By Kent Hatcher
Hola amigos, it is I, your ever faithful sports reporter reporting to you from beautiful Costa Rica. Yes, I am actually in Costa Rica this week, I could not possibly pass up a trip like this. Costa Rica is an amazing country, the plant and animal life in the rainforest is spectacular and the people here are, simply put, great.
However, despite Costa Ricans being incredibly friendly they are obviously different than Americans. The other night at dinner I had a very interesting conversation with a Costa Rican man ... in Spanish.
It is important to note here that despite being raised in Southern California, my Spanish is at best rudimentary. After progressing through the niceties of civilized conversation, which somehow included how much tuition at UP is (you should have seen the look he gave me), we proceeded to talk about sports. Seeing as how I am in Central America, this conversation invariably led to soccer (fútbol).
Of course I touted the seemingly perennial success of our Lady Pilot soccer team and he countered with Costa Rica being in the World Cup. They did not do all that well (0-3) but at least they played, right?
I am sure that most of you have seen the soccer ads proclaiming that soccer is an international sport that transcends cultures and brings people together. At the risk of sounding like a pawn in the corny machine that is modern advertising, I agree completely.
When I was at the limit of my Spanish comprehension and a boy from California had nothing more to talk about with a man from rural Costa Rica, we turned to soccer. Anywhere you can travel in the modern world you can most likely find people to play soccer with, and without knowing a word of the other person's language you can form teams and play.
When you really think about it, this is amazing. Amazing that around the world people have agreed upon a common set of rules and accepted them as the proper way to play the game.
While the playing field may vary from a dirt field in Costa Rica to a mega stadium in Europe, the heart and soul of the game remains the same. While most prevalent with soccer, this tenet holds for most of what we consider to be major sports here in the USA. If this does not prove we are all fundamentally the same than what will?
