There is excitement in Australia for international sports, including minor sports such as cycling and squash--a fervent nationalistic support for Australian athletes abroad. There is tremendous pride when an Australian is successful in an international arena, such as Wayne Grady's win in this summer's U.S. Open.

But not so here, where "U-S-A, U-S-A" has been replaced by "Bo Knows" and "Air Jordan."

Maybe our almost-blase attitude about international sports results from the fact that American sport heroes don't necessarily play for the old Red, White and Blue. In other countries, almost all the national sports heroes do don their nation's colors. In Australia, for example, a team of the best rugby league players in the country is assembled every four years to compete internationally in what is known as the Kangaroo Tour. This year's Roos will be protecting an unbeaten string that stretches back to 1978.

And sure, it's probably justifiable to say that the American sports fan is already inundated with too much high quality sports entertainment at home to bother with international sports. But we used to notice great international athletes. Now we're missing out.

And having experienced the excitement of Australian sports for the last three weeks, I've seen what we're missing. You'd have to see Greg Alexander play to believe it.

Go Panthers!