There is surely virtue in calling yourself out, in raising a humble hand and saying the words for everyone to hear: “I was wrong.”
So, on my personal National Soccer Hall of Fame voting history, here’s me raising the arm of mea culpa. I was getting one important element of balloting very, very wrong.
Previously, I attempted to balance male-female voting, which seems like the natural, simple way of doing things.
Rather, it was a mistake. I understand now how far behind we’ve slipped in recognizing a bunch of deserving women of U.S. Soccer. My voting in recent years should have reflected that in greater weighting – and it absolutely will now.
How did things go sideways? Let’s start here: this is darn hard. That’s not an excuse for my balloting own goal, it’s just a fact. Two years ago, for instance, a cursory look at the candidates had me circling 16 names that seemed deserving on the first glance.
Every voter has a maximum 10 selections, so you see the problem.
There are too many worthwhile candidates who were getting held at the Hall of Fame door. The backlogged pileup was partially created by antiquated voting mechanics that NSHOF leaders have recently worked hard to address.
Left with the dilemma (too many deserving candidates, not enough votes), I defaulted to evenly distributed voting on gender. Seems fair, right? Ten votes, five to men, five to women, right?
Well, it wasn’t fair. And a tip of the hat to better thinkers who conked me on the head and pointed out the problem:
As women’s soccer rose so impressively over the last two decades, led by our very own American stars, too many of us were stuck in old voting ways. Deserving candidates were stacking up on both sides, men and women – but the taller stack developed on the USWNT side.
Yes, there were men who should have been pushed through the process faster. Think “Steve Cherundolo,” who was somehow not a first-ballot inductee.
But as we fell behind in recognizing the legends and giants of American men’s soccer, we were falling WAY behind in admitting the women who were collecting World Cups, Olympic golds, U.S. caps by the hundreds and making countless other contributions to the sport’s domestic growth. The list begins with Hope Solo, but goes on to Shannon Boxx, Christie Rampone, Heather Mitts, Aly Wagner and probably others.
Moving forward, my vote will represent a course correction, an effort to re-balance a gender inequity that crept into the system institutionally. (So long as I have a vote, that is; that certainly isn’t a lifetime right, nor should it be.) All of that is a fancy way of saying, I’ll be voting more heavily for women until further notice.
If that sounds unfair to some of the deserving men, well, perhaps it is. But no less unfair than how we treated too many of the decorated, deserving women of American soccer over the last few years.
