Wooooo! Man, I am pumped.

It's cool that the U.S. women held out for 90 -- 'scuse me -- 120 minutes of some of the best soccer I've seen in a long damn time.

It's cooler that goalkeeper Briana Scurry made a diving save and defender Brandi Chastain made a sweet game-winning penalty kick and shed her shirt to celebrate the victory.

But here's what I love: All those male sports announcers screaming in amazement.

A 90,000-plus crowd full of men and young boys cheering 20 pony-tailed ladies. An entire sports bar glued to the game, yelling madly despite a two-hour scoring rut.

And a buddy of mine, who until a month ago didn't know Mia Hamm from his butt, making a pretty good argument that yeah, her offense could've been better today but she had some great moves on defense.

The U.S. Women are the 1999 World Champions in this globe's biggest sport. And America has been schooled.

Said Coach Tony DiCicco: "All of America are part of this victory and this team." Said a male friend during the game: "I can't breathe."

For years, I've heard the guys' complaints that soccer is a boring sport. It's just a bunch of folks running up and down the field. No one ever scores. The rules are complicated.

Hey, go watch a good defensive baseball or hockey game, then come back and whine to me.

The women I know have been following this sport for quite a while. Like me, some grew up playing soccer, the only sport where we could take on boys who were often bigger and faster. When I coached a coed team of 7-year-olds, the girls were the toughest competitors even before being encouraged to scream "Ahhhhhhhhhh!" at any sniveling boy who dared touch the ball.

The media already have seized on the "female role models" angle of this whole story. They're right, of course. Young boys always have been able to dream of someday becoming great pitchers and quarterbacks; girls had only Mary Lou Retton to emulate. Now boys and girls can parrot Michelle Akers' awesome headers and Shannon MacMillan's powerful corner kicks. How many kids took the soccer ball out back this afternoon to practice penalty kicks after Chastain's rocket?

But the Women's World Cup has meant so much more. Three weeks ago, the ESPN commentators talked of little more than the cute chicks pushing the ball around.

No more.

There's a lot can be learned in three weeks. And when grown men -- 40-year-old, beer-bellied, Coors-swilling-and-belching men -- appreciate the finesse of a dead-on pass and the athleticism of a headed-in goal, this sport is going somewhere.

Over and over this afternoon, the commentators named Biff and Bob and Steve have amazed at the grown men watching, gasp! women's soccer, and learning to understand it. That's as much the story as the championship.

That, to me, is cool.

Men are learning that women can be pretty damn tough in competition. They've seen the yellow cards, the grimaces, the mid-air collisions. They've heard Chastain call Akers, the team's oldest competitor at 33, the "toughest goddamn player I've ever played with."

Really? my male buddy asked. They play 90 minutes of regulation with no time outs? Only three substitutions for the whole game?

Yep.

What women's professional softball and basketball have hinted at in the past two years, this World Cup has driven home: Women compete. Hard.

Now, who wants to play?

Barb Barrett relies on slide tackles and well-placed elbows to come up with the ball. She's not averse to making the professional (or not-so-professional) foul.