Sometimes you root for the coach

After being removed from the newspaper business for nearly two years, I’ve finally adjusted to being a fan again.

Scott Adamson’s column on soccer appears periodically, usually when he’s feeling especially soccerish.

I answer to no publishers, editors or advertisers, so I can cheer for who I want to while ignoring what (and who) doesn’t interest me. It’s liberating.

But one thing I’ve noticed while transitioning from paid journalist to blogger-for-fun is I tend to root for people more than teams.

While covering Anderson University, for example, I got to know soccer coaches Samar Azem, Ciaran Traquair and John Murphy. I enjoyed my interactions with them – I like them as people and they’re terrific coaches – but you have to keep a certain amount of distance from those you write about in order to maintain objectivity.

That’s no longer an issue.

Azem and Traquair are the coaches of the women’s teams at Campbell University and The Citadel, respectively, while Murphy guides the men’s squad at Georgia Southern.

Those are three schools that were – for the most part – off of my radar during my journalism days. Now, though, I find myself following and cheering for them because I follow and cheer for their coaches.

Which brings me to Mike Noonan, the head men’s soccer coach at Clemson and a man who, last Tuesday, registered his 100th victory as head of the Tigers in a 2-0 win over Furman. Assistant Phil Jones has been there for all of them, so kudos to him as well.

I had the privilege of covering Noonan’s team for a few years, including Clemson’s Final Four run back in 2015 when the squad finished 17-3-4 and reached the national championship game. Like Azem, Traquair and Murphy, he’s someone I came to know – and like.

His coaching demeanor always struck me as “calm intensity,” although there are certain times when intensity is the alpha quality. It’s quite obvious that he expects the very best out of his players from whistle to whistle, and those same players know that’s what they’re getting from him.

As someone who is passionate about soccer, covering Clemson is a blast. Both the men’s and women’s programs are top shelf, and Riggs Field is a picturesque venue.

It might have originally been designed for American football but man, it’s perfect for association football.

So now – since I no longer write about the Tigers as part of a paid gig – I get to sit back and enjoy the show.

And so far in 2019, Noonan’s charges have put on a great one, racing out to an 8-1 record (2-1 in the ACC) and a No. 4 ranking in the United Soccer Coaches poll.

Last season – a rebuilding one – Clemson’s streak of five consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances was snapped.

It looks like a new one is about to start.

The calendar hasn’t even flipped to October this year and already Noonan’s charges have eclipsed their victory total from 2018, with conquests of Notre Dame, Duke and South Carolina already in the books.

Following last night’s 3-2 overtime road loss to No. 7 Wake Forest, Noonan stands at 313-175-41 overall with a 100-62-28 mark earned in eight-plus seasons with the Tigers.

Noonan would be the first to tell you that his players get the wins – not him – and he’d be right.

But there are few in the business who do a better job of putting their footballers in a position to succeed, and I was genuinely happy to see him reach the 100-win milestone.

So add Clemson to Campbell, The Citadel and Georgia Southern as soccer programs I cheer for throughout the season because I’m a fan of the people who lead them.

There’s nothing at all wrong with “rooting for laundry,” but sometimes the person on the sideline wearing the school colors makes it really easy to do.

A football league of your own

The Freedom Football League vows to kick off its inaugural season next May with a lineup that includes the Austin Revolution, Birmingham Kings, Connecticut Underground, Florida Strong, Oakland Panthers, Ohio Players, Oklahoma City Power, Portland Progress, San Diego Warriors and St. Louis Independence.

Scott Adamson writes about alternative pro football leagues because it makes him happy, Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

It still has no coaches, players or stadiums, so whether that target date will be hit is anyone’s guess at this point.

Should it actually get off the ground, however, I’m interested to see if it sticks to its planned business model.

If so, tackle football fans will truly have a league to call their own.

According to its website:

The Freedom Football League was formed in 2017 by a legion of former NFL football players, entrepreneurs, football operations experts, health and wellness thought-leaders, innovative legal minds and financial visionaries committed to reimagining, rethinking, reinventing, and reforming professional American Football.

The current NFL ownership, with a market capitalization of over $100 billion is closely held and controlled by 32 wealthy billionaire families and generates, on average, over $100 million of annual profits per team per year. This ownership schism creates an exploitative dynamic between ownership and the players and coaches, neglects the long-term health and well-being of the players, and gouges the fans with outrageous ticket prices.

The Freedom Football League is rethinking all aspects of the game of football and it starts with the ownership and money. The FFL’s teams will be owned by a unique consortium that includes former NFL players, active players from each FFL team, the local franchise operators, and most uniquely, you the fan.

 You can sign up as a potential owner right there on the website and even pledge an investment amount (which must be less than $25,000). Founding stakeholders include Ricky Williams, Simeon Rice, Terrell Owens and Jeff Garcia, and management teams are already in place at a couple of clubs.

It’s intriguing, and would certainly change the dynamic of a sport that – professionally, at least – is locked into franchise mode.

Like most ideas, however, it’s not new.

The late, great Dave Dixon – the man who pioneered the United States Football League – had a similar organization in mind just a couple of years after the USFL played its final game.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to reintroduce you to the Fan Ownership Football League (which also flirted with the name American Football Federation).

“I think there is always room for a new league,” Dixon told the Associated Press in October, 1987. “It would combine the best of the two concepts – private ownership and public ownership. I want my team owners to invest $2.5 million and then agree to sell off 75 percent ownership of their team in the second year to individual season-ticket holders.”

Dixon said the league was looking to start in cities such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Detroit, as well as towns that didn’t have pro football.

“Places like Sacramento finds itself in a position where it wants an NFL franchise, but probably won’t get one,” Dixon said. “The NFL has never expanded unless it did so to choke off competition or by the threat of an antitrust suit.”

The talk of a new league quickly died down, but Dixon revived the idea again in 1995 – just days after the Cleveland Browns announced they were moving to Baltimore and the Houston Oilers were in the process of relocating to Nashville.

This gave the entrepreneur some new talking points.

“Do you think a Cleveland team majority owned by 70,000 Clevelanders would have voted to move to Baltimore?” Dixon told AP. “That 100,000 Houstonians would move to Nashville?”

In the 1995 version of the Fan Ownership Football League, Dixon said eight founding owners had put up a one-time fee of $5 million, plus $2 million to offset first-year operating expenses.

I hope they got their money back because sadly (or at least sad for those of us who crave alternative football leagues), nothing ever came of the fan-owned venture.

And while it might seem radical to those who are used to franchises, this community model is quite common in international soccer. In fact, single entity ownership is forbidden in Germany’s association football system.

In pro tackle football, though, only the Green Bay Packers of the NFL and Edmonton, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg of the CFL follow any semblance of a supporter-based ownership plan.

I’d love to see the FFL make this happen; if you invested, you could honestly say it was “your” team.

But with its first game roughly eight months away and so many questions still unanswered, the latest idea for a “Fan Ownership Football League” doesn’t seem any closer to becoming a reality than the original.

 

Birth of a hockey fan

September 21, 1976, was a big day for Birmingham, Alabama.

Scott Adamson’s sports column appears when he feels sporty.

Turns out, it was a pretty big day for me, too.

The brand new Birmingham Civic Center Coliseum opened for business – a 17,000-plus seat palace designed for sports and concerts. What I remember most as I walked through the doors were the smells … popcorn, hot dogs and just a hint of Hai Karate aftershave, which was apparently standard issue for Southern adult males.

But I wasn’t there for the olfactory sensations or a tour of the facility.

I was there for professional hockey – something as alien to Birmingham as glaciers and polar bears.

By the end of the night, however, the Civic Center felt like home. And the Birmingham Bulls became a part of my family.

Just a few months earlier, the World Hockey Association franchise was based in Toronto and known as the Toros. But owner John Bassett (who I was familiar with because he owned the Memphis Southmen of the defunct World Football League) decided to take a big gamble by moving his team to the Deep South.

The Bulls’ first introduction to fans came a few days earlier when 4,000 showed up to watch an intrasquad scrimmage. On this night, though, the National Hockey League’s Atlanta Flames provided the opposition in an exhibition game, and it was hard to imagine a better opening gambit.

I don’t think anyone had a clue how many people would show up on a Tuesday night (although 4,000 season tickets had been sold), but by the time the teams took the ice 8,868 sports fans were in the building.

I try to avoid using the word “awesome” because it’s so overused it has lost much of its meaning.

But man, that night was awesome.

From the moment the skaters left the tunnel and glided in formation on the frozen pond, I was mesmerized.

But, I was also prepared.

When it was announced in June that the Toros were headed to Alabama, I made a point to read everything I could about the sport – the rules, the history, and the stars.

Birmingham, for example, featured Frank Mahovlich, who was already one of the most decorated players in hockey history.

The “Big M” had played on six Stanley Cup-winning teams, and was a cinch for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Paul Henderson was another Bulls standout. The two-time NHL All-Star led Canada to victory over the Soviet Union in the famous 1972 Summit Series, scoring the game-winning goals in the sixth, seventh and eighth games.

And then there was Mark Napier, a 19-year-old phenom who was named WHA Rookie of the Year in 1975.

The public address announcer spent much of the night explaining nuances of the game, but I was already a step ahead of him. I studied hockey rule books like I was prepping for a test, and not only knew why the ref blew his whistle but was happy to explain it to anyone sitting near me.

It was the first time I had ever seen this high speed collision sport up close and personal, and I was hooked. It was ice skating with attitude, and I absolutely loved it.

With the death of the WFL less than a year earlier, I wondered if there was any team – in any sport – that could fill the void.

After a couple of hours, I wondered no more.

For the record, Birmingham won the inter-league showdown in overtime, 7-6. Napier scored three goals, his last coming with just 46 seconds remaining in O.T. to clinch it for the WHA side.

I don’t know how many fans understood everything that was going on, but they all understood what a game-winning goal was. The place erupted when Napier’s backhander flew past Atlanta goalie Dan Bouchard’s glove and the red light behind goal lit up.

Normally all I would ever talk about in a given September would be football, but thanks to one magical night in the Magic City, hockey moved to the top of the chart and remained there throughout the Bulls’ history.

Even though the WHA is now just a distant (but fond) memory, it brought professional hockey to my hometown. Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier – Birmingham was never one of the league’s better teams, but the Bulls faced some of the best players on the planet. I’m extremely lucky I got to see them in the flesh.

And while that exhibition game 43 years ago didn’t count, don’t ever tell me it didn’t matter.

It did … and still does.