My Fond Farewell to "The Best Soccer Show"

The Copa America Centenario is about to get underway. The Euros aren't far behind and MLS is in full swing, but something is missing from what some are calling the Summer of Soccer.

Less than a month ago I said The Best Soccer Show, the long-running american soccer podcast hosted by Jason Davis and Jared Dubois.  I never missed an episode but I very rarely got to listen to the show live.  Even though I learned of the show’s end with less than 12 hours notice,  I made sure that I was able to listen to most of the show live.  (My two year old prevented me from catching the beginning of the show.)  I had never called into the show before, but on this occasion I was able to participate in the show.  In fact, I had the honor of being the final caller they ever took on the show.  It was a privilege to tell Jason and Jared an abbreviated version of why their work meant so much to me and how it has literally changed my life.  As I told them, I truly cannot thank them enough for what they did for me.

My view of CenturyLink Field in Seattle.

In 2010, I was a law school student at the University of Wisconsin.  I had not devoted much time or thought to soccer in years.  I played rec soccer growing up but played my last season the summer before my sophomore year in high school ten years earlier.  Since then, I had reffed youth soccer for one summer and reffed intramural soccer in college, but I never followed the professional game at all. I doubt that I could have named ten professional teams anywhere in the world at that point.  I would not have been able to name many more players, past or present.

I would pay some attention when the World Cup came around, but that was about as far as I would go.  Once the World Cup was over, I would basically be unaware of soccer until the next World Cup. Even then, I would not know the players on my own national team and I would scarcely understand what was going on on the field tactically or strategically other than if the ball was going toward the goal I wanted it to go toward.

The order of events from 2010 is a bit blurry in my memory, but I do not think the order of events matters. I remember watching the England match with my brother at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Madison. I remember a group of law students huddled around one person's laptop as we watched what looked to be the dying breaths of the tournament for the USA, only to see Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan and Ian Darke create one of the most dramatic moments in the history of american sports. Some time during that summer, either as a primer for the World Cup or as a “what else is there” for after the tournament, a friend of mine introduced me to The American Soccer Show podcast.

Jason Davis and Zach Woosley (a.k.a. The Ginge) were the host of the show talking about all things american soccer.  My interest in the game remained almost exclusively with the men’s national team, so I did not care about MLS or any other professional league except as it pertained to the national team or national team players.  Still, I listened for when those things I did care about would come up.

Not long after I started listening, Woosley stepped away from the show and was replaced by Jared DuBois. The balance and chemistry between Jason and Jared meant that even when I had no idea who or what they were talking about, I found them entertaining as much as informative. Jared, being a fan of the LA Galaxy provided a different perspective as compared to Jason's general MLS fan perspective. I had never followed any sport without having a favorite team basically handed to me as a birthright, but I did not have that with soccer. Hearing the different ways that they were fans but the passion they both still had for the game was contagious to me. I do not think I realized at the time how much of an impact the juxtaposition of their perspectives had on me. It made me able to just appreciate the game without needing to pick a team.

So, I listened and enjoyed. I learned about how MLS was so different from other leagues and other american sports. I learned about what other leagues mattered to Americans. I learned about the problems of not having soccer-specific stadiums. I learned what the Gold Cup, Confederations Cup, Copa America and the Euros were. I learned about how the federations and confederations work and how shady all of that is. I never felt like I was learning because the most important thing I learned was how fun it could be to talk about these things. Soccer did not have to be hidden behind an impenetrable wall of snobbery.

Along the way, the American Soccer Show became The Best Soccer Show. The information and fun never changed though. The Best Soccer Show may have been an aspirational or ironic title choice, but to me it was an honest one. The show stoked my desire to learn the game better, to understand it and seek out new perspectives as well. They made me feel included even though I had no idea the depths of what soccer was really about. They helped give me the confidence to experience it for myself.

In 2010, I experienced my first national team game at a friendly in Chicago. That same friend who introduced me to the show, Zach, convinced me to go.  It was an amazing experience. A couple of years later, while visiting my father in Boston, we went to watch an MLS match between the Revolution and the Red Bulls. I was excited to see Thierry Henry and Juan Agudelo play that night, but neither of them did.  I was pretty disappointed to not see Henry play, but I did not learn for some time that he never played on turf. Agudelo, though earning his first international appearance already, had not yet established himself as an every-game starter for the Revs. Still, at that point, it was safe to say that I was no longer the oblivious, theoretical soccer fan I had been, but it did not stop there.

My brother (left), dad (center) and me at Gillette Stadium before
our first MLS game. Yes, we're repping our other sports love.

Zach (left) and I at CenturyLink Field

In June of 2013, Zach and I (and our pregnant wives), flew to Seattle for the World Cup qualifier between the US and Panama.  While we were there, I almost literally bumped into Alexi Lalas as he was coming out of the Nike Store following a recording of his former podcast with Taylor Twellman.  On the street, we passed Jermaine Jones (who Zach had played pickup ball with while spending time in Germany the summer before Jones turned pro).  I shook hands with Cobi Jones at the American Outlaws party the night before the game.  We marched through the streets of Seattle to the match.  I do not actually remember much of the game.  I remember the atmosphere and the feelings.  I remember being part of something special.  I remember the energy.  I remember that for those 90 minutes, there was no place on earth I wanted to be more than right where I was.

