Andrin
Cooper, a press officer for soccer's international governing
body, FIFA, stood in the decaying bowels of Civic Stadium
last week, blinking through floodlights at journalists
from many lands, the blue jacket that marked him as a
member of the Women's World Cup's palace guard hanging
off his reedy frame.
With reporters for every info outlet from Radio Colombia
to Beijing Daily jockeying for position, surely
there'd be some probing questions for Kim Hak Yong,
the stolid coach of cloistered North Korea, which had
just stunned Denmark 3-1. Tough questions like "Is fouling
and rough play your usual strategy?" (In three games,
the team had 10 yellow cards and one red.) Or even the
softer "What does a team of oppressed Communists think
of Niketown?"
But no. Instead, we got a half dozen questions, the
first few spoon-fed from Cooper himself, including this
typically unenlightening exchange:
Cooper: "Do you feel that this victory has relaunched
the Korea D.P.R. team?"
Kim Hak Yong: "Yes, we do feel that."
End of question, end of answer.
Cooper then picked a handful of journalists to pose
their own uncensored queries. But he didn't allow any
follow-up, which led to more stilted exchanges.
Ryan White of The Oregonian: "The North Korean
team has kept a low profile in the U.S. Can you comment
on that?"
Kim Hak Yong: "This is our first time in the Cup, so
we have to concentrate more on the matches and spend
more time training."
Period.
While the press enjoys terrific access to the newly
iconic U.S. national team, eagerly reporting everything
from the color of their fingernail polish to coach Tony
DiCicco's innermost thoughts, athletes from the other
15 teams--such as those who competed in Portland last
week--too often seem like bit players in a pre-scripted
drama. No doubt that suits Mia-mad Americans just fine,
but FIFA's close watch of the post-game media scene
keeps much of the event's backstage flavor out of the
papers and, arguably, stifles the growth of women's
sports.
For example, WW serendipitously discovered a
sweet story hook in the press box--not the "mixed zone,"
which is where team members and journalists are meant
to mingle: Si Noh, a Korean-language broadcaster for
Voice of America, told us about a curious dinner local
Korean-Americans threw for the isolated North Korean
players at a restaurant in Southeast Portland. Under
their delegation's watchful eyes, the team members were
virtually sequestered from the Korean-Americans present.
According to Noh and Sang K. Song, a Portlander who
helped organize the dinner, the night was marked by
awkward stabs at cross-cultural communication monitored
by team officials anxious to keep their players free
from capitalist contamination.
"We always look at North Korea as a communist country,
but in terms of personalities, the players are very
nice," Song says. "But they can't talk freely because
they always have guys watching them, watching what they
say."
This is the kind of story that lurks behind the hype
of this World Cup, but while we read endless copy about
U.S. goalkeeper Briana Scurry streaking the streets
of Athens, Ga., after the '96 Olympics and Michelle
Akers' struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome, these
tales of foreign athletes go untouched.
Maybe if the post-game process weren't so tightly choreographed,
more of the personalities and inside tales of the "greatest
women's sports event of all time" could surface.
But this is the World Cup--the Women's World Cup--and
with locker rooms off-limits because of supposed gender
issues and FIFA asking most of the questions, everyone
gets stuck with the same rote coach quotes.
Women's World Cup Vice President of Communications
Steven Vanderpool, who also served as venue press officer
at Civic Stadium, concedes that the highly regulated
access is a foreign concept to most American journalists.
He says he also found the practice odd when he began
working for Major League Soccer in 1996, but he argues
that FIFA's long-standing policies and procedures are
consistent and internationally accepted. "It's kind
of like McDonald's--no matter where you're at, you know
what you're going to get. There may be some tweaks here
and there, but it's all about the standard," reasons
Vanderpool.
Exactly. A Big Mac and fries taste pretty much the
same whether you're in Brussels or Bend. No surprises.
After the four games we attended, only two players,
Irina Grigorieva and Olga Letuchova of Russia, stepped
up to the microphone. They were articulate, candid and
excited--exuding much of the same passion you've heard
from Americans Shannon MacMillan and Tisha Venturini.
Vanderpool insisted that while the athletes have no
obligation to talk to the media, the mixed zone is a
place where reporters can flag down a player and an
interpreter. He also claims that press officers will
even coax a player off the bus to field a journalist's
questions--but we never saw that happen.
You can watch the games, or at least catch SportsCenter
to learn how a match went, but unless you're a soccer
nut, the play isn't as interesting without a glimpse
of the personae behind the power. American fans are
obsessed with locker-room gossip and demand that people
in the public eye share their lives--or else suffer
speculation. The moral implications of this national
pastime aside, getting women's pro sports out of the
gender ghetto requires the cultivation of celebrity.
When this World Cup ends, few spectators will be able
to utter the names of players they haven't seen in a
sneaker ad. In other words, fifteen-sixteenths of the
story will be left untold.
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Willamette Week | originally
published June 30, 1999
