Good Seats Still Available

[We celebrate the amazing life of the legendary Pelé with a reissue of our 2018 conversation with the man chiefly responsible for coaxing the "Black Pearl" out of retirement in 1975 to join the NASL's then-fledgling New York Cosmos - Clive Toye!]

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Soccer America columnist (and Episode #6 interviewee) Paul Gardner summed up this week's Hall of Fame guest in his May 2015 commentary:

“The debt owed by American soccer to Clive Toye is a vast one. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say, flatly, that without Toye’s blind faith in the sport in the 1970s, pro soccer in the USA would have withered and died. Yes, Phil Woosnam and Lamar Hunt and Bob Hermann were there too. But in those unpromising years it was Toye’s voice -- it came in a steady flow of ridiculously optimistic press releases and grandiose plans for a future that few others even dared to ponder -- that called loudest.

“The New York Cosmos general manager credited with turning that league’s fortunes around when he signed Pele to a contract in 1975. Toye, who was born in England and came to the United States in 1967 at the age of 33, was president of three North American Soccer League teams – the Cosmos, Chicago Sting and Toronto Blizzard – and general manager of the [original National Professional Soccer League and subsequent NASL] Baltimore Bays.  [He] was an official of the NASL in helping it through its crisis year of 1969 and in its final months in 1985 – and helped to found the third American Soccer League in 1988.

“There has always been the spirit of a showman in Toye, and surely it was that spirit that enabled Toye to overlook the virtual collapse of the old North American Soccer League and to see instead a glittering future for the sport in the USA, even to declare to anyone who was listening -- and not many were in those days -- the preposterous notion that the USA should begin preparing to stage the World Cup.

“And when the NASL, by the skin of its teeth and by the mad devotion of Toye et al., did survive, it was Toye who gave the reborn league its glittering image with his invention of the Cosmos, with his canny maneuvering and dealing, who brought Pele and Beckenbauer to New York.  Showmanship indeed.”

Toye (A Kick in the Grass: The Slow Rise and Quick Demise of the NASL; Anywhere in the World) joins host Tim Hanlon for a lyrical and anecdote-filled journey through the pro league that he helped create, later put to rest, and which ultimately shored up the long-term foundation of the “beautiful game” in America.

[We kick off our holiday break this week with a deep descent into the "Good Seats" archives - and an eyebrow-raising revisit of the enigmatic Continental Indoor Soccer League of the 1990s with former play-by-play broadcaster Kenn Tomasch!]

Former sportscaster and fellow defunct pro sports enthusiast Kenn Tomasch joins host Tim Hanlon to dig deep into the two-season saga of the Indiana (née Indianapolis) Twisters of the Continental Indoor Soccer League – the mid-90s summertime indoor soccer circuit hatched by a collective of team and arena owners from the NBA and NHL to keep their facilities humming during their respective "off"-seasons.

CISL franchises controlled by entities outside the big-league fraternity were also part of the mix (accounting for half of the eventual 18 teams during the league's five-year run from 1993-97) – including the tumultuously tenuous Twisters, who cycled through two separate ownership groups as well as a temporary spell of league receivership during its brief 21-month existence.

As the radio "Voice of the Twisters," Tomasch was there for all of it, including:

• A rousing home debut on June 21, 1996 at Indianapolis' Market Square Arena that saw the club drop an entertaining 7-6 overtime decision to the Washington Warthogs;
• Dwindling announced home-game crowds of barely 2,000+ just months later;
• Co-owner Rodney Goins ceding his role as president mid-season to become an active player on the Twisters roster – debuting as US pro sports' first-ever player-owner on August 23, 1996;
• Becoming "wards of the league" two weeks later when Goins and his co-owner brother suspend operations – and team radio broadcasts;
• New ownership, team name, logo, colors – and a surprising second-place regular season finish in 1997;
• Losing home-field playoff advantage due to a scheduling conflict, and ultimately an early exit from a potential title run; AND
• The abrupt folding of the venerable San Diego Sockers just days before the 1997 season that foreshadowed the CISL's demise later in the year.

​In 1966, when a still-young Dallas Cowboys franchise ended six years of NFL futility with its first winning season and a championship game appearance, the team's founder/owner Clint Murchison, Jr. was already dreaming bigger. In order to vault his club into the league's elite, Murchison knew he needed a better home situation than as a renter at the aging Cotton Bowl in Dallas' Fair Park - one where he could eventually generate his own direct revenue streams, while simultaneously elevating fans' game-day experience. Clint, Jr.s' s son Burk Murchison and Dallas Morning News writer Michael Granberry ("Hole in the Roof: The Dallas Cowboys, Clint Murchison Jr., and the Stadium That Changed American Sports Forever") join the podcast this week to help us delve into the history and mythology of Texas Stadium - the Cowboys' groundbreaking suburban Irving, TX home for 38 seasons (1971-2008) that not only fulfilled their owner's ahead-of-its-time vision, but also became the de facto template for modern-day sports facility expectations - for better or worse.

