age. [URL='https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2019/04/05/mlb-opening-day-rosters-international-players-dominican-republic-venezuela-puerto-rico-cuba/3312662002/']Baseball is the most popular sport in the Dominican Republic and now all 30 major league clubs have baseball academies there, Salazar said. Younger players in their teens are recruited by major league teams and hone their baseball skills at the academies in hopes of signing contracts with minor league teams affiliated with Major League Baseball,[/URL] The US needs more academies, and they need to identify kids earlier, and have them playing all year round. Until that happens, we will continue to fall behind. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach