Please bear with me - I'm going to talk about sports for a bit, but I promise to get to the humanities eventually. As anyone on the MHC staff will tell you, the World Cup is this summer and I am very excited about it. Since the last World Cup in 2014, I have become obsessed with the sport of soccer and its historical and cultural significance around the globe. My bookshelf at home now sags from the weight of books about the sport in England, Spain, Germany, Holland, Africa, South America, Mexico, and even the United States.

Beyond learning about the details of Brazil's extraordinary national teams in the late 1950s and 1960s or how the Dutch national team of the early 1970s changed the way soccer was played, what this obsession has taught me is to view American sports from a larger global and more critical perspective. Understanding how player development works around the world, it now seems crazy to me that most of America's professional sports leagues expect colleges and universities to develop their talent for them. It's even crazier that we expect college athletes who generate millions of dollars for their institutions not to be paid. It also seems illogical that our professional sports leagues reward failure: the team with the worst record gets the highest draft pick. In the NBA this past year, several teams were intentionally losing games down the stretch so they would have a better chance of getting the #1 pick in next year's draft. In pro soccer leagues around the world, the worst performing teams get relegated to a lower league. Since relegation brings extreme financial consequences, no teams "tank" during the season. And in the final weeks of the season, games between teams at the bottom of the 

standings are often more meaningful and exciting than games featuring those at the top.

And since soccer around the world is often inextricably tied to politics, the claim one often hears in America that sports and politics shouldn't mix seems naïve. In Spain, the political battle over Catalan independence profoundly shapes the rivalry between the country's two most celebrated soccer teams: Real Madrid and Barcelona. The bitter rivalry between the Scottish teams Celtic and Rangers mirrors the region's political tensions between Catholics and Protestants. In the United States, many have tried to deny the influence of politics in our sports, but even our president has learned to use football as a political wedge issue. Rather than expecting athletes and sports commentators to stay out of politics, we should understand that something as popular as sports is inherently political and appreciate that athletes' popularity gives them a special platform to highlight political issues that are important to them.

Seeing our own experience from a different perspective provides insight we would otherwise not see. This is precisely what the humanities do.

I have annoyed many of my friends with these unorthodox opinions lately - and now I get to annoy you with them! But they highlight an important point: seeing our own experience from a different perspective provides insight we would otherwise not see. This is precisely what the humanities do. They enable us to question our basic assumptions and think critically. They connect our neighborhoods, our states, and our country to the world, and our own experiences to other places. By learning about something seemingly far removed from our own lives, like the spread of soccer around the world and the evolution of the English Premier League, we can see our own culture from a clearer, more insightful perspective.

So, as the World Cup's drama unfolds over the next month, enjoy the soccer (even without the U.S. national team's presence), but also enjoy the insights it offers about other countries as well as our own nation and sporting culture.