I started my college basketball season Friday night with the ACC Network call of Wake Forest vs. Longwood, and here's how it looked and sounded:
Condensed game (8:45)
Highlights (2:45)
28 November 2020
31 July 2020
Flashback 2010: The "Woo" that came before "Woohoo"
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.
July 31, 2010
July 31, 2010
My most famous call is undoubtedly the "Woohoo" call of Alex Dixon's 2011 game-winning goal for the Dynamo against Real Salt Lake.
But that call was actually a sequel. In 2010, in a game the rest of the world knew as Thierry Henry's first MLS game (that was interrupted by a pitch invader who spectacularly evaded security and then crashed into a wall), the Dynamo played the whole second half with 10 players and came from behind to score in the 90th minute and earn a 2-2 tie.
Excited, exhausted, relieved at the end of a crazy two weeks, I went off, punctuating my call with an ecstatic, "Wooo!"
Slightly more than a year later, I got to call a similar moment with Dixon's goal, but since that one was a win and I was even more excited, my punctuation went even longer and organically turned into my (in)famous, "Woohoo!"
Thierry Henry coming to MLS was a huge deal. Getting to call his
debut should have been a hugely
anticipated event. But as it happened, it was way down my priority list
that week. If you're interested in what exactly led up to that game and that call, read on ...
29 July 2020
Flashback 2008: My big break
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.
July 29, 2008
Your big break. Sometimes you know it when it comes, sometimes it takes you by surprise. My first one was no surprise: I knew the stakes going in, and I knew I had to come through.
A 24-year-old in my first year as "Web coordinator" for the Houston Dynamo, I made no secret of my ambition to become a soccer broadcaster. With only low-tech college games for campus TV on my resume, I called Reserve League games into a stick mic connected to our one-camera shoot for the technical staff.
The record books show I had only called two such games when my break arrived: Our radio announcer would miss the SuperLiga semifinal to take his daughter to college.
I knew this was my opportunity to show I could do the job. Several of my bosses went to bat for me and convinced our radio partner to give me a chance, and after a few sleepless nights and a whole lot of butterflies, I was on the air!
Pre-game nerves, interview malfunction
It was actually good that I wrote it out. I was really nervous, and to make matters worse, I'm pretty sure this was the game where I recorded a pre-game interview with Dominic Kinnear on my tape recorder, only to get back up to the press box and realize I had cut the interview off after about 5 seconds. Mortified, there was no way I was going to ask Dom for a re-do, so I anxiously waited for the players to arrive and squeezed in a few minutes with the always accommodating and insightful Craig Waibel.
July 29, 2008
Your big break. Sometimes you know it when it comes, sometimes it takes you by surprise. My first one was no surprise: I knew the stakes going in, and I knew I had to come through.
A 24-year-old in my first year as "Web coordinator" for the Houston Dynamo, I made no secret of my ambition to become a soccer broadcaster. With only low-tech college games for campus TV on my resume, I called Reserve League games into a stick mic connected to our one-camera shoot for the technical staff.
The record books show I had only called two such games when my break arrived: Our radio announcer would miss the SuperLiga semifinal to take his daughter to college.
I knew this was my opportunity to show I could do the job. Several of my bosses went to bat for me and convinced our radio partner to give me a chance, and after a few sleepless nights and a whole lot of butterflies, I was on the air!
The open was not exactly next-level. I don't think it takes an expert to tell that I was reading a written-out script as I said, "From Robertson Stadium, it's the rematch Houston fans have been waiting for, an international grudge match, as the Houston Dynamo host Mexican power, five-time Mexican champion Pachuca, in the semifinals of SuperLiga 2008. Good evening everybody, I'm Jonathan Yardley filling in" … Not the worst script in the world, but definitely sub-par delivery. But hey, it was the biggest game I had done as a professional!
It was actually good that I wrote it out. I was really nervous, and to make matters worse, I'm pretty sure this was the game where I recorded a pre-game interview with Dominic Kinnear on my tape recorder, only to get back up to the press box and realize I had cut the interview off after about 5 seconds. Mortified, there was no way I was going to ask Dom for a re-do, so I anxiously waited for the players to arrive and squeezed in a few minutes with the always accommodating and insightful Craig Waibel.
So I was definitely nervous. The good thing was, I had plenty of tape on Pachuca and was really familiar with their personnel, so even if my Mexican pronunciations needed work (Marioni should be mar-ee-OH-nee, not MARE-ee-oh-nee), I had gained a lot of confidence by the time the second half and most of the game's key moments came along.
It really was a rivalry with Pachuca, because the 2007 Champions' Cup semifinal series (Pachuca won the second leg 5-2 in extra time to win 5-4 on aggregate) was incredibly intense, and that year's SuperLiga semifinal was a classic as well. There's a lot of schtick now about SuperLiga, but the tournament was a big deal for us at the time.
How'd I do?
Listening back to this, I'm proud of some of the little details I worked in, such as, "Dynamo going right to left, if you're familiar with Robertson Stadium, attacking toward El Batallon." This is a little thing, a radio detail, but it's something I still enjoy on TV - finding a unique way to indicate one end of the stadium.
I don't put much stock in prepared goal calls, so I didn't know what I would say, but you'd better believe I did not want the game to end 0-0. If you're going to earn a job or at least put together a good demo from one game, you need goals! So I was sweating a little extra (Houston in July? Yeah, it was muggy.) when it was still 0-0 at the 75-minute mark.
As Kei Kamara wins the corner, take a second to appreciate that the 2008 Dynamo had Brian Ching, Chris Wondolowski, and Kei Kamara on the same roster. Ching (82 career MLS goals) was clearly the centerpiece at the time, but Wondo (161) and Kei (128) have gone on to incredibly prolific scoring runs. Wondo, Ricardo Clark, Stuart Holden, Geoff Cameron, and Brad Davis all went to the World Cup for the US, and Pat Onstad and Dwayne De Rosario are two all-time MLS greats -- this team was stacked!
On the corner kick, note the clarity in saying how many corners the Dynamo had taken (hat tip to JP Dellacamera for instilling that in me early) and me getting the sponsor read in. Not an easy thing to remember in your first game!
Now remember how I said I don't really prepare goal calls? Yeah, I think it showed on both of these goal calls. "De Rosario .. bends it in near post, Waibel deflected, Boswell buries it!" That's all good stuff. But it needed one or two more lines to punctuate the moment before laying out.
Similarly, on the second goal, my call of the build-up was all good and technically correct, and it comes through OK: "Brian Mullan on the right, cutting toward the end line. Mullan gets there, chips it .. Corey Ashe buries it! Corey Ashe has put it away, 87th minute!" Probably could have used a little something more there, but we live and learn, right?
At least I got to make a crack about Corey's height after my partner, then Dynamo academy director and now Dash head coach James Clarkson, weighed in. I also got to give James credit for saying the last 20 minutes in the Houston heat could favor the Dynamo.
Good enough to get the job
At the end, don't mind me starting three consecutive sentences with "the Dynamo" at full time. Force of habit for a local radio broadcast, especially when you work in the team's front office. But I had gotten the job done (the team winning a big game sure didn't hurt!), and that was plenty to celebrate for one night.
That one game proved to be enough of a proving ground. By Christmas, I knew I would start 2009 as the radio voice of the Dynamo, and that was a true dream job for me. There have been more "big breaks" since, and hopefully there are still some to come, but that SuperLiga semifinal was a big deal in my career.
26 June 2020
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.
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.
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!
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.
02 June 2020
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.
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.
22 May 2020
Flashback 2010: Cruz energy on display in first career start, goal
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.
May 22, 2010
Danny Cruz always stands out for one thing: energy.
I'm just going to leave this here and let you enjoy Danny's first foray into the starting lineup.
A former hockey player who always brought that mentality to the soccer field, Danny is one of my favorite people to cover and work with, from his draft day in 2009 as a 19-year-old to his appearance on MTV's Made in 2011 (more on that here) to his years with the Philadelphia Union to the present day as an assistant coach with Louisville City. A relentlessly positive guy with an amazing attitude.
Having come to the sport a little later than most, Danny was never the most technical player at the professional level. But his speed, athleticism, and work ethic earned him a Generation adidas contract out of UNLV and led to him starting a good run of matches in both 2010 and 2011, including the Dynamo's run to the 2011 MLS Cup final.
We in the Dynamo communications office got some laughs over the years from times the wrong Danny Cruz would be listed on our team page on various sites. There was the time Soccerway listed him as Daniel Cruzeiro, a Brazilian goalkeeper, and, of course, the time the Dynamo invited a Colombian named Daniel Cruz for a trial.
I'm not going to lie: I was kind of glad that one didn't pan out. Although the two later shared the field for five minutes in a Houston-Dallas MLS game, to me there's only one Danny Cruz.
May 22, 2010
Danny Cruz always stands out for one thing: energy.
I'm just going to leave this here and let you enjoy Danny's first foray into the starting lineup.
A former hockey player who always brought that mentality to the soccer field, Danny is one of my favorite people to cover and work with, from his draft day in 2009 as a 19-year-old to his appearance on MTV's Made in 2011 (more on that here) to his years with the Philadelphia Union to the present day as an assistant coach with Louisville City. A relentlessly positive guy with an amazing attitude.
Having come to the sport a little later than most, Danny was never the most technical player at the professional level. But his speed, athleticism, and work ethic earned him a Generation adidas contract out of UNLV and led to him starting a good run of matches in both 2010 and 2011, including the Dynamo's run to the 2011 MLS Cup final.
We in the Dynamo communications office got some laughs over the years from times the wrong Danny Cruz would be listed on our team page on various sites. There was the time Soccerway listed him as Daniel Cruzeiro, a Brazilian goalkeeper, and, of course, the time the Dynamo invited a Colombian named Daniel Cruz for a trial.
I'm not going to lie: I was kind of glad that one didn't pan out. Although the two later shared the field for five minutes in a Houston-Dallas MLS game, to me there's only one Danny Cruz.
11 May 2020
Flashback 2014: Revs roll 5-0, Seattle blames me
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.
May 11, 2014
I had to laugh when I saw the MLS Extratime "Greatest Team of All Time" bracket including each MLS team's best squad of all time and noted that the Seattle Sounders representatives are the 2014 squad. It was a fantastic team, of course, Supporters' Shield and Open Cup champions and only eliminated in the MLS postseason via an away-goals rule that I despise. Obafemi Martins, Clint Dempsey, Chad Marshall, Ozzie Alonso, Stefan Frei, DeAndre Yedlin, Brad Evans. Great team.
But when I got a chance to call a Sounders game that year, they laid an egg. An unprecedented, unmitigated disaster of a game.
This package, while long, is a pretty good look back at a day Revs fans will want to remember a lot more than Sounders supporters. Head to the 10-minute mark for me trying to keep things light despite an unprecedented 4-0 halftime deficit for my home-team-for-a-day.
Everybody's backup
For me, this was a one-off, a fill-in, one of the ways I managed to stay involved in MLS broadcasting while living in four cities in less than three years. A local announcer has a family commitment, gets sick, gets bumped up to a national game. Who are you going to call who can jump right in and know both teams? I was proud to be that guy.
This was a special opportunity, with Sounders announcer Ross Fletcher's wife preparing to give birth, to step onto one of the most-watched broadcasts in the league. I loved working with the Sounders' ultra-professional broadcast team, including Jackie Montgomery, Taylor Graham, and Kasey Keller. My first and only show with them had some shaky new-guy moments, things that would be ironed out if you worked two games in a row together. I even gritted my teeth and said "FC" after "Sounders" where called for. Here are some of my thoughts from the time on how things went.
Don't Shoot the Messenger
Clint Dempsey was coming back to his former home in New England, the game had teams who finished the year as two of the top five teams in MLS, not that we knew that at the time. It was supposed to be a good one. Instead, New England hit Seattle early and often, via the counter-attack, and rolled to the win.
No matter, how good or bad I was on the air, nobody in Seattle was going to get past the scoreline. At halftime, with the score already 4-0, I said, "Don't shoot the messenger, this isn't my fault!" which at least got a laugh out of Kasey! While I felt good about the broadcast and our call, I did leave the stadium that day figuring I probably wouldn't get asked back.
One of the most notable features in the game, which saw New England exploit Seattle on the counter-attack, was Revolution winger Diego Fagundez just owning Sounders right back DeAndre Yedlin. I had watched Yedlin and met his grandparents, who raised him, during his first professional preseason with Seattle, so I felt well aware of his potential. I felt he was an outsider for the 2014 World Cup squad before this game, and I certainly felt so after his tepid performance.
