I took an informal poll in Ireland about what they knew about U.S. sports. Nobody knew of Carl Pavano. Or Eric Mangini. Or Dennis Northcutt.
So I went for the big gun: I asked two people, both relatives, if they knew of LeBron James. Both looked at me as if I were asking them a question in Brazilian. They had no idea.That's zero, zip, none, nada 0f an idea.
I'm thinking this does not bode well for that whole LeBron/global icon thing.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I would have thought your big gun would have been Kevin McHale.
Oh, and I think you meant Portuguese, not Brazilian. Unless you're talking about the other kind of Brazilian. Do the Irish ever get a Brazilians? Do they even know what a Brazilian is? If Adriana Lima traveled to Ireland on an assignment and she required some immediate landscaping, would she be able to pick up the phone, look in the Green Pages, and call somebody up to get the job done? This may require another informal poll.
I remember seeing the ragtag assembly of Ireland's junior Basketball team when I was taking an early morning flight out of Dublin Airport. They were a ginger looking bunch of gangly teens; but maybe they would be most informed about the superstar sensation from Akron. Although I think Steve Nash would have huge cross-over appeal, 1) he is Canadian and 2) he's also a world-class soccer player. Most any sport (save the Gaelic games) is going to take a backseat to soccer over there.
Interestingly enough, Lebron IS making major headway into the global icon status. Take for example the majority of young men in Chinese university classrooms who take, as homage, the given name 'James' for their English moniker. About 20% of my male students from this last year in China had taken James as their chosen English handle (otherwise, a lot of boys over there choose to emulate their favorite athlete from other sports such as soccer with names like Rooney, Kaka and Ronaldo…goes to show the huge appeal of sports all over the globe). And LBJ is only going to get more popular over there, what with the Chinese business interests that have recently purchased a substantial chunk of the Cavs franchise.
Come on now Rory … this blog is no place for logical, well-thought out and insightful comments. (Rory happens to be my cousin, folks. He obviously raises the IQ level of the family.)
I did some research as a follow-up to Rory's post. I had my doubts, but as it turns out, he was telling the truth. Indeed, 20% of his male students in China had chosen 'James' for their English moniker. The other 80%? 'Leon.' Not surprisingly, Leon Fan Dong and Leon Sun Fang were Rory's class co-valedictorians.