Just for the record, so I don't off on a tangent on this whole shameful adidas shoe story, growing-up in the '70's, playing soccer for my North Miami Beach Optimist team, I always played with Puma soccer shoes myself, since I much preferred their snug fit to competing brands that my friends and teammates always swore by that were looser amd which they made tight by wrapping crazy amounts of tape around.
Unfortunately, they also took a long time to break in, and I can recall a few games, and one in particular out near Hialeah against Palm Springs North Optimist, always a very good squad, where I was slipping and sliding like crazy on what I think was some newly-cut grass.
I was like Dick Anderson on PolyTurf at the Orange Bowl against the Jets in 1971, where his sure hands failed him as he slipped while returning a punt and essentially fumbled away the game.
Yes, back in the pre-cable days of South Florida when syndicated German Bundesliga games and highlights were telecast every weekend -with Tony Charles doing play-by-play-
on local Miami PBS affiliate, Channel 2, WPBT, located in North Miami, not too far away from me in NMB.
As someone who's actually on the mailing list for the adidas email newsletter, and who has followed the sports marketing industry for a long time, I'll leave it to you to figure out the eventual market implication$ for adidas product sales in the largest state after being trounced in Sacramento after reading this excellent article by Maura Dolan of the LA Times.
Though I could be mistaken, I think my IU friend, track star Cyndie Brown was either working for or racing for adidas in the late 1980's, when she won the 1987 Pittsburgh Marathon, and we really thought she had a great a chance of making the Olympic team going to Seoul the following year, since the U.S. Olympic marathon qualifier was the same exact course in Pittsburgh, in what was to be the inaugural for the Women's Marathon as an Olympic sport.
(Even adidas pitchman and ESPN object of hype David Beckham has to backpedal after not being able to morally justify it. Have you seen this story on the ESPN family of networks? I haven't, and I recently got Direct TV.)
Then, to have the incredibly bad luck to have the decision handed down the same week that out-of-control Michael Vick imploded as a result of his chronic lack of hubris?
The guy who, in my opinion, will eventually be found out to have financed an underground railroad throughout the South for dog fighting so that he wouldn't get caught himself?
According to many accounts, Vick reportedly thought nothing of betting up to as much as $30K on individual dog fights, yet gives Virginia Tech $10K after campus shooting to show his solidarity. Draw your own conclusions.
Imagine how many times that simple fact will be repeated on sports talk radio over the next few months!
Following this sick story of a marketing company being blind to bad PR, is a positive one about some Hoosier soccer players who learned some valuable lessons while in Brazil, the land of Dolphin nemesis Tom Brady's latest girlfriend du jour, the ever popular supermodel Giselle Bundchen, who celebrated her birthday last Friday.
What do you get for the woman who has everything on her birthday when your ex-girlfriend, Bridget Moynahan -one of my longtime favorites- http://www.slate.com/id/2171055/
is due to deliver your first child?
After admiring her from a distance for years, I actually saw her in person in 2002 in Arlington near the Marine Memorial filming that so-so CIA film, The Recruit, with Al Pacino and Colin Farrell, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0292506/
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adidas24jul24,1,750784.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
From the Los Angeles Times
Adidas' use of kangaroo hide is illegal, California justices say
By Maura Dolan, Times Staff Writer
July 24, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO — Soccer shoes and other athletic footwear made with prized kangaroo skin are banned under a state law that was upheld Monday by the California Supreme Court.
The court unanimously decided that a 36-year-old ban on the import and sale of products made from various wildlife species, including kangaroo, was not preempted by federal wildlife law.
The case was brought by an animal protection group against Adidas, which sells soccer, rugby and baseball shoes made with the hide of kangaroo species that state law protects. Adidas argued that federal law, which permits the import and sale of kangaroo skin, takes precedence over state law.
A lawyer for Adidas said the shoes at issue would continue to be sold in California until other legal issues in the case are resolved. He said the case eventually could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Animal rights groups hailed the decision for giving states the right to protect species even after the federal government decided that they were no longer in peril.
Bending to pressure, soccer star David Beckham, who debuted last weekend with the Los Angeles Galaxy, has announced that he will no longer wear shoes made with kangaroo hide, according to published reports.
"The precedent is major across the country, especially with the number of species losing federal protection," said Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president of litigation for the Humane Society. "It is critically important in terms of a state's ability to protect species."
Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown praised the ruling for protecting the state's autonomy.
"The significance is not just kangaroos and shoes but the authority of the state to protect species by banning products," Brown said. "It reaffirms that California has the authority and autonomy as a state to do this kind of work."
In ruling against Adidas, the court said the federal government's decision to withdraw protection for the kangaroo "leaves the field open for states to act as they individually see fit."
"The Commonwealth of Australia is free to manage its indigenous wildlife populations in any manner it sees fit, subject to international treaty obligations," Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote for the court. "Likewise, California is free to regulate within its own borders unless federal law or the United States Constitution requires otherwise."
