Flashback 2002, 2013, 2016: All kinds of drama over the years

I was hoping to do some flashbacks this year to look back 10 years to 2010, when I was in my second year as the radio play-by-play broadcaster for the Houston Dynamo. Now with sports shut down and so much of life seemingly on hold, it seems like the right time to aim for a series of retrospectives, looking back at some memorable or quirky moments from my career in sports.
 
June 26
I've had the fortune to have a string of memorable soccer moments on this date over the years. June alone has brought my first in-person pro soccer game (2001, Columbus), Rice winning the NCAA baseball championship (2003, Omaha), my pro debut in minor league baseball (2005, Yakima), my first game as a sideline reporter (2012, Philadelphia), and my first US women's national team broadcast (2014, East Hartford), and an England-Germany shootout (2017, from studio).

But June 26 has had more than its share of drama, and here are three with indelible memories.

2002
As a college-credit-earning intern for the MetroStars, my first game sees me spotting for broadcast legend JP Dellacamera and sees Sports Illustrated cover boy Clint Mathis returning to MLS after the US run to the World Cup quarterfinals.

In the second half, Mathis went to the halfway line and tried to check into the game, only to be sent back to the bench by the officials. I was one of the first in the building to know why: His name had not been included on the original lineup sheet!

Here's how it happened.

2013
Maybe the best goal I've ever called, and it wasn't even the wildest part of the game. 

First, watch Darlington Nagbe's run through the FC Dallas defense in the US Open Cup:


I didn't get every aspect of the call right, but "dancing in the box ... just blew up one entire side of the Dallas defense ... that was something special!" felt right on the money.

Now what was I doing calling that game? It's a long story. Due to my wife's job, we spent one year living in Shreveport, Louisiana, which was no picnic in terms of free-lance work. But with budgets being what they are and the Open Cup important but not a huge priority, the Portland Timbers took the chance to bring on a "local" fill-in rather than travel their regular broadcast team.

So I drove the three hours to Frisco, Texas, and set up shop in a very familiar stadium (I have called FC Dallas television broadcasts off and on since 2012). I knew Portland fans would want to hear their call rather than the audio of the Dallas webstream, so I had fun doing a radio call but also explaining to those watching that there WERE fans there, they were just on the near side of the stadium under the roof.

At any rate, the game was wild, as you can tell if you watch the whole highlights, but the Nagbe goal was just a sudden burst of brilliance that took your breath away. And surely the offensive assertiveness and aggression fans have always wanted to see more of from Nagbe, despite his high level in the midfield.

Not only was the goal, the game, and the finish great, but we had one of the great post-game quotes of all-time. The communications staff brought a microphone down to relay Caleb Porter's thoughts after the game, and he dropped the line that his players "continue to show me they have big hearts and brass balls, because they know how to get it done when the game is on the line."

I mean, really, that's a hard night to top!

2016
Three years later, I called more Timbers drama, but this time I was a seriously neutral party.

Any ESPN assignment is special for me, even to this day after 8 years working for the company at various levels. To call an MLS Game of the Week at Providence Park, one of the best atmospheres anywhere, featuring my former club, the Houston Dynamo, was just over the top.


And the game delivered! Goals, energy, back-and-forth ... and a little bit of controversy at the end, when Joe Willis was whistled for a foul that allowed Diego Valeri to convert his second penalty kick of the game for a 3-2 Portland win.

I didn't think it was a penalty kick, but partner Brian Dunseth and I ran into an ebullient Portland owner Merritt Paulson afterward, and he (of course) had no doubt!

Nothing too fancy this June 26, but we can hope for more drama in future years.

Flashback 2010: Ángel strikes at the death

I was hoping to do some flashbacks this year to look back 10 years to 2010, when I was in my second year as the radio play-by-play broadcaster for the Houston Dynamo. Now with sports shut down and so much of life seemingly on hold, it seems like the right time to aim for a series of retrospectives, looking back at some memorable or quirky moments from my career in sports.
 
June 2, 2010
First, the play. I posted the full game highlights to YouTube, but start with the big moment: Juan Pablo Ángel hitting a 35-yard free kick in off the post and the goalkeeper's back! to give the New York Red Bulls a dramatic win in their new soccer-specific stadium.


Incredible moment. As someone who grew up rooting for the MetroStars and now covers the Red Bulls semi-regularly, it's a special moment to have witnessed.

Except it was heartbreaking for my team, the guys I worked with and worked for, and part of a particularly maddening stretch of games.

