USL Feature
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
Until it was mentioned to him by a fan after his hat trick against the Dayton Dutch Lions in the first round of the U.S. Open Cup this season, Richmond Kickers forward David Bulow had no idea he was on the verge of setting a tournament record.
With three more goals since then, including the Kickers’ second in their 2-0 victory against Sporting Kansas City in their quarterfinal last month, Bulow is now the leading all-time scorer in the modern era of the U.S. Open Cup, having overtaken D.C. United legend Jaime Moreno and longtime USL standout Johnny Menyongar.
“I had no idea,” Bulow, who has 14 goals in his Open Cup career, said. “So that’s been exciting for me on a personal note. It’s fun to have that kind of feather in my cap, but I’m more anxious to make sure that I can help the team in any way possible to get as far as we can.”
That sort of attitude is typical of the squad Kickers’ coach Leigh Cowlishaw has tried to build each season in Richmond, and according to Bulow the reason why the club has found the level of success it has. Next Tuesday the club will try to claim its third victory against an MLS club in the Open Cup this season as it faces the Chicago Fire at Toyota Park in the tournament’s semifinals, while the Kickers also remain alive in their pursuit of a fourth USL league championship, facing Orlando City this Saturday in the USL PRO American Division Final.
A finalist in five of the last six seasons in the USL Second Division, winning a pair of championships, the Kickers have continually found a way to remain competitive against the top sides in the country. Bulow believed the closeness the squad shares, with a number of the current squad having been present for its titles in 2006 and 2009, has played a key role in the club’s remarkable run of success.
“We get along so well on and off the field, that makes it that much easier,” Bulow said. “You have a core group of players being so familiar, it makes it a lot easier. I heard Arsene Wenger say that if you’re not united at a club, if you’re not on the same page, you’re not going to stand a chance. It’s hard enough when you’re all on the same page, so I think for all of us to be gathered together, working for each other and being familiar with each other for two, three, four years, it definitely gives us a leg up.”
That Bulow is the leading goal-scorer in the Open Cup’s modern history is itself also remarkable. A four-sport athlete, also playing baseball, basketball and being the kicker for “a really bad football team” in high school, the native of Denver wasn’t recruited to play college soccer. He earned NSCAA Third Team All-America honors as a senior in 2001, and then began playing with the USL PDL’s Cape Cod Crusaders, winning the PDL Championship in 2003.
“I think my time at Bowdoin College, I kind of got a taste of what it would be like to play at the next level and my parents supported me 100 percent,” Bulow said. “I just didn’t want to be 35, 40 years old and saying, ‘you know, I wish I’d given it a shot,’ so I think the success I had early in my career just gave me a taste and kind of spurred me on to keep trying to play.”
Bulow went to Europe, playing for the Dungannon Swifts in Northern Ireland, before returning back to the states to begin playing for the Kickers in their 2006 championship season. A natural competitor, Bulow returned for a second season in Dungannon before returning to the U.S. for good, but he was appreciative of the time he got to spend with the Swifts.
“It was awesome,” Bulow said. “I’m a bit crazy about playing, so I just wanted to play as much as possible. I’m a big fan of the game in general, so to get the chance just to play as much as possible, I think that’s what really motivated it, but it was also a lot of fun playing in a culture where it’s football 24-7 over there, it’s in the papers, it’s on TV, it’s kind of fun in front of crowds that understand and know the game and appreciate the little things that you don’t quite see yet in America. But that really drove me on too, to get to experience the world and travel and get the chance to play as well.”
Bulow is now settled in Richmond, helping as a coach with the club’s youth program. While that’s something he hopes to continue to do after his playing days are over, the 31-year-old certainly doesn’t expect to be hanging up his boots anytime soon.
“Getting the late start that I did, back at the beginning of my career in high school and college, I would hope that puts a little bit more mileage on the end of my career,” Bulow said. “I feel good, I take care of myself well and I would like to play for as long as possible.”
And certainly, with silverware now on the line, Bulow is eager to do whatever he can to propel the Kickers to victory.
“To win a third championship with Richmond, some players go their whole career without winning anything, it would be very special,” Bulow said. “Then the cup, going up against MLS, the winners have been dominated by that competition, so to be a minnow, as we are compared to the budget and facilities that MLS has to offer, for us to win the Open Cup would be massive. I think that would be something you would never forget, on par with anything you can think of.”