Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Sept. 12, 1996, edition 1 / Page 6
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Page 6 The Blue Banner September 12, 1996 SLAPSHOTS Soccer on the rise, fans multiply Brian Castle Columnist What’s the most exciting new sports league in America today? The answer to that ques tion is easy—Major League Soccer (MLS). MLS is the first attempt in over ten years to initiate a first-division professional soccer league in the United States, soccer’s last fron tier. Many observers thought that soccer would never succeed in the reluctant American mar ket, especially after the demise of the one time monstrously successful North American Soccer League (NASL). But the NASL suffered from its own mis management, as it allowed the New York Cosmos franchise to monopolize the talent pool by signing virtually every major star of the seventies and eighties—Peld, Giorgio Chinaglia, and Franz Beckenbauer—while the other teams fought valiantly with rosters full of nobodies. MLS founder Alan Rothenberg, the guru ojf U.S. soccer, has apparently learned from pro fessional soccer’s past failings. Rothenberg has taken great care to ensure that MLS will be the permanent face of professional soccer in the U.S. First, Rothenberg courted and won com mercial clout for the new venture by signing huge corporate sponsorship deals with the giants of sports advertising—Nike, Budweiser, and MasterCard—which enabled the nascent league to ink a high-exposure television deal with the Capital Cities duo of ABC and ESPN, along with Unavision, a Spanish-lan- guage satellite service. Next, Rothenberg awarded franchises to ten cities, as he included nor only traditional sports markets like New York and Los Ange les, but areas with burgeoning youth pro grams like San Jose, California, and Colum bus, Ohio. An ambitious marketing depart ment came up with adventurous nicknames and funky uniforms to make them each easily distinguishable from the rest. The San Jose Clash, for instance, are named for a seminal seventies punk band. The Tampa Bay Mutiny sport uniforms are colored in navy and puke-green. And the Columbus Crew’s crest features three intimidating fac tory workers, clad in the requisite hard hats. Finally, Rothenberg has done a masterful iob of manaeine the allotment of olavers, particularly the stars, of the new league. Each team is required to stay within the framework of a tightly-regulated salary cap, which pre vents the establishment of a New York Cos mos-type dynasty. The league has also focused on soccer’s in herent ethnic diversity to make its place in the country that proudly considers itself a melt ing pot by aggressively recruiting foreign stars from Europe (Italy’s Roberto Donadoni), Africa (South Africa’s Doctor Khumalo), and especially South America (Bolivia’s Marco “El Diablo” Etcheverry and Colombia’s flam boyant Carlos Valderrama). By spreading these talented soccer ambassadors around the league, MLS has takfen an inclusive marketing ap proach that cuts across the United States’ many racial lines. In conjunction with the home-grown stars from the 1994 World Cup squad (Alexi Lalas, Eric Wynalda, Cobi Jones, and company), the foreign stars have given MLS consistent star quality from best team to worst. Has the new league not only survived but proven a success in the fickle American mar ket as well? The answer has to be a resounding yes! The proof is in the pudding. The league- wide attendance average of 25,000 per game has more than doubled Rothenberg’s projec tions. The two major rharket clubs have drawn rabid crowds in excess of 70,000 on several occasions. Look for Major League Soccer to establish itself as one of the premier sports leagues in the country, as the American society contin ues to diversify in the decades to come. OUTDOORS Rafting novice hits the French Broad River St. Claire Ready Staff Writer You step into the water, then ease into the raft. It’s just you and a sheath of air-filled rubber. Fear sends tiny shudders of alarm through your system. Look all around. Are you sure you want to do this? You glance over to your guide, the trained pro fessional. “You know how you can tell if a river guide is lying?” asks Joe Potter, a French Broad Rafting Company guide. “When they move their lips.” As the raft glides out onto the river, Potter emits a blood-curdling, “Whooooo-hoooo!!” reminiscent of a Scottish war-cry. What could pos sibly go wrong? The guide tells you to hook your foot under a rubber tube in the middle of the raft, and then to perch precariously on the outside edge of thfc pe rimeter tubing. This is it, you wonder? What about seatbelts, or ropes to tie a leg to the raft? Shouldn’t you be inside the raft, not lolling about on the very edge of the boat itself? Panic sets in. The raft hits a slow pool of water and Potter offers some per tinent information. The rapids range from Class I to Class VI. Today, the highest rapid will be Class IV. The raft sets off down the beau tiful, brown, and somewhat be draggled French Broad River. Pot ter explains that it is brown be cause of all the rain and this is why the water level is so high. High? No one told you anything about Class IV rapids. It seems to be a rafting novice rule of thumb to ask the guide the same question at least fifteen times over the dura tion of the trip. Potter says it’s a Class I rapid. Barely. The next hour is spent tossing and turning in the water, filled with the mindless barks of “Paddle A group of w(iite-water rafters enjoys a day on t(ie French Brood River the water being too high. The first round of rapids appear, seemingly harmless. Whooooosh. Into them. Bouncing up and down. Water splashing you, soak ing you. Not so bad, you think. You look over at your guide and ask him if that was one of the Photo courtesy of Joe Potter/Frendi Brood Rafting Compony forward!” “Back paddle!” and “Drift!” Your foot falls asleep be cause you have it wedged in tightly underneath the tube to prevent falling out of the raft. They will have to cut your lifeless foot out, later. Finally. The time has come. The first of the Class IV rapids, “Needle Falls.” A deep breath is necessary. You try not to look at the drop off the ledge approaching you at a fast clip. You are moving towards it. You paddle