Oxymoron Project - notes and excerpts ...

Oxymoron Project - notes and excerpts ...

***

1994

Seattle Storm PCSL game at West Seattle Stadium

The feeling of being manic obsessive was not lost on me. The stadium was actually condemned and had more bird shit on the seats than wood stain. I wasn’t entirely certain about the league I was watching. The play was okay. The crowd was so small the PA guy was holding a conversation with someone else in my section and you could hear sideline conversations between an angry player and an assistant coach slash older player who had put himself in to the younger – and frankly weaker – player’s dismay.
A week earlier I was at the Rose Bowl with about a hundred thousand people at a game with a worldwide audience.
This was my summer of 1994.

***

1984

Regrets of a sort

There are very few things I really regret. Most of those regrets are things that I did not do, not the things I have done.
There was a cheerleader. We were friends and on our way to a party the summer just before our senior year. I had soccer practice the next morning so I begged off staying late and went home, leaving her at the party with her friends. To this day I know it was because I just was not ready for a serious girlfriend, but this was truly stupid, and part of me thinks that she holds it against me to this day whenever I see her.
This was my summer of 1984.

***

2006

World Cup notes

WCQ is now actually expected and being first in the group demanded.
We used to wonder if we ever COULD qualify and now there are expectations.
Times Change.

Sounders and Sonics

The Sonics have had a German, an Argentine, and players from Yugoslavia, Lithuania, considered a Brazilian, and drafted a guy from Senegal. Shouldn’t that be the Sounders’ roster?

***

2001

Rose Bowl

I ate the place the people who spoke Spanish ate at. My brother in law looked at his hot dog and my Mexican food and wished he had too.

Sounders Opener

The 20K+ spoiled me in the 1970’s. I assumed it was all like that since Vancouver and Portland drew well and the TV games from Minnesota and San Jose had big numbers.
Looking up at a Sounders crowd in Memorial Stadium in 2001 was an unhappy experience. It hurt to go.

***

1998

Kuwait game

We ran into Eric Wynalda. He signed our program, but was clearly not real excited about Coach Steve Sampson. His body language and tone gave him away, although he was trying not to sound critical of his coach.

Coaching

At one point it was going to be my profession. And then it just stopped. I’ve never emotionally recovered in the workplace. Not getting the PHS job hurt.

***

1994

New Sounders

I was sort of apprehensive about them bringing back the name.

Cameroon vs. Sweden

I left several hours before kickoff because of the reputation of LA traffic and I had never been to the Rose Bowl before. I got there and was parked, at the stadium, and in my seat something like four hours before kickoff. There were more ushers there than people. It was hot.

***

1992

Tacoma Stars Wake

It was a funeral for a friend. “This really sucks,” I told the GM. I think he felt threatened. But, I didn’t mean to come across as angry with him; it was my frustration at the situation.

***

1991

CSL Final

I took my cousin Brian up to Vancouver for the day and we went to the CSL Final. He gave me a hard time for getting a teal colored San Jose Sharks sweatshirt. I look back on that day fondly when I think of him or see his daughter.

WWC

The 1991 World Champions poster at my desk caused people to pause and ponder. Eight years later it would be a source of pride.

***

1985

NCAA Final

I realized in the 6th overtime that going alone to games was okay and likely to continue to happen. It has not bothered me since.

Heysel

In a weird way, the English ban from the Heysel Stadium disaster paved the way for a new league in the US and Canada as the Storm and other teams on the West Coast had to scramble to fill in dates and formed a small league; The WACS.

***

1983

1983 is hardly a year of regrets; I did not catch a single Seattle Sounders final NASL season game at the Kingdome. I did not have my WDL until late in the season and there was no way my folks were going to let me drive into Downtown Seattle at that point.

***

1977

Harry Redknapp

He was just sitting there shopping with his family and I am not mistaken now, that little kid with him played for Liverpool and England; Jamie Redknapp.

Junior Booster Section

There is just no way parents would send nine and ten year olds off on their own to a section of a stadium any more. We were right near where Dave Gillet broke his leg. We saw Jimmy Gabriel sub himself in. Pele was right there in front of us.

Soccer Bowl

The guy got caught because he tripped over a ten-year-old boy in the way … me. I got to run around the field with a flag in a parade of people. We made flags and signs to bring with us.

Airport

We went and met the Sounders at Sea-Tac. Mike England said, “Is that yer mum? You’ve got a pretty mum.”

***

1974-76

Sounders and the Kingdome

I missed the first game with the Cosmos and Pele that year.
My first impression of the Kingdome was how huge it was and to wonder if it was finished. I had to touch it.
After shaking hands with Tony Chursky after a game during a victory lap I didn’t want anything to touch my hand. Maybe that was the root of my left hand abilities and not just the broken thumb I got later.
When the US played Canada I learned what the World Cup was and that Canada was a different country. I also learned I had to root against my favorite player if he played for the other team.
North Seattle Community College will always be a prison in my mind. As we would drive into games my father would threaten to drop us off on the way in, leading me to believe that the ugly gray buildings at Northgate were a prison. It was not until high school that I bothered to read the sign and realized it was a community college and not a jail.
I fell in love with the Kingdome in a way. I grew up there. Its death hurt me.

***

Being an American soccer fan has often felt oxymoronic, unpatriotic, openly sarcastic, self-righteous, and frustrating. Yet I was STILL downright obnoxious about it in college with a chip on my shoulder.


American soccer fans need to quit “educating” the public. It’s just not necessary any more. I watch old NASL highlights and wonder if it ever really was and how much the educational mentality was part of the problem. The play by play of renowned broadcaster Jim McKay was insufferably bad. It had to have actually hurt the “cause”.

The American sporting public needs no explanations; they get it better than soccer fans think. It’s part of the arrogance problem. Most just don’t like it. So freaking what? Yes, there are those in the media that actually try to kill it. This has gone on a long time.

Teaching my kids to play is sheer joy. I have promised myself I will be a good sports parent.
I drive past an old school or two sometimes just to go past the fields I played on in my first years of soccer. The kids have now each played on fields I played on, which is very cool.

Compared to his hatred of Notre Dame, I can respect my brother’s ongoing rooting interest for Roma. A South Dakota stripper stage named Roma with hair of a similar color as Roma’s jerseys? That makes sense to me. His support for Arsenal I still cannot fathom.

I have never taken a penalty kick in an outdoor game in my life.

I have never been carded in my life, even if I have deserved a few.

***

Reffing

I love the game too much to ref it. I reffed three high school JV games in my life. There is just a part of me that hates to call fouls.
The little kids games I reffed where the ref stops and explains stuff and gives them a do over is more like coaching.