​We're back from our extended Thanksgiving break with an inside look at the venerable sports venue that single-handedly elevated 1960s-era Atlanta to "major league" status, and cemented its place among the most important American cities. Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium - known simply as "Atlanta Stadium" when it opened in 1965 - was the long-time home of Major League Baseball's Braves (1966-96), the National Football League's Falcons (1966-91), two incarnations of the North American Soccer League's Atlanta Chiefs, and college football's postseason Peach Bowl (1968-92). And nobody knew its inner workings better than the facility's hard-working "ground crew" who tended to the whims and vicissitudes of the teams, players, owners, and even fans that called the stadium home for 30+ memorable years. 1970s stadium crew members Harvey Lee Frazier and David Fisher - along with "as-told-to" author Austin Gisriel ("Ground Crew Confidential") - join the podcast to share a bevy of little-known "behind-the scenes" memories of the facility that helped put Atlanta on the map - with the help of influential figures like Hank Aaron, Phil Woosnam, Ted Turner, the Beatles, and even high-wire great Karl Wallenda.

[We near the end of our Thanksgiving leftovers this week with a June 2018 archive re-release favorite featuring US Soccer Hall of Fame broadcaster JP Dellacamera - currently in Qatar covering this year's FIFA World Cup for Fox Sports!]

Fox Sports soccer play-by-play broadcaster extraordinaire JP Dellacamera joins the podcast this week to discuss a pioneering career in sports announcing spanning over 30 years – including calling this year's 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia – his ninth consecutive men's quadrennial assignment since Mexico '86.

Widely acknowledged as the original voice of US Soccer, Dellacamera's calls have become synonymous with some of modern-day American soccer's most indelible moments – including his accounts of the US Women's National Team's dramatic penalty kick shootout victory over China in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup, and Paul Caligiuri's historic "Shot Heard 'Round the World" against Trinidad & Tobago in the final game of 1989 CONCACAF qualifying that punched the US Men's National Team's ticket for Italy '90 – ending a 40-year World Cup finals drought, and reorienting the sport's trajectory in the 'States for decades to come.

The road to broadcasting global soccer's marquee events has by no means been a straight and narrow one, however, and we (of course) chat with Dellacamera about some of the more memorable "forgotten" stops made along the way, including:

• Talking his way into his professional debut calling local TV games for the 1978 NASL expansion Detroit Express;
• Handling radio play-by-play for the American Soccer League's ALPO dog food-sponsored Pennsylvania Stoners;
• Parlaying years of minor league hockey broadcast experience into lead announcing duties for indoor soccer's Pittsburgh Spirit of the fledgling MISL;
• Cementing his stature as the voice of US women's soccer as the play-by-play lead for the 2001 launch of the WUSA; and
• Returning to his first love of pro hockey – finally at the NHL level – with the short-lived Atlanta Thrashers.

[Our Thanksgiving gift this week is a December 2017 archive re-release favorite with world-renowned singer/entertainer Pat Boone!]

We usher in the holidays and round out our debut season with the inimitable Pat Boone – an American entertainment legend and inveterate business entrepreneur, with a life-long passion for the sport of basketball. In a career spanning over six decades (and counting!), the incomparable Boone has just about done it all in the fields of music, film, television, and stage, as well as the pursuit of a wide variety of business interests – including being the majority owner of the American Basketball Association's charter Bay Area franchise, the Oakland Oaks.

Denied the ability to play its NBA All-Star marquee signing (and cross-town San Francisco Warriors star) Rick Barry for the inaugural 1967-68 ABA season, Boone's Oaks endured a league-worst 22-56 record, amid dismally low crowds at the brand-new Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena. Barry's official arrival the next season (despite a knee injury that curtailed his play after only 35 games), paired with the hiring of two-time NBA champion head coach Alex Hannum, and an influx of future perennial All-Star talent like Doug Moe and Larry Brown, instantly rejuvenated the club's competitive profile, as the Oaks zoomed to a league-leading 60-18 "worst-to-first" regular season record and a dominating run in the playoffs to capture the 1968-89 league championship.

Despite the reversal of fortune on the hardwood, Boone lost a fortune at the box office (in excess of $2 million in just two seasons), as neither Barry nor a title provided any significant lift in ticket sales – or visible hope of near-term future improvement in the competitive Bay Area market. Former Baltimore Bullets NBA owner (and later Major Indoor Soccer League co-founder) Earl Foreman purchased the franchise (and its debts) from Boone for $2.6 million in August of 1969 and moved them to the Nation's Capital, where they became the one-year Washington Caps, replete with a reluctant Barry in tow.

In this revealing conversation, Boone recounts: the events that led him to become a pro basketball owner; the tortuous journey of landing Rick Barry; the thrill of winning an ABA championship; the unwitting blank check that kept the Oaks financially afloat, but nearly sank Boone personally and professionally; and why, despite his continued passion for the sport, he never pursued another professional basketball ownership opportunity in the decidedly more stable NBA in later years.

Plus: a ring more expensive Elizabeth Taylor's; dunking over Bill Russell; comparing pro titles with Mark Cuban; and our quest for footage of the 1978 CBS/NBA Three-on-Three Tournament!