Since 2010, I have been actively finding new friends to watch soccer with.  I have even started watching MLS and other leagues.  As opposed to years past when I would make minimal effort to partake in the World Cup, in 2014 I was having people over for the games, even people who were were not “soccer people.”  I never wanted to be the obnoxious soccer fan, but if people showed an interest, I was and am more than willing to help them get over that barrier to entry that kept me out for so long.  I had gone from being on the outside looking in, to being the guy holding the door open for other people.

Sharing the game with my daughter before she
could even hold her head up.

When my daughter was born, I wasted no time in sharing my love of soccer with her.  Days after bringing her home from the hospital, I remember sitting on the couch with her in my arms with her empty bottle of milk on the end table and an EPL game on the TV.  Once she could walk, I put a soccer ball in front of her.  It was not about trying to turn her into the next Carli Lloyd.  It was, and is, about sharing the game I love with someone I love and hoping that some day we can share that love together.  When my son is born this summer, you better believe I will do the same with him.

I do not remember when the rumors started to swirl, but I probably first heard about them on The Best Soccer Show.  The Copa America Centenario was coming to the US. When Zach and I first heard these rumors, our thoughts were identical: if the US played close to us, we were going.  Through all of the personal twists in our lives since then, along with the real questions over whether the tournament would even be held, Jason and Jared were on my playlist and always near the top. They were the buddies I talked soccer with since Zach and I have not lived closed together since college.  Jason and Jared were the guys who, when anything big happened, you wanted to hear what they had to say about it whether you agreed or disagreed with them.  They never knew me other than through fleeting twitter interactions or that final call on The Best Soccer Show, but they were my friends.

No, they ARE my friends.

While The Best Soccer Show is done, Jason and Jared are not gone, nor are they even done podcasting together.  Even if they were, the gift they gave to me is worth a lifetime of my gratitude and friendship.  They gave me the chance to fall in love with the beautiful game.  They opened the door to new experiences and people that I never would have encountered had I not been willing to open myself up to them.  The Best Soccer Show was the catalyst for that by helping me build the basic knowledge base to not constantly feel lost in the soccer world and by always reminding me that above all else, soccer is supposed to be fun.

On my way back home from Chicago on June 7, I will not be able to look forward to calling in or tweeting at The Best Soccer Show about what happened like I had been hoping since “Copa Fantastico” became a reality.  I will not be able to look forward to their reaction podcast.  There won’t be a podcast.  My friends do not do that anymore. As sad as that makes me, that sadness is overwhelmed by the gratitude and happiness that comes from knowing that without Jason Davis and Jared DuBois, I would not have been there in the first place.  I would not have been any of the amazing places soccer has brought me or will bring me.  

Thank you, my friends.  You are The Best.

I'm Out on College Football

The title says it all.  I'm done with college football.  

I should qualify that a bit.  I love the sport of football.  I love the Wisconsin Badgers.  I was a student season ticket holder for 2 years.  My wife and I loved attending Badger games while I was in school at Madison.  That being said, I can't tolerate college football as a whole anymore.  

College football is a game where the rich get richer.  Rich schools make more money.  Great teams get the the best players.  There are no "student athletes" at the higher echelons of college football.  Okay, they're there, but they're not the ones who usually dominate the conversation.  At the top level, college sports is really professional sports in disguise.  We all try to pretend it's something different.  What we end up is the worst of the amateur athletics that college football is supposed to be, mixed with the bad parts of professional football.  The greed, money and politics overpower the school pride and love of the game that supposedly makes college football so special.

I'm sick of Alabama.  I'm sick Ohio State.  I'm sick of Nick Saban.  I'm sick of Urban Meyer.  I'm sick of Johnny Football, Reggie Bush, Pete Carroll, Joe Paterno, and all of the jerks who pretend that top level college football is about building character, playing for your school or anything other than making money.

This fall, the attention that I used to pay to non-Badger college football will be focused on the English Premier League.  Sure, the EPL has the same problems that college football.  In FIFA, soccer may have the only governing body more corrupt and hypocritical than the NCAA, but at least professional soccer doesn't pretend to be anything else.

Pro-Bowl Solutions

The Pro-Bowl is a joke.  It is a waste of television airwaves and it should not be watched by anybody, football fan or not.  The players don't care about the game, they don't take it seriously and they're only in it for the free trip to Hawaii.

Rather than complain without offering a solution, I am here to offer a legitimate solution that could actually help make the Pro-Bowl into something remotely watchable, while keeping the party/celebration atmosphere that players seem to actually want:  Make it flag football.  That's what people are comparing it to anyway.

Here's the proposal:  a school yard style flag-football tournament.  Four teams, selected by 4 captains, selected from the Pro-Bowl participants.  Players play both sides of the ball, the games take between 15 and 30 minutes of real time, and the entire process, starting with picking teams until the champions are crowned takes the same amount of time as the game does now.

Why is this better?  Most importantly, the non-contact nature of the game means that players shouldn't have the same fear of injury that they do with a supposedly full-contact game.  Players understandably don't want to get hurt in a meaningless game.  Taking the contact out is the most you can do to reduce the injury risk without eliminating the game entirely.

The current game tries to put a legitimate veneer over what is not a legitimate NFL game.  By removing the pretense that the game is anything but grown men at recess, and the added danger that comes from full contact football, both the players and the viewers can appreciate the game for what it is.  No helmets means we can hear and see the players better, which will allow everybody to appreciate the lighthearted nature of the game.  Flag football would also lend itself to the big plays and the displays of athleticism that people want to see from an exhibition game.

I am not sure that the Pro-Bowl can be saved, but I think that there are some things that can be done to give it every chance to succeed.  I would like to see something similar to this implemented    It might actually make the game watchable again, if it ever was.