But he wasn't himself in this game, and hindsight confirmed our suspicions that he was basically out there trying to avoid injury and keep his focus on the World Cup camp. Which is understandable, given how significant the World Cup is in any player's career and proved to be for Yedlin. Three months later he signed for Tottenham, and he has since played almost 100 games in the English Premier League. So he probably got the math right in taking this one easy, but it was still a strange sight to see.
Remaining Revs
From this game, it's kind of amazing to think the Revs still have Fagundez and Scott Caldwell (both Homegrown Players), Andrew Farrell, and Teal Bunbury. They later got a year and a half of the Jermaine Jones experience, they relied on Lee Nguyen for years, but they are now a completely different group under Bruce Arena. Now with a new training facility and more resources being invested, they're one of the teams I was really curious to see in 2020, so hopefully we get that chance as the year unfolds, albeit under unique circumstances.
May 11, 2014
I had to laugh when I saw the MLS Extratime "Greatest Team of All Time" bracket including each MLS team's best squad of all time and noted that the Seattle Sounders representatives are the 2014 squad. It was a fantastic team, of course, Supporters' Shield and Open Cup champions and only eliminated in the MLS postseason via an away-goals rule that I despise. Obafemi Martins, Clint Dempsey, Chad Marshall, Ozzie Alonso, Stefan Frei, DeAndre Yedlin, Brad Evans. Great team.
But when I got a chance to call a Sounders game that year, they laid an egg. An unprecedented, unmitigated disaster of a game.
This package, while long, is a pretty good look back at a day Revs fans will want to remember a lot more than Sounders supporters. Head to the 10-minute mark for me trying to keep things light despite an unprecedented 4-0 halftime deficit for my home-team-for-a-day.
Everybody's backup
For me, this was a one-off, a fill-in, one of the ways I managed to stay involved in MLS broadcasting while living in four cities in less than three years. A local announcer has a family commitment, gets sick, gets bumped up to a national game. Who are you going to call who can jump right in and know both teams? I was proud to be that guy.
Don't Shoot the Messenger
Clint Dempsey was coming back to his former home in New England, the game had teams who finished the year as two of the top five teams in MLS, not that we knew that at the time. It was supposed to be a good one. Instead, New England hit Seattle early and often, via the counter-attack, and rolled to the win.
No matter, how good or bad I was on the air, nobody in Seattle was going to get past the scoreline. At halftime, with the score already 4-0, I said, "Don't shoot the messenger, this isn't my fault!" which at least got a laugh out of Kasey! While I felt good about the broadcast and our call, I did leave the stadium that day figuring I probably wouldn't get asked back.
.@jtyardley WHAT DID YOU DO WITH OUR @SoundersFC ?!?! #justkidding #onlysortof
— Aubrey Bergauer (@aubreyyy) May 11, 2014
Yedlin's Day "Off" One of the most notable features in the game, which saw New England exploit Seattle on the counter-attack, was Revolution winger Diego Fagundez just owning Sounders right back DeAndre Yedlin. I had watched Yedlin and met his grandparents, who raised him, during his first professional preseason with Seattle, so I felt well aware of his potential. I felt he was an outsider for the 2014 World Cup squad before this game, and I certainly felt so after his tepid performance.
But he wasn't himself in this game, and hindsight confirmed our suspicions that he was basically out there trying to avoid injury and keep his focus on the World Cup camp. Which is understandable, given how significant the World Cup is in any player's career and proved to be for Yedlin. Three months later he signed for Tottenham, and he has since played almost 100 games in the English Premier League. So he probably got the math right in taking this one easy, but it was still a strange sight to see.
Remaining Revs
From this game, it's kind of amazing to think the Revs still have Fagundez and Scott Caldwell (both Homegrown Players), Andrew Farrell, and Teal Bunbury. They later got a year and a half of the Jermaine Jones experience, they relied on Lee Nguyen for years, but they are now a completely different group under Bruce Arena. Now with a new training facility and more resources being invested, they're one of the teams I was really curious to see in 2020, so hopefully we get that chance as the year unfolds, albeit under unique circumstances.
08 May 2020
Flashback 2010: An underrated goal from the assist king himself
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.
May 8, 2010
There won't be too much more 2010 content as part of this flashback series, but it's been 10 years since I called one of my favorite sneaky-good goals, and I never get tired of excuses to watch this thing.
