It's a stunning headline: American Wins Men's NYC Marathon For First Time Since '82. Meb Keflezighi of the US celebrates his victory in the New York City Marathon November 1, 2009 in New York. Unfortunately, it's not as good as it sounds. Meb Keflezighi, who won yesterday in New York, is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he's not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement the headline implies.
The rest of his article then laments that Keflezighi is not "American born" and that "he's like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league." Thus, Rovell reasons the victory should not be a source of national pride.
A few hours and several angry emails later, Rovell wrote another column. This time he said, "Let me be clear: Meb Keflezighi is an American and any suggestion otherwise is wrong." But Rovell continued and said,"All I was saying was that we should celebrate an American marathon champion who has completely been brought up through the American system." Rovell then apologized that he was wrong about Keflezighi because the runner immigrated to the United States when he was 12 years old and not deserving of being called a "ringer."
So I suppose if Mr. Keflezighi became a citizen at age 18, Mr. Rovell would consider him a ringer and not really an American hero?
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