Great article on Sports Illustrated by Frank Deford on the short-sightedness of jingoistic lack of public interest in non-American sports or stars:

If it's not our star, our sport, U.S. doesn't care

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[W]hen Federer, the defending champion, four-time Wimbledon winner, played a key match at the U.S. Open a couple of weeks ago, the U.S. Tennis Association put him on the lounge court, while scheduling an American, James Blake, in the stadium. Blake, to use that wonderful British word, is a "useful" player; Federer may be the greatest artist in the history of his sport.

But Federer's slighting is what's to be expected here. How strange that we are such a narrow, jingoistic sports country — we, this cherished land of immigrants. If the U.S. Tennis Association was in charge of music instead of tennis, Placido Domingo would be singing at a suburban Ramada Inn piano bar while Snoop Dogg worked Lincoln Center. Gee, even Woods dared root for Federer. Is it against the Patriot Act if I want to cheer for Vijay Singh or Ernie Els in some golf tournament?

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It's always dangerously facile to make political analogies out of sport, but it's hard to ignore the point that our current American tendency toward arrogance and imperiousness seems to be reflected in the way we look at international sport. We've been assured we're best, so if somebody else wins it must be some kind of aberration.

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