I mean, who scores a goal like this? Who runs onto a through ball, slides, and THEN lobs the keeper with his first touch? I don't recall this getting any momentum for Goal of the Week, and I don't think you'll see it on an MLS retrospective of best lobs, but I just think it was a special play. I know it was against Chivas USA, and I know Zach Thornton in goal was not known for his mobility, but this goal has always stuck out in my memory banks as being unusual and skillful and awesome. So please ignore the decidedly low-quality video footage and enjoy:
As you've figured out by now, It was scored by Brad Davis, one of the great assist men in MLS history, and a guy with whom I had a history. Davis was just 20, when I interned with the MetroStars in 2002, two years older than I, and although he was a hotshot rookie on the club, he was also one of the less intimidating presences for me, a college freshman. I rooted for him from the start, from the MetroStars to the Dallas Burn to the San Jose Earthquakes and then through the move to Houston, and six years later, when our paths crossed again, he was still making my life easier.
I joined the Dynamo in 2008, managing the team web site and working in the communications department, so my job included some media relations duties. Once I began traveling with the team to every game as radio broadcaster in 2009, those duties ramped up and I was often tasked with connecting reporters and players for interviews. It's a relatively simple task, but when your approach to almost any player elicits a groan and a, "What now, Yardley?" it's not always a fun one.
Brad was one of the guys who made it easy. Oh, don't get me wrong: He'd give us crap. Seeing a staffer walking toward him after practice, he'd yell out, "WHAT!?" in mock anger or walk right past with his head turned before doubling back to hear out the request. Outside the locker rooms at Robertson Stadium, if somebody flicked your ear and then scampered through the doors, it was probably Brad.
But he also said, "Yes," and, "Just have them call me," and, "Whatever you need." Words that made my life easier, all the time. An easy choice to go to when a media outlet asked who was available and I didn't want a headache by asking the same guy twice (or three times, etc.) It helped, of course, that Brad was a starter and, eventually, a durable one.
He will always be known, of course, for assists, particularly from his left-footed dead-ball service. But there were other, subtler parts to his game (did you have Brad Davis pegged for the first elastico in MLS Cup history in 2006??), and occasionally he wound up on the scoresheet for some of those as well.
As the guy who dealt with statistics in a league with second assists, I even got to play a part, which brings me to one of my favorite Brad Davis stories.
I was in the coaches' office at Robertson Stadium on a training day, probably bugging Dominic Kinnear for content for the gameday magazine and taking good-natured ribbing from everybody in the room. Talking about some recent game, I mentioned that Brad had multiple assists in the game. Dom said, "Brad, really? He just had the one, from the free kick." And I responded, "Yeah, but he got a second assist on [so-and-so's] goal. I had to call the league to make sure he got credit for it."
"Second assist, c'mon," came the reply. "What are you doing pushing more numbers for Brad, anyway? Did he put you up to it? Who cares? What in the world has he ever done for you?" (Yes, there was an expletive in there. Probably more than one, knowing Dom.)
I just kind of shrugged and said, "Hey, it's my job," which of course Dom knew perfectly well. He always made sure we remembered that the players came first and was quick to put me in my place if my actions didn't reflect that. ... But he didn't want Brad or anybody else to worry about statistics or get a big head, either. Maybe the greatest Dynamo compliment you could give was if a player was, "honest" in his work ethic.
Fortunately for me, Brad popped his head into the coaches' office a few minutes later, and I asked him about doing an interview that I needed to get crossed off my list. He quickly said, "Yeah, sure, have him give me a call," and moved on with his day. I turned to Dom and the room and said, "You asked what has he ever done for me? That, right there. Huge help."
So maybe I have a soft spot for Brad Davis, but despite his MVP nominations and his spot on the 2014 World Cup roster and his No. 3 ranking in MLS history in assists, I still felt he was underrated at times. As a technical player, as a versatile player, as a well-rounded player. Everybody focused on the dead-ball delivery, and it was incredible. But he was much more than that, and he even changed his eating and work habits mid-career to become fitter and perform at a higher level.
This goal was far from his stereotypical skillset. If you watch the play again, he and another orange jersey make the same run, chasing a well-weighted Brian Mullan ball behind the back line, and Davis actually had to out-run (or at least not lose too much ground to) Dominic Oduro, of all people, just to get to the ball first. Fortunately, Mr. Freaky Fast himself backed off and let Brad take a run at the thing.