as if fire-spitting de mons are at your back. Rushing wa ter, river, spray in your mouth, a feeling of power surging through you. Then it is done, over. But not quite. It seems as though your guide has other plans. You and he are going to do the next-to-impossible, surf the rapid, paddle back, then catch the water and skim on top of it. Terrific. The raft hits the frothy water. Then the water hits the raft, hard. Heads starts to spin. The raft starts to spin, around and around, side to side. Potter throws his body over the edges of the raft, screaming, “Hang onto your paddle!” You have no idea what to do, so you get a death-grip on the ropes at the side of the raft. Water rushes into the boat, filling it up. Potter looks like a rag doll being tossed about. The river will not give you up. Around in circles, for minutes, seconds, you are not quite certain about the pas sage of time. No thoughts are in your head. You can only hear the roar of the water, and feel it spitting around you. A rope is thrown. Potter grabs it and pulls the boat out of the churn ing hole, pulling it to a calm pool. As he lets out another “whoop,” you ask when you can do it again. Miss football? Check out the local scene Kyle Phipps Staff V/riter Fall has finally arrived. It’s been an eternity since Nebraska de molished Florida for the NCAA Championship and Dallas beat the Steelers for the NFL crown. Traffle is too bad to drive to Char lotte to see a Panthers game, and they don’t really play football in Atlanta. However, quality foot ball gets played locally. In Western North Carolina, players with immense talents are easy to find. Brad Johnson, now with the Minnesota Vikings, played at Owen High School in Swannanoa. He had a knack for making every other player on the field look bad. His passes had so much velocity that they would often skip through the hands of his receivers. Johnson completely dominated the game, and the en tire conference for that matter. Last week he threw for over 200 yards and two touchdowns in his first NFL start for the Vikings. Don’t expect to see players of this caliber every week, but surpris ingly enough, most high schools in the county turn out at least one player a year who goes on to play college ball. North Buncombe High School head football coacn. Perry Sanderson, spoke highly of one of his senior players, Sam Lister. Sam is a 6’5", 300 pound, senior nose guard. He has already been contacted by Notre Dame, Stanford, Duke, N.C. State, and Carolina,” said Sanderson. The high quality of the football played in the mountains is evi dent from the 1 -A teams, who have more state titles than any other region in the state. “The quality of the football played here is very good, ” Sanderson said. “The com petition is also very good. The 1- A schools in the region are tough,” Sanderson said. Sanderson’s comments were ech oed by several other area coaches. “Top to bottom, the competition in the area is stiff. There are some teams that will stand out this year, but on any given night, an upset could happen,” said one area coach. Brevard, Pisgah, and AC Reynolds High Schools have some ofthe better teams this year. “The competition in the region is very good. There are several teams in the area that could advance into the state tournament,” said Sanderson. All of the intensity and desire that is found at big-time football games is also on the fields at the nigh school level. When a player flattens a member of the other team, you still see the taunting and the celebration. When the scrawny kid from the soccer team, who was recruited by the football coach to kick extfa points and field goals, boots the game-win- ner with seconds left on the clock, he still gets carried off the field by his teammates. But that’s what playing the game is all about any way, isn’t it? Having the desire and heart to leave everything on the field to help the team win. Even people that aren’t football fans can still enjoy local high school games. The marching bands and drum corps are still there, playing with all the emotion and enthusiasm that college bands have. They still have cheerleaders at high school football games. Sure, they may not be the buxom blondes th'at get shown before the com mercial breaks of an NFL but sup- eame, they’re still porting their team and they still wear really short skirts. Is it possible to go wrong watch ing a girl in a really short skirt jump up and down? The coaches at the high school level may not be big-name celeb rities, complete with their own endorsement deals and afternoon talk shows that you find in the college or professional game, but they still care just as much about if their team wins. Several seasons ago, a local coach threw his headset and hat, stormed onto the field, and swore at a referee with everything he had in him. He was promptly thrown out of the game. High school games don’t lack excite ment. Local coaches also tend to have more morals than their highly paid counterparts. A high school coach has never reinstated a player who was thrown off of a team for beat ing his girlfriend, just because the big game was next week. Also, high school football players don’t receive five game suspensions for Pfwlo Courtesy of The Asheville Citizen-Times Asheville High School's sophomore quarterback, Brian Fields, takes some heat from Daniel (S.C.) High School opponents. Asheville is ranked as one of the top ten teams in the state. snorting cocaine in a hotel room with a couple of strippers. High school players are kicked off the team, kicked out of school, and then kicked out of town. High school football games always draw a big crowd. They may not be the crazies that paint their faces and have the team name on their chests, but they still get into the atmosphere. Additionally, the high school stu dents truly care about the games.They want to see their friends do well at something they enjoy. Prep football has a lot to offer sports enthusiasts. The hits may not oe as big, the players aren’t steroid mon sters, and there are no highlights on ESPN. But the players still have the desire and the fans are loyal. And let’s not forget about those girls in short skirts jumping up and down.
University of North Carolina at Asheville Student Newspaper
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