In 1974, a small Midlands underwear firm changed soccer forever when it won the contract as official kit supplier for England's national team - featuring a tradition-busting combination of bright colors, definitional striping, and, uniquely, prominently positioned manufacturer's logos on both shirt and shorts. Admiral Sportswear's bold designs and distinctive branding - soon outfitting storied club sides like Manchester United, Leicester City, Norwich City, West Ham, and Sheffield United - quickly caught fans' attention with their detailed "replica" versions, which offered the most ardent supporters a novel opportunity to literally dress like their favorite pro players. Sports documentarian/author Andy Wells ("Get Shirty: The Rise & Fall of Admiral Sportswear") tells us the story of how Admiral unwittingly invented today's now-multi-billion-dollar replica jersey industry - while revolutionizing the worlds of sports commerce and street fashion alike. If you followed any of the franchises from the late 1970s/early 1980s North American Soccer League or Major Indoor Soccer League (or even the American Soccer League's Columbus Magic) - chances are you remember (or even owned) an Admiral shirt!

An important but surprisingly little-remembered story in the history of pro football - and a turning point in the city of New Orleans' eventually successful pursuit of an NFL franchise - is the subject of this week's hugely intriguing conversation with Erin Grayson Sapp, author of "Moving the Chains: The Civil Rights Protest That Saved the Saints And Transformed New Orleans". From the book's dust-jacket: We remember the 1966 birth of the New Orleans Saints as a shady quid pro quo between the NFL commissioner and a Louisiana congressman. Moving the Chains is the untold story of the athlete protest that necessitated this backroom deal, as New Orleans scrambled to respond to a very public repudiation of the racist policies that governed the city. In the decade that preceded the 1965 athlete walkout, a reactionary backlash had swept through Louisiana, bringing with it a host of new segregation laws and enough social strong-arming to quash any complaints, even from suffering sports promoters. Nationwide protests had assailed the Tulane Green Wave, the Sugar Bowl, and the AFL's preseason stop-offs, and only legal loopholes and a lot of luck kept football alive in the city. Still, live it did, and in January 1965, locals believed they were just a week away from landing their own pro franchise. All they had to do was pack Tulane Stadium for the city's biggest audition yet, the AFL All-Star game. Ultimately, all fifty-eight Black and white teammates walked out of the game to protest the town's lingering segregation practices and public abuse of Black players. Following that, love of the gridiron prompted and excused something out of sync with the city's branding: change. In less than two years, the Big Easy made enough progress to pass a blitz inspection by Black and white NFL officials and receive the long-desired expansion team. The story of the athletes whose bravery led to change quickly fell by the wayside. Locals framed desegregation efforts as proof that the town had been progressive and tolerant all along. Furthermore, when a handshake between Pete Rozelle and Hale Boggs gave America its first Super Bowl and New Orleans its own club, the city proudly clung to that version of events, never admitting the cleanup even took place.

There are few moments in sports more thrilling, compelling, or inspiring than a comeback story. From the resurgence of a sports figure to a team that defies the odds for an unexpected win, to someone who never quite made it, finally getting their shot, these stories are the lifeblood of sports.

Nobody knows this more than former NFL star linebacker, Ryan Shazier who scratched and clawed his way back from paralysis after a devastating on-field hit, to walk back on a football field just a few years later under his own power. It's the stuff movies are made of -- and now it's the stuff "Don't Call It A Comeback" will bring you each week.

"Don't Call It A Comeback" will spotlight the biggest sports comeback story of the week and dive deep into every aspect of what makes each tale more incredible than the last.

Hosted by Ryan Shazier and his pal, TV writer, radio personality, and sports superfan, Dave Dameshek, "Don't Call It A Comeback" will shout out the underdogs, Cinderellas, unlikely heroes, and surprising achievements all across the sports landscape -- and explore the highs, lows and hurdles each subject faced on their triumphant comeback journey.

Listen to "Don't Call It A Comeback" now wherever you pod!

As preparations for next month's 2022 FIFA World Cup spectacle in Qatar enter their final stages, we turn our attention back to the pitch for an intriguing look back at a seminal international "friendly" tournament earnestly designed to crown a world club soccer champion - and the unwitting genesis for today's officially-sanctioned FIFA Club World Cup competition. Soccer writer and part-time English lower-division amateur coach Dan Williamson ("When Two Worlds Collide: The Intercontinental Cup Years") takes us on a journey from 1960 to 2004, when the Intercontinental Cup (later known as the one-match "Toyota Cup" from 1980-onward) ambitiously sought to determine the world's best club team by annually pitting the champions of the two historically strongest continents - Europe and South America - against each other in front of an internationally televised audience. ​Although never formally recognized by the sport's governing body at the time, soccer media and fans alike reveled in clashes featuring some of the modern era's most iconic franchises and legendary players - and had no problem acknowledging each year's victors as the not-so-unofficial club champions of the world. We dig into the Cup's controversial (and sometimes violent) clashes of the late 1960s; its decline (including numerous team boycotts) during the 70s; a competition-saving, Japanese-sponsored rebirth in 1980 - and the eventual absorption and expansion of the series into FIFA's formal orbit in the 2000s - replete with the retroactive (and ironic) reclassification of its winners as (now-)"official" world champions. + + +

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