Then the early slide is, to me, the most underrated part of the play. It seems to accelerate Davis and allow him to beat the center back (Dario Delgado, in his only year in MLS; I had to look him up) to the ball, while also leaving Thornton in no-man's land. It was timed perfectly, allowing for the scooped finish as the ball was already bouncing up.
You just don't see this play often, and it's one I always felt got lost in the shuffle but deserves a little limelight.
May 8, 2010
There won't be too much more 2010 content as part of this flashback series, but it's been 10 years since I called one of my favorite sneaky-good goals, and I never get tired of excuses to watch this thing.I mean, who scores a goal like this? Who runs onto a through ball, slides, and THEN lobs the keeper with his first touch? I don't recall this getting any momentum for Goal of the Week, and I don't think you'll see it on an MLS retrospective of best lobs, but I just think it was a special play. I know it was against Chivas USA, and I know Zach Thornton in goal was not known for his mobility, but this goal has always stuck out in my memory banks as being unusual and skillful and awesome. So please ignore the decidedly low-quality video footage and enjoy:
I joined the Dynamo in 2008, managing the team web site and working in the communications department, so my job included some media relations duties. Once I began traveling with the team to every game as radio broadcaster in 2009, those duties ramped up and I was often tasked with connecting reporters and players for interviews. It's a relatively simple task, but when your approach to almost any player elicits a groan and a, "What now, Yardley?" it's not always a fun one.
Brad was one of the guys who made it easy. Oh, don't get me wrong: He'd give us crap. Seeing a staffer walking toward him after practice, he'd yell out, "WHAT!?" in mock anger or walk right past with his head turned before doubling back to hear out the request. Outside the locker rooms at Robertson Stadium, if somebody flicked your ear and then scampered through the doors, it was probably Brad.
But he also said, "Yes," and, "Just have them call me," and, "Whatever you need." Words that made my life easier, all the time. An easy choice to go to when a media outlet asked who was available and I didn't want a headache by asking the same guy twice (or three times, etc.) It helped, of course, that Brad was a starter and, eventually, a durable one.
He will always be known, of course, for assists, particularly from his left-footed dead-ball service. But there were other, subtler parts to his game (did you have Brad Davis pegged for the first elastico in MLS Cup history in 2006??), and occasionally he wound up on the scoresheet for some of those as well.
As the guy who dealt with statistics in a league with second assists, I even got to play a part, which brings me to one of my favorite Brad Davis stories.
I was in the coaches' office at Robertson Stadium on a training day, probably bugging Dominic Kinnear for content for the gameday magazine and taking good-natured ribbing from everybody in the room. Talking about some recent game, I mentioned that Brad had multiple assists in the game. Dom said, "Brad, really? He just had the one, from the free kick." And I responded, "Yeah, but he got a second assist on [so-and-so's] goal. I had to call the league to make sure he got credit for it."
"Second assist, c'mon," came the reply. "What are you doing pushing more numbers for Brad, anyway? Did he put you up to it? Who cares? What in the world has he ever done for you?" (Yes, there was an expletive in there. Probably more than one, knowing Dom.)
I just kind of shrugged and said, "Hey, it's my job," which of course Dom knew perfectly well. He always made sure we remembered that the players came first and was quick to put me in my place if my actions didn't reflect that. ... But he didn't want Brad or anybody else to worry about statistics or get a big head, either. Maybe the greatest Dynamo compliment you could give was if a player was, "honest" in his work ethic.
Fortunately for me, Brad popped his head into the coaches' office a few minutes later, and I asked him about doing an interview that I needed to get crossed off my list. He quickly said, "Yeah, sure, have him give me a call," and moved on with his day. I turned to Dom and the room and said, "You asked what has he ever done for me? That, right there. Huge help."
So maybe I have a soft spot for Brad Davis, but despite his MVP nominations and his spot on the 2014 World Cup roster and his No. 3 ranking in MLS history in assists, I still felt he was underrated at times. As a technical player, as a versatile player, as a well-rounded player. Everybody focused on the dead-ball delivery, and it was incredible. But he was much more than that, and he even changed his eating and work habits mid-career to become fitter and perform at a higher level.
