USA Today’s Armour: ‘You’re Not an American’ if You Rooted Against U.S. Women’s Soccer

USA Today’s Nancy Armour on Sports Seriously said, “you’re not an American” if you rooted against the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) while they were competing during the Tokyo Olympic Games. 

Armour was asked about her thoughts on sports turning political and the trolling going on when the USWNT team lost. 

At the beginning of her response, she mentioned trying to “choose her words carefully.”

She added, “If you want to call yourself a patriot and wrap yourself a flag, and then say that you’re rooting against the American team? I got news for you. You’re not a patriot. You’re not an American.”

She mentioned that “one of [the United States’] founding principles or one of [the United States’] founding values is peaceful protest and the ability to, you know, say what you believe in.” She added:

I get emails saying, on they should more to North Korea or China. You want them to siffel themselves. That is exactly what they do in authoritarian regime so, all of you people thinking that you’re flexing on these teams for speaking out and asking out country to be better, you don’t believe in what American believes in, so step off.

After the news of her story broke, she backed up what she said on Twitter, writing, “Yeah, I said it. And I meant it. Every freaking word.”

Breitbart News reported that after multiple shocking upsets, led by their chief protest star Megan Rapinoe, the team settled for the bronze medal at the Olympics.

(Hannah Foslein/Getty Images)

The USWNT has become synonymous with political activism over the years. Team captain Megan Rapinoe became one of the first athletes outside of the NFL to follow the lead of former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and begin kneeling during the national anthem. Rapinoe was eventually joined in her protests by virtually all of the USWNT. In fact, before Thursday’s bronze medal game against Australia, only one U.S. player didn’t kneel in protest, forward Carli Lloyd.

The political activism of the team reached new heights in 2019 during the Women’s World Cup when Rapinoe said she would not go to the “f*cking White House” to celebrate the team’s World Cup victory.