A long time coming
Most soccer fans in New Jersey and New York know the long-running saga that predated the Red Bull era of the area's Major League Soccer club. The MetroStars (the New York/New Jersey was dropped after only 2 seasons) played in enormous, way-too-big-for-that-era-of-American-soccer Giants Stadium (I always enjoyed hearing, "Estadio de los Gigantes" on some broadcasts en español). 15,000 fans was a decent crowd for that era of MLS, but stick it in 70,000-seat Giants Stadium, and the atmosphere was pointless.

The atmosphere was so bad that I refused to attend my first professional soccer game in that stadium (more on my first pro game later this month), and it was clear very few MetroStars games would feel like an event until they had their own stadium. Over the years, the team unveiled plan after plan for a future stadium, often promising details in "60 to 90 days," only to have something fall through.

I interned for the club in 2002, right in the middle of all of this, and we literally had multiple staff meetings in which we heard, "Butts in seats. Butts in seats. Butts in seats - equals - stadium!"

Red Bull swoops
The MetroStars were my team at that point, having grown up there and worked there. But then Red Bull came in with an initial plan to ignore the history of the club. At the same time, my adopted hometown of Houston was welcoming a new team, one I could see in person and try to support into a success.

It was an easy transition to make, made easier still when the Dynamo won MLS Cup in their first two seasons in Houston and when I went to work for the club. So every Dynamo-Red Bulls game was a huge one for me, especially the 2008 and 2009 games when I got to go back to Giants Stadium with my new team, finally calling a game there in 2009.

Fancy new digs
But 2010 meant flying home to New Jersey to call a game in a soccer-specific stadium, of all things! No more 60-90 days, no more dead atmosphere. No more high-bouncing artificial turf. Major League Soccer in a vibrant atmosphere, on grass, 30 minutes away from my parents' house: This was something special.

Red Bull Arena had opened less than three months prior when we (the Dynamo) arrived in 2010 for a mid-week game. I was excited to see the place, even with its surprisingly bland gray exterior and some of the quirks of the broadcast level. I distinctly remember setting up my equipment on a folding table at the front of my designated booth, only to realize that when I stood behind it, I couldn't see large portions of the field's corners. Because the booth was on the suite level, it had the same dimensions as the suites, with none of the seats that fronted them. So I had blank rows of concrete in front of me, and I took advantage by hopping over the windowsill and calling the game while leaning back against the booth. With the table behind me, I don't think I looked at my notes much that evening!

Emotions running high
It was also an emotional time from the team's perspective. Our leader in so many ways, the talisman of soccer in Houston since the club's opening game in April 2006, was Brian Ching. Just a week earlier, he had been left off the United States roster for the upcoming World Cup, a decision which was just utterly shocking in our world. I had been brainstorming content we could do around Chingy and former Dynamo player Stu Holden going to the World Cup, and the thought of Ching not making the team never entered my mind.

Chingy faced the music - and the media - upon returning to Houston in one of the more painful media scrums I've ever witnessed. He answered the questions head-on and did his best to move forward despite one of the biggest disappointments of his career. And in his first game back, the Saturday before this trip to New Jersey, he came off the bench and scored "in HIS house, Robertson Stadium!" as I screamed on the radio call, as we took the lead on the expansion Philadelphia Union, only to give it up and lose, stunningly, in stoppage time.

The game
So emotions were running high, for the organization, the team, the players, and even this radio broadcaster.

Then, during the first half of the game against New York, Red Bulls fans chanted, "U.S. reject" at Brian Ching. As somebody who had spent the last four-plus years rooting for, meeting, working with, admiring, and supporting Chingy, it stung me, and I'm sure it angered every teammate in orange that night.

It was Chingy who tied that game in the 65th minute, breaking the offside trap to finish a pass from Bobby Boswell. And it felt just as emotional, at least for those of us in the building, as his goal at home against Philadelphia had. "He's not a Dynamo reject, he's their main man," was my reference on the broadcast.

Just like the Philadelphia game, however, there was one more twist of fate. The Red Bulls got this free kick DEEP into stoppage time, from WAY out, with no time left. You don't often shoot from that range. But Juan Pablo Ángel was the OG Designated Player, a big-name player who came over from Europe at age 31 and more than justified the pricetag. He scored double-digit goals in all four seasons with the Red Bulls and was, quite simply, a cut above.

I still didn't think he would shoot from there, or that he could beat the great Pat Onstad from that far out. But with the help of the goalpost and a friendly bounce, he did, and it's one of the great regular-season moments I've ever witnessed in MLS.

But it was heartbreaking, too. Every coin has two sides, right? Now you know my side from June 2, 2010.