This goal was far from his stereotypical skillset. If you watch the play again, he and another orange jersey make the same run, chasing a well-weighted Brian Mullan ball behind the back line, and Davis actually had to out-run (or at least not lose too much ground to) Dominic Oduro, of all people, just to get to the ball first. Fortunately, Mr. Freaky Fast himself backed off and let Brad take a run at the thing.
Then the early slide is, to me, the most underrated part of the play. It seems to accelerate Davis and allow him to beat the center back (Dario Delgado, in his only year in MLS; I had to look him up) to the ball, while also leaving Thornton in no-man's land. It was timed perfectly, allowing for the scooped finish as the ball was already bouncing up.
You just don't see this play often, and it's one I always felt got lost in the shuffle but deserves a little limelight.
17 April 2020
Flashback 2015: Launching a network with Red Bulls past, present, future
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.
April 17, 2015
This flashback also hits a round number, as it was five years ago to the day that I called the first English-language radio broadcast as part of the newly created New York Red Bulls Radio Network, one which is still going strong today!
While I wasn't working full-time for the club as I did in Houston, this was a chance to call MLS games regularly in my home market (I'm from New Jersey, and my wife and I settled in New York in the fall of 2013), and it was so exciting to be part of the inaugural season. I had television commitments that wouldn't let me take on the full schedule, but I was thrilled to take a good slate of games and share play-by-play duties with Ed Cohen and Matt Harmon that year.
Matt, of course, has taken on the regular role ever since, while Steve Jolley - who I remembered from my 2002 internship with the MetroStars, has continued as analyst. It's a great feeling to see those guys at a game or tune in if I'm in a rental car on an MLS game night and still feel connected to the broadcast based on that first season and the odd fill-in over the years.
Quick Start
But for me, Red Bulls Radio all started with a mid-March phone call to first discuss the possibility, and less than a month later, we were on the air with Game No. 1! Here's how the highlights sounded (if you really want, the full game archive is still available!):
Pretty cool, right? Five years doesn't seem THAT long, and yet a ton has changed since then. This was the fifth game of the Ali Curtis / Jesse Marsch takeover that stunned MLS and Red Bulls fans. While we certainly knew how they were going to play - you hear Steve saying, "The Red Bulls want to pressure high, hard, and often," and I'm already saying, "From a turnover, the Red Bulls do it again." - nobody at this point in time thought New York would go on to win the Supporters' Shield.
Future Captains Everywhere
It's also funny to see different Red Bulls eras colliding. You have Dane Richards, star of the 2008 playoff run, playing with Matt Miazga, with seeming ever-presents like Luis Robles and Bradley Wright-Phillips, and then you get the MLS debut for Sean Davis at the end. That was special for me to see, as someone who has spent so much time tracking Homegrown Players. I had called the Red Bulls U-23s' NPSL championship win the previous summer, so I knew of Davis and knew then that he would be turning pro after his senior campaign at Duke. I can remember Ali Curtis saying Davis could one day be "the face of the franchise," and Wright-Phillips sharing similar thoughts, and now, five years later, he is the Red Bulls captain.
I wasn't rusty, persay, because I had called the Red Bulls twice already for MSG that spring. But I don't think I had done soccer on the radio in two years, not regularly since 2011, so there were a few moments where the game moved fast for me. On the first goal, I gave Sacha Kljestan credit for forcing the turnover when it was clearly Felipe (as Steve pointed out in his analysis), which is embarrassing. They don't exactly look alike or anything!
Some Wondo Love
If you were watching, you saw all-time MLS leading scorer Chris Wondolowski on the Earthquakes bench to start the game, and he did play in the second half, but my favorite Wondo fact of the game didn't have to do with Chris. Steve Wondolowski, who played with Chris in Houston when I was there, went with my audio for at least some of the game and gave me, a life-long Oakland A's fan (long story for another time), quite a post-game compliment!
How Far Kljestan's Come
Lastly, I thought it was appropriate, somehow, that there were a couple faces in these highlights who also showed up in the Houston-Chivas USA game I had called five years prior. Firstly, Dominic Kinnear had moved back home to coach the Earthquakes, and I remember catching up with him before the game.
