Runner Meb Keflezighi Is All-American Through and Through

For the first time since 1982, an American won the men’s race at the New York City Marathon.

While most, New Yorkers included, spent the better part of Sunday recovering from a Halloween-induced drunken stupor, Meb Keflezighi bested thousands of runners from around the world to cross the finish line first in 2:09:15.  Many had written him off as too old, especially after he failed to qualify for the last Olympics in Beijing after breaking his hip.

For some people, like CNBC Sports Business Reporter Darren Rovell, Keflezighi’s accomplishment seemed insignificant and somehow invalid.  Rovell wrote a joke of an editorial in which he all but denounced Keflezighi’s win the day after the marathon, all because Keflezighi isn’t American-born.

Keflezighi is a naturalized US citizen by way of Eritrea.  He trains in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., and has lived in the US for 22 years, since 1987.  Keflezighi began his career as a runner after immigrating with his parents as an adolescent. 

He attended San Diego High School where he won the state championship in both the 1600 and 3200 meter races.  He graduated from UCLA with a stellar collegiate career, winning four NCAA championships and receiving numerous All-American honors. 

He represented the USA at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, where he won a silver medal.  Should the US Olympic Committee force Keflezighi to return his medal because he wasn’t born here?

Of course, Rovell conveniently brushed off Keflezighi’s latest performance by describing the new champ as “like a ringer who you hire to work a couple of hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball game.”  Fleeing a famine and civil war at the age of 12 makes you a “ringer?”

Rovell also flatly dismissed Keflezighi’s naturalized citizenship.

“Keflezighi’s country of origin is Eritrea, a small country in Africa.  He is an American citizen thanks to taking a test and living in our country,” Rovell wrote.

You know, for a “native” American like Rovell, it would do him some good to take a test and swear an oath, just like naturalized Americans do.  It may remind him what being an American is all about.  After all, members of our armed forces and national officeholders take very similar oaths themselves.

Prior to Keflezighi, the last American man to win the NYC marathon was Alberto Salazar.  Salazar is originally from Havana, Cuba.  Yes, this means he was born there.  Shocking, I know.  Rovell would have known that had he lived up to his minimum duty as a professional reporter and done a little research.  But perhaps he doesn’t consider Salazar any more American anyway.

Since his opinion’s initial publication, Rovell has offered a convoluted quasi-apology where he now views Keflezighi’s win legitimately because the runner was “brought up through the American system.”  Exactly how long does one have to be brought up through the American system to receive the stamp of authenticity?

Still, Rovell’s baffling pseudo-retraction still fails to explain his Twitter post that reads, “NYC Marathon winner Keflezighi may be citizen, but can’t count as American.”

The New York Times recently explored the sentiment held by people like Rovell further:

“The debate reveals what some academics say are common assumptions and stereotypes about race and sports and athletic achievement in the United States. Its dimensions, they add, go beyond the particulars of Keflezighi and bear on undercurrents of nationalism and racism that are not often voiced.”

The Times offered a couple of notable cases that parallel Keflezighi’s but with no discussion of the athlete’s nationality: Hall of Fame basketball player Patrick Ewing (Jamaica) and Olympic gold medal gymnast Nastia Liukin (Russia).

Canadian ice dancer Tanith Belbin, who had her US citizenship rushed so she could compete in the Torino Olympics, never had her nationality questioned.  Neither did Austro-Hungarian-born swimmer Johnny Weissmuller back in the day.

Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova is frequently viewed as basically being American although she has explicitly countered this claim, even going so far as to say that she would never relinquish her Russian citizenship. 

The clear double-standard against Keflezighi reveals many nationalistic and racial issues still exist, even in this “post-racial” age of Barack Obama.

On Nov. 1, 2009, none of the American-born runners donned a USA singlet.  They chose instead to wear the logos-emblazoned attire of their corporate sponsors.  Only Keflezighi proudly wore “USA” across his chest.  In fact, his first gesture upon winning was to acknowledge his country by pointing to those initials.

Eleven miles south of Central Park, the site of Keflezighi’s victory, stands the Statue of Liberty.  Inscribed on Lady Liberty are the words from Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus,” of which the last few lines are most famous:

 “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

How befitting Keflezighi won the race in New York City, the golden door to the many Americans that have come before him, perhaps even one with the surname Rovell.