The ban, however, could still be repealed by the state Legislature or struck down on other legal grounds as the case proceeds. The state Senate voted in May to end the ban on importing and selling kangaroo parts, and that bill is now in the Assembly. Since 2003, the first year the bill was introduced, Adidas America has spent $435,693 lobbying the Legislature, state filings show.
Lauren Ornelas, campaign director for Viva! Vegetarians International Voice for Animals, said the ruling may help defeat Adidas' effort to end the ban.
"We would like to see these shoes taken off the shelves in California, and see Adidas really put its money and mind into using synthetic material," said Ornelas, whose group filed the lawsuit against Adidas. "Using wildlife for shoes is not acceptable."
Orly Degani, who represented Viva! in the case, said the selling of products containing kangaroo is illegal and the ban can be enforced.
"What [Adidas] is doing is illegal," she said. The Humane Society said the state's Fish and Game Department may be asked to enforce the ban.
In removing the red, eastern grey and western grey kangaroos from the U.S. Endangered Species List in 1995, federal government officials declared that they had become "abundant." In 2005, the population of the three species, whose hides are used in footwear, was just under 25 million.
Adidas Promotional Retail Operations Inc. had argued that the state ban was preempted by federal law. In addition to Adidas, the defendants were Sport Chalet and Offside Soccer.
Andrea Corso, a spokeswoman for Adidas Group, which makes athletic shoes and apparel, said other shoemakers also use kangaroo hide, which she said players prize for the feel.
She said Adidas makes 10 styles of shoes from kangaroo hide, but less than 1% of the company's footwear contains the skin of the marsupial.
"A lot of soccer players strongly prefer it," Corso said.
Beckham, whose wife, Victoria, is a vegetarian, said he reached his decision against wearing the shoes after viewing graphic videos of the killing of baby kangaroos in Australia, news reports said.
Despite Beckham's position, the Galaxy has sided with Adidas in trying to have the ban overturned. The team has said that California soccer players will be at a disadvantage if they cannot wear the lighter, softer shoes.
In addition to banning the sale of products made of kangaroo, the state law also protects the polar bear, leopard, ocelot, tiger, cheetah, jaguar, sable antelope, wolf, zebra, whale, cobra, python, sea turtle, colobus monkey, vicuna, sea otter, free-roaming feral horse, dolphin, porpoise, Spanish lynx and elephant. The law was intended to prevent the extinction of wildlife the state Legislature found were threatened.
The Australian government permits the commercial use of kangaroos and exports their leather and meat, subject to government regulation, the state high court said. "The Australian government still considers some species threatened or endangered, but not the species at issue here," Werdegar wrote.
Martin L. Fineman, who represented Adidas before the court, said that although Adidas lost this challenge, the shoemaker had a strong case that the ban violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution and that Viva! lacked legal standing to file the lawsuit.
California's law banning the import of the animal parts "is a plain attempt to regulate foreign commerce," Fineman said.
UCLA Law Professor Taimie Bryant, who has been following the kangaroo case and the legislation, said the most important part of Monday's ruling was "the emphasis on the state's ability to provide more protection for species that have been historically at risk of extinction.
"So at one hand we have the California Supreme Court emphasizing how important it is for states to make these kinds of decisions, and then you have the Legislature taking away that authority to regulate and protect species," she said.
The court ruled in Viva! vs. Adidas.
maura.dolan@latimes.com
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
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Meanwhile, in some more positive soccer news, despite their loss in the Pan American Games, two Hoosier soccer players gained valuable experience.
http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/072107aab.html
U.S. Eliminated From Pan American Games
Mexico scores twice in final 15 minutes for victory
July 21, 2007
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Mexico used a man advantage to score a pair of goals in the final 15 minutes for a 2-0 win over the U.S. at the Pan American games on Saturday at Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The loss eliminates the Americans from the tournament.
Hoosier sophomore Kevin Alston (Silver Spring, Md.) started his third-consecutive match at the games, while redshirt freshman Daniel Kelly (Hendersonville, Tenn./Hendersonville) came in off the bench in the second half.
The two teams were in a scoreless battle until American Jalil Anibaba picked up his second yellow card of the match in the 72nd minute, giving Mexico a man advantage. They wasted no time, scoring their first goal off the foot of Rodolfo del Real in the 75th minute. Just three minutes later, Mexico made it 2-0 with a score from Enrique Alejandro Esqueda.
The U.S. continued to push the ball to the net but were dealt a blow in the 80th minute when Danny Barrera picked up his second yellow of the match, leaving the team with just eight field players.
With the victory, Mexico advances to the semifinals where it will face Jamaica on July 24.
The U.S. ends the tournament with a 1-2-0 record.
http://www.southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/
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