But one of the centerpieces in this performance, Kljestan, had a cameo in the 2010 game as the player Lovel Palmer turned past before scoring from distance. Consider Kljestan's five years in between: getting married, moving to Europe and playing 180 games for Anderlecht, including Champions League contests, falling out of favor with the US national team, and then transferring back to MLS with the Red Bulls. He hadn't lived as many places as I had in those five years (4), but he had been busy!
Kljestan has had an eventful five years since, as well, winning the Supporters' Shield, reaching the rare 20-assst milestone, captaining the Red Bulls, being traded to Orlando, and now winding up with the LA Galaxy. Still getting used to that!
But it just goes to show, a lot can happen in five years, and I'm very glad I was able to inaugurate the Red Bulls' English-language radio presence back in 2015.
April 17, 2015
This flashback also hits a round number, as it was five years ago to the day that I called the first English-language radio broadcast as part of the newly created New York Red Bulls Radio Network, one which is still going strong today!
While I wasn't working full-time for the club as I did in Houston, this was a chance to call MLS games regularly in my home market (I'm from New Jersey, and my wife and I settled in New York in the fall of 2013), and it was so exciting to be part of the inaugural season. I had television commitments that wouldn't let me take on the full schedule, but I was thrilled to take a good slate of games and share play-by-play duties with Ed Cohen and Matt Harmon that year.
Getting ready for @NewYorkRedBulls vs @SJEarthquakes via radio at Red Bull Arena! http://t.co/uQoj5U6n6x pic.twitter.com/Ube847L0du— Jonathan Yardley (@jtyardley) April 17, 2015
Matt, of course, has taken on the regular role ever since, while Steve Jolley - who I remembered from my 2002 internship with the MetroStars, has continued as analyst. It's a great feeling to see those guys at a game or tune in if I'm in a rental car on an MLS game night and still feel connected to the broadcast based on that first season and the odd fill-in over the years.
Quick Start
But for me, Red Bulls Radio all started with a mid-March phone call to first discuss the possibility, and less than a month later, we were on the air with Game No. 1! Here's how the highlights sounded (if you really want, the full game archive is still available!):
Pretty cool, right? Five years doesn't seem THAT long, and yet a ton has changed since then. This was the fifth game of the Ali Curtis / Jesse Marsch takeover that stunned MLS and Red Bulls fans. While we certainly knew how they were going to play - you hear Steve saying, "The Red Bulls want to pressure high, hard, and often," and I'm already saying, "From a turnover, the Red Bulls do it again." - nobody at this point in time thought New York would go on to win the Supporters' Shield.
Future Captains Everywhere
It's also funny to see different Red Bulls eras colliding. You have Dane Richards, star of the 2008 playoff run, playing with Matt Miazga, with seeming ever-presents like Luis Robles and Bradley Wright-Phillips, and then you get the MLS debut for Sean Davis at the end. That was special for me to see, as someone who has spent so much time tracking Homegrown Players. I had called the Red Bulls U-23s' NPSL championship win the previous summer, so I knew of Davis and knew then that he would be turning pro after his senior campaign at Duke. I can remember Ali Curtis saying Davis could one day be "the face of the franchise," and Wright-Phillips sharing similar thoughts, and now, five years later, he is the Red Bulls captain.
I wasn't rusty, persay, because I had called the Red Bulls twice already for MSG that spring. But I don't think I had done soccer on the radio in two years, not regularly since 2011, so there were a few moments where the game moved fast for me. On the first goal, I gave Sacha Kljestan credit for forcing the turnover when it was clearly Felipe (as Steve pointed out in his analysis), which is embarrassing. They don't exactly look alike or anything!
Some Wondo Love
If you were watching, you saw all-time MLS leading scorer Chris Wondolowski on the Earthquakes bench to start the game, and he did play in the second half, but my favorite Wondo fact of the game didn't have to do with Chris. Steve Wondolowski, who played with Chris in Houston when I was there, went with my audio for at least some of the game and gave me, a life-long Oakland A's fan (long story for another time), quite a post-game compliment!
@jtyardley Great call tonight! Can't wait to hear you calling our A's games when Korach retires.— Stephen Wondolowski (@sjwondolowski) April 18, 2015
How Far Kljestan's Come
Lastly, I thought it was appropriate, somehow, that there were a couple faces in these highlights who also showed up in the Houston-Chivas USA game I had called five years prior. Firstly, Dominic Kinