By Sue Brinkerhoff Bland

Last night, I watched one of the most amazing soccer tournaments ever played.

Today, I read our local sports pages with the hope of reliving some of the fantastic moments I witnessed in the U.S. v Japan Women’s World Cup Soccer event. Ironically, our American women competed and won the world title the day after Independence Day.

We still celebrate our independence and the notion that we are all created equal. On the back page of the sports section, an article contained this tragic detail: the U.S. women’s soccer team will receive $15 million for the highest-scoring soccer game in World Cup history. Last year, in Brazil, the men’s soccer team received a purse of $500 million.