Hoping Kobe Bryant puts his money where his mouth is for World Cup dream

By Chris Hummer

This recent article in the New York Times (\'U.S. Soccer Could Use a Kobe Bryant\', By WILLIAM C. RHODEN) is both an encouraging, yet troubling account of what Kobe Bryant - and the writer - think it will take to improve American soccer.

Unfortunately, a single Kobe is not the answer to the US winning the World Cup, and the idea that such a savior would be "6-foot5, 6-6", as the basketball superstar puts it, only reveals a naive perception of the sport that can become false cultural reality if he keeps talking like that to people who do not understand the game.

That said, properly channeled and communicated, Bryant\'s enthusiasm for the game could be the answer to World Cup success one day soon for the United States. What US Soccer needs however, is not someone like Kobe Bryant ON the field at a World Cup, it actually needs him and others like him to make the financial and personal time investment in the game here - both at the top and bottom of our currently upside-down pyramid of youth development.

At the top, we need more Drew Careys, Steve Nashs, David Beckhams, and Kobe Bryants to buy teams and sign great players that will push revenues to a point where professional soccer teams here can afford to implement their own - fully funded - youth academies, so the players Kobe is dreaming about don\'t have money between them and learning the proper way to do more than just kick a ball.

At the bottom, we need to cast a net FAR outside the current one cast by the suburban youth travel soccer industry that exists here, where many youth coaches are earning more than MLS assistant coaches and over half of the league\'s players. If we want to show today\'s youth that soccer is creative, not just "kicking the ball" as Bryant puts it, we need to take soccer to them. Culturally, and physically.

For me, if I had Kobe\'s resources and a fraction of his influence, I\'d be working with civil engineers, parks managers, governors, and mayors to start incorporating durable soccer features into our parks and schools. Every day, our tax dollars are being spent on recreation facilities that are still designed by old school architects and city managers that don\'t understand soccer, and ignore statistics that prove it\'s here to stay.

How many empty tennis courts have you driven by in the past week, that if outfitted with permanent futsal goals and existing lights would be in full use? When was the last time you saw a new concrete block kicking wall with asphalt or synthetic turf in front of it? Or, how about street hockey sized turf fields outside, with lights, and not a permit needed?

As long as our kids grow up with an organized soccer practice the only way they are exposed to the sport, we\'ll miss millions of tomorrow\'s potential soccer Kobes. When was the last time you needed a permit to pay tennis or basketball? Soccer should be no different, and I\'d argue the return on investment for soccer "courts and walls" when measuring costs against usage would be far more than tennis or basketball.

Soccer needs all the Kobes we can get. And the sooner they put their fame and their money behind their passion, the sooner we\'ll win a World Cup. But we don\'t need a 6-foot-5 player on the team to do it.