USL Feature
Friday, January 28, 2011
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
Every story has to start somewhere.
For the Charlotte Eagles and owner Brian Davidson, it began with a conversation in a bagel shop in Charlotte with the Wilmington Hammerheads’ David Irving.
“David mentioned that the franchise rights for the Charlotte area were open for this new league that USISL was forming,” recalled Eagles General Manager Tom Engstrom. “That really intrigued Brian and he looked into it and we had a team.”
That was 19 years ago. Since then the Eagles have grown into an integral part of the Charlotte community. The same has been true for clubs such as the Rochester Rhinos, Charleston Battery, Richmond Kickers, Wilmington Hammerheads and Pittsburgh Riverhounds, all of whom have operated for more than a decade and all of whom have built strong followings in their cities through smart decision-making and dedication to the community.
For Richmond, and Coach Leigh Cowlishaw, the path to the franchise the Kickers have become began six years into the club’s existence. While having built a successful club on the field, reaching the third round of the U.S. Open Cup in 1997 and being the USL A-League Atlantic Division Champions in 1998, the club was looking for a way to make bigger inroads into the community on a year-round basis.
“We recognized that to just be a professional soccer team for, at that stage, only four months was just not going to be viable long-term,” Cowlishaw said. “What we recognized was that our summer soccer camps were popular and growing like wildfire, and we felt the model of having professional players embedded in the community year-round was something that would make sense, and that’s how we started it.
“We had the vision of the model of the future of American soccer before MLS had any youth components, before any organization had that youth-to-pro model, and we set about accomplishing that.”
Now the Kickers not only have their professional team, but also teams in the USL Super Y-League. The opening of Ukrop Park in 2003 was a major accomplishment for the club and owner Rob Ukrop and has set the organization up for continued success.
While Richmond effectively built from scratch, the Rochester Rhinos had a legacy to uphold. After the success of the Rochester Lancers, many were eager for a strong franchise to bring back professional soccer to the city. As current Rhinos President Pat Ercoli pointed out, the team couldn’t have arrived at a much better time.
“It think just having the right venue and the right following, the timing of it,” Ercoli said about the reasons for the Rhinos’ success. “The timing for us was pretty much during the inception of MLS and I think we have a following that’s family-oriented, and we’ve maintained that throughout our years.”
The only non-Major League Soccer side to win the U.S. Open Cup since MLS began in 1996, the victory against the Colorado Rapids remains Ercoli’s proudest moment in the organization’s history. But the backbone of the team’s success and sustainability has been as much about the characters that have come and stayed in Rochester, even after their playing days were over, providing links to the club that have remained in the area.
“We have people that have stayed within our community,” Ercoli said. “Even today we have Scott Vallow retire and he’s been with the organization for over 10 years, he’s been involved within the community, actually living here and running several businesses here, and now he’s staying involved in soccer in this community.
“Doug Miller is another example, Craig Demmin, there’s a list of people who have made the attempt to stay here, Tommy Tanner is not that far away in Syracuse and I’m sure there are more who have stayed within the community and stayed involved and made the difference.”
Building a sense of community has been important for the Eagles as well. As a non-profit organization, the club hasn’t always had the biggest budget to work with, but have always found a way to fulfill the mission of the club.
“There have been a few different things [that have contributed],” Engstrom said. “First of all, and this isn’t meant to be a cliché or anything, but God’s provision. For a non-profit organization, we feel that it’s God’s provision that keeps us around.
“I think there’s also been a really high commitment level from the people within the organization and the players that they are really committed to the cause. There’s a really strong group of fans and donors who really believe in the organization.”
And commitment levels like that are what are going to give each of the six teams that could be called the backbone of USL PRO a chance to build even bigger legacies in the future.
“It was clear just sitting there in 1999 and having a team of 20 players and a summer camp … that we could become what we are now,” Cowlishaw said. “Now I’d just like to see us grow the fan base, that’s the final piece. If we can get 4,000, 5,000 a game, that’s going to be our goal in the next 10 years and if we do that then I think you’re going to see the Kickers be around for the next 100 years.”