Twice in as Many Days...Holy ****

OK, so in my effort to get back on the ball here is my column from the last issue of The Tack. It is more applicable to my school, but I think alot of this can be applied to sporting events in general. And of course to being a soccer supporter because of the way we are encouraged to cheer so creatively.

And without further ado...

Three things happen annually at this time of year it seems. The Super Bowl, the closing of the international transfer window, and the yearly email from President Fred Moore warning us about our actions at basketball games on campus.

Last month students were reported to the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) for abusive chants directed at players on the Loras college team and at game officials. Last year we all received the same email regarding student chants at a home game against Central.

Why has this become an annual tradition here in Storm Lake? It would seem that the reason is less ground in sportsmanship and more due to the amount of families with small children that come to the games. I can recall instances during the NCAA tournament in which visiting fans chanted anti-BVU songs and were left alone but our own students were stifled if a cheer was started by anyone that wasn’t a cheerleader.

I was all set to tear down the administration’s need to sanitize everything that happens on campus so that more community members will pay to see the games, but something on television changed my perspective. The University of Minnesota (U of M) was hosting the Denver University men’s hockey team when senior defenseman Mike Vannelli notched his first career hat trick. For those of you unfamiliar with hockey the typical celebration for such a feat is to toss hats and caps out onto the ice. Unfortunately some students and fans saw the need to throw the posters that were handed out before the game onto the ice as well.

Seeing this left me, and this column, in a state of limbo. If such a knowledgeable crowd can do something so stupid how can I try to defend our basketball crowds who are very near as knowledgeable about that sport? How can I sit here and say that we are responsible enough to police ourselves when this tells me that we are not?

I think a realization that these lapses in judgment have been few and far between and show no proof of getting worse. I’ve always been an advocate for support stemming from the stands and not the boardrooms or pom poms. I think the line has to be drawn at sexual or racial slurs and obscenity (because if we can’t be more creative than four letter words that is sad) and anything short of that should be allowed and encouraged.

The opposing team should not feel as comfortable playing in Storm Lake as they do playing at home, if they do then we as fans have failed But at the same time they should never, EVER fear for their safety.

Laying it out simply everyone needs to realize that this should be a college first and foremost. Students should be encouraged to come up with creative ways to throw the opponents off of their game, and if they do cross a line (which should be more lax than it is now), but not before, then the administration needs to set in. Also community members need to realize that this is a college campus and that college kids have a, shall we say, more extensive vocabulary than you may want your kids exposed to. If you don’t want to run the risk of them overhearing an innuendo or an off color comment than think twice about sitting next to the student section.

To Beckham or not to Beckham

First of all I'm sorry this has taken so long for me to update. Who knew that being an editor for the college paper would take so much of my writing time. I hope to update this more often, so please bear with me until graduation in May when this will get more of my attention.

This is the first part of a point-counterpoint from The Tack about why Beckham is bad for US Soccer. It was written by Taylor Jones my good friend and broadcast partner.

The Case Against Beckham

The plan to bring David Beckham to America is amazing for Major League Soccer (MLS), but only financially. Will it benefit the future of soccer in the USA at all? No. And sure, it would seem like this could not hurt it, but it will and there is only one thing that needs to be looked at to see why: the talent of young players.

Beckham poses a lingering threat to America's ability to nurture young talent in that many over-the-hill players will see the MLS as a final resting place for their careers.

Now it could be said that world-class athletes like these could only benefit the youth, but that is not true. These athletes will not be world class anymore - which is why they are coming to the MLS.

The only way for young American players to get world-class experience is to go overseas and play against world-class players in their prime. The only thing washed up athletes like Beckham will do by coming to the MLS is take up spots for younger talents looking to find a stage to show off for the overseas scouts.

The argument can be made that the current rules will not allow something like this to happen; however, the rules a few years ago would not have allowed the Beckham deal to go through. Rules can be changed, as long as there is money to be made.

Beckham is taking the roster spot for the next Clint Dempsey or Bobby Convey right now, and that is detrimental to the strides American soccer had been making.

Another important thing to note with David Beckham is the idea that his heart is not as into the game of soccer as it once was. For the past year he has been ridiculed and relegated to the bench on his current club team, obviously killing his drive to compete. Beckham is going to L.A. not for soccer, but rather to actually be in a movie, instead of just having his name splattered on the title. How can this desire help the game of soccer?

I have one message to David Beckham and any other washed up Europeans looking at the MLS: Your time is up.

Stay where you are and let Americans grow. Do not get greedy, just accept your bodies have failed you and America will soon beat your countries on the world stage. U...S...A!!!

And here is my response.

The Case for David Beckham

David Beckham, the most famous name in soccer today, will now be playing his trade in Los Angles instead of Madrid. There are those who feel that the MLS has attached itself to the fate of the North American Soccer League (NASL) by signing a big name star well past his prime, but that is not the case.

First of all, the NASL went out of business because owners threw huge sums of money at an entire roster of players. The MLS has instituted a rule in which each team starts out with only one player whose salary is exempt from the cap. Not only will this prevent owners from spending themselves into bankruptcy, but it will also ensure a level of parity that is rapidly disappearing in England. That may make viewers overseas turn their eyes to the MLS when it kicks off in April and most titles in Europe are all but bought and sold.

Secondly, Beckham still has a lot of talent to offer on the field. Just because he is no longer called up for the English international team, who finished in the quarterfinals of the last World Cup, or cannot crack the starting lineup for Real Madrid, one of the biggest clubs in the world, does not mean he cannot give something to the MLS.

And what exactly can he bring?

Highlights, for one. For years the main complaint from fans has been that soccer gets little love from shows like Sportscenter, but Beckham can change that all with a few of his dazzling free kicks.

More exposure brings in more fans to what is already America's most- played and most-watched sport, yet is constantly slammed as nothing more than foreign fare. More fans breeds more young players determined to continue with the sport into high school, then college, then the professional level, the result being an ever-improving MLS.

This is a challenge which Beckham himself has said that he is ready to tackle feet first. .

With too many Americans playing overseas in lower leagues anything that raises the profile and playing level of the MLS must be considered a good move.

If this move plays out well there will soon be a time when dreaming of growing up to be an MLS player will not be looked down upon. That day cannot come soon enough for me.

Why I Love This Game

Every once in a while we are all privileged enough to witness an event that completely validates our passion for something. For me this happened on Wednesday afternoon during the much anticipated “Battle of Britain” match between Celtic FC and Manchester United.

At school I share a house with seven other men, that afternoon three of us were crowded around our television in the living room watching the spectacle play out. One of us, my roommate Taylor, is a die hard Celtic supporter. I am a great supporter of the game, but had no real attachment to this particular match other than hoping to see the Red Devils lose. Our third was a housemate named Phil who came in to do homework, but was soon as enthralled in the action on the pitch as my roommate and I were.

After a first half produced a few fleeting chances but nothing of merit it seemed that we had spent a good chunk of our afternoon as we usually did, wasting time. Things picked up when ESPN played a highlight video of the competition through match day four. Saves, skills, and goals were all on display and pulled us into the second half. And what a half of play it was. Right from the kick off you could feel that something was different, possibly because of the addition Jiri Jarosik to the Celtic front line.

Whatever the cause of the spark all three of us were amplified many times the volume at which we viewed the first half. Every call was vocally disputed. Every errant shot was greeted with a sigh, either of relieve or disappointment. Wayne Rooney’s volley off of a United corner kick had all of our heart’s racing. I had just looked up after hearing my friend’s pained yelps and saw the ball hit the back of the net. For a moment everything halted, and then I realized that it had been off target.

When Jarosik went down in the 80^th minute Taylor and myself hollered for a card, from the angle shown by ESPN the Manchester player had slid in from behind and walloped the Czech in the leg. After the replay we both sat down and shut up because there had been no contact whatsoever. Lining up to take the kick were Kenny Miller, who had just come off the bench, and Shunsuke Nakamura. Taylor asked who I would have take it and I told him Nakamura with his left foot into the net. Of course he couldn’t agree so he picked Miller with a right foot for the goal. Somewhere in the back of my head I must have remembered the free kick from a similar spot that Nakamura had bagged in the game at Old Trafford on match day one, but I didn’t fully recall until I searched for a replay later.

Well sure enough my prediction came true and Celtic was now up by a goal in the dying minutes against a very strong Manchester United team. They took off two defenders and brought on defensive mids which made us all very nervous. For the final ten minutes United threw everything they had forward trying to get the equalizer that would have them through into the knockout stages. Louis Saha had a chance on which everyone but the linesman felt that he was offsides. Saha himself didn’t believe it so he halted for just long enough so that Boruc (the Celtic goalie) could run out and make the save.

In the 88^th minute John O’Shea (I think) toe picked himself into a foul and a chance for United to pull level off of the set piece. Rooney took it and looked to fire it off of the wall, but then the referees whistle blew and the house went deathly quiet. We were all scared to breathe for fear that someone would be sent off, or worse that the Red Devils would be given a penalty.

And we were right to be afraid, yellow card for handling the ball in the box (which I still dispute, but Taylor feels was unfortunately justified) and a penalty for Manchester. And I thought things were quiet in the house before Saha lined up to take the spot kick. Three of us, one of whom didn’t care a lick about the game when he walked in, on the edge of our seats waiting, hoping, praying for Boruc to find a miracle. And he did. And the three of us made more noise than I had ever heard in our house before. Louder than any party ever held there in any of the three years that it has been open to students. We went nuts for a moment and then were near heart attack every time a ball played by United crossed the face of goal.

The final whistle brought relief, but also a realization for me. This is why I love this game. This is why the game is so universal. Three of us with varying investments on the outcome of the match were all taken on an emotional roller coaster that bests even the most touching of Hollywood epics. No film can recreate the drama of real life sporting events. And not all sports either; I only think that soccer and hockey, by virtue of the scoring system and free flowing play, can capture that last gasp atmosphere where every shot is a potential heartbreaker. But hockey doesn’t have the passion that Celtic Park had that day. Not even in the Stanley Cup finals can that feeling be replicated, and I only saw it via television thousands of miles away.

Finally thank you to ESPN for keeping the feed on the crowd until after they were done singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. I love this game!

Binary Opposition

Things in this world exist in binary opposition. For every yin there is a yang, north has south, and up has down. Apparently in this country football and the other football exist in much the same way except for the fact that both desire the destruction of their opposite. Some people blame this on an American desire to be completely cut off from anything else that the world enjoys, or, even simpler, to the fact that the game wasn’t invented inside of our borders. A lot of Americans will even argue with me that the “other football” shouldn’t be called football despite being played near exclusively with the feet and predating American football by roughly 40 odd years. This is not an argument I wish to merit here.

This is something that I remember seeing growing up. It escalated into high school and seemed to peak a bit, but has not gone away in college. This isn’t true for all schools, but my small, Midwestern college does seem to subscribe to this destructive ideology. The football team (American football that is) always has snide remarks when the soccer team loses and it brings a similar reaction when the American football team loses on Saturdays.

Even so called level headed adults become irrational sometimes and point to diving, low scores, and hooliganism as reasons why the game is evil. I even witnessed a few people cheering against the United States in the World Cup simply because of the sport it entailed. Boy were they mad when coverage continued after the US was eliminated.

Why is it that these two sports can’t exist in the same culture? Germany certainly doesn’t seem to have a problem with it after soaking up nearly every franchise in the ill drawing NFL Europe. Is it because, as my roommate and soccer player pointed out, they share the same field. This isn’t a claim that can be easily dismissed, in fact it has a lot of merit. Wars have been fought for decades over a similar sized piece of ground…just ask Israel.

But I don’t think that we can completely contribute the disdain of these two great sports to simply a turf war (no pun intended). Instead I feel that these sentiments are fueled by jealousy. American football and its fans are jealous of the support that soccer gets around the globe. American football is the undisputed number one sport in America, just as soccer is the biggest sport in the rest of the world. No matter how well the Super Bowl draws the NFL knows that they can always be trumped in an argument with the ratings of the World Cup final.

This issue is not going to go away any time soon, in fact I can only see it getting worse as soccer gains more popularity in the United States. It is the fastest growing youth sport in the country and I am of the ilk that feels that this will turn into a large fan base for an expanding league format, or formats if you don’t think that the USL and MLS will EVER combine. As this happens I think there will be a reaction from Major League Baseball (who run at the same time as the MLS) and from the NFL as they panic about possibly losing fans. I don’t think that soccer will overtake any of the five major sports (NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, and NASCAR) in my lifetime, but if things are done right we can force this jealousy out into the open and show the beautiful game for what it is not what fans of the other sports want us to think it is.

This One's for All the Marbles

With so many sporting events going on this weekend it is entirely possible that the Major League Soccer Championship game may get lost in the shuffle. The MLS Cup is on the line Sunday in Dallas and can be seen on ABC. For those that don’t know the MLS cup is one of three major pieces of silverware in American soccer, but ranks last in my mind.

The second most important award is the MLS Supporter’s Shield, which is given to the MLS regular season points leader. The Supporters Shield, won this season by DC United, also gives the winner a place in the North American Champions Cup.

The holy grail of American soccer is undoubtedly the Lamar Hunt Open Cup, the trophy given out to the winner of a single elimination tournament featuring teams from all levels of US soccer. This breeds the David versus Goliath type match ups that sports fans swoon over during March Madness. The winner of this tournament has truly beaten the best of the best in American soccer.

The MLS Cup is the finale of the past month of playoff matches including last weekend’s classics. Taylor Twellman’s game winner in the fourth minute against DC United, when starting lineups were still being shown on screen, will go down as one of the best playoff goals in the league’s history. Paul Daglish’s two goal performance was enough to push the relocated Houston Dynamo past MLS’ most despised team, the Colorado Rapids.

I know that most people don’t know as much about these teams as I do, so a little background is in order.

The New England Revolution is one of seven franchises that have seen all eleven MLS seasons. Despite that they have never hoisted the MLS Cup. They weren’t even a favorite to make it this far, but after defeating DC United in the Eastern Conference Final they have their third chance at silverware in the last five years…and their nemesis Los Angeles Galaxy didn’t even make the playoffs. This may be The Revs last chance at the title in the foreseeable future with three key players (Taylor Twellman, Clint Dempsey, and Shalrie Joseph) all likely to head overseas next year.

The Houston Dynamo are a different kind of monster. Until this year they were the San Jose Earthquakes, a team which captured two MLS Cups. Bringing that core group of players to a city which has leapt behind them the orange and white are prepared to launch an all out assault on New England this Sunday. Their star player Dwayne DeRosario has won the goal of the year award the past two years and is in the running for the award again this season. More importantly than that he led them through the summer doldrums when his striking partner Brian Ching was away at the World Cup. Ching’s return has brought the Dynamo a pair of game winning bicycle kicks including one that put them past Chivas USA in the first round of the playoffs.

Sunday’s game won’t showcase the teams with the best records in the MLS, but it will bring two teams that have come into the playoffs scorching. An offensive explosion could be seen with Twellman and Pat Noonan up front for the Revolution and Ching and DeRosario leading the attack for the Dynamo.

If there is one soccer game that you watch between now and the next World Cup, please make it this one. As a fanatic supporter of the beautiful game I am biased, but give it a chance and the game will win you over too.

New Video Game Gloriousness

OK, so that's not really a word, but I did get my copy of FIFA '07 yesterday and for once EA is moving in the right direction. Gameplay feels a lot more natural than ever before. The stamina in manager mode makes things very challenging (so far I've just done one for Chivas USA, we'll see what premier teams have).

Highlight so far was getting a brace from Kezman to beat my roommate 2-1 with Fenerbahce over Man Utd. Won the last game we played on 06 as well, 2 (3) - 2 (1) as Bristol Rovers over Boston in PKs. Needed to rub that in when the occasions come along that I happen to win.

Changes with the Seasons

So now that I'm back at school my soccer viewing has gone down significantly, except for our school team (Go Beavers!). Also my job as the Sports Editor for our paper takes up most of my time. So from now until I get inspired by the Champions League or some passing remark I will update this with my biweekly column and weekly match reports. Enjoy the flavor of Northwest Iowa soccer!

Support Your Local Side

Fall has come again and for many that means football season is right around the corner. For many colleges and universities the season kicks off on Thursday, with the rest following on Saturday (our boys start the campaign in St Paul against Bethel). In addition both Men’s and Women’s soccer kick their seasons off today at home against York. This is the most exciting time of the year for a sports fan like myself at BV.

Over the summer I spent time with the fans of the Minnesota Thunder soccer team. Let me tell you, those guys and gals know how to give a team some home field advantage. They’d bring drums, horns, flares, smoke grenades, pretty much all of the excitement you see at a European soccer match, or at some big college football games. The tailgating I did with them the more I started to think about what games would be like here in Storm Lake if that same kind of atmosphere could be recreated.

Over the past three years it seems that the atmosphere at all Beaver athletics have taken a backwards slide. Basketball in particular used to be a feared date on the schedule for conference foes. Now it has become just another game due to student apathy and the university’s aversion to anything that could possibly be construed as provocative.

So how can we restore Rollins Stadium, Siebens Fieldhouse, and so on to their former status? One word: participation. Notice I didn’t say attendance. Simply being there is no longer good enough. I’ve been to soccer games at the Athletic Complex that were exponentially louder than football games even though the crowd was a hundred times smaller because the fans were cheering the entire ninety minutes. There is no reason that this passion cannot be replicated at any other sporting event on campus.

We need to give the teams every advantage we can this year. So get out there and cheer, chant, sing, scream, stand up, holler, do whatever you have to do to make he sidelines loud and rowdy. Make it clear to opposing players that they are in a hostile environment…while the game is going on. As soon as the final whistle blows the “Dark Clouds” cheer for both teams. No off field confrontations, no fights, just unabashed support of your local club during the game. We need more supporters and less passive fans. The perfect way to get a taste for this flavor of favoritism will be today at 3pm and 5pm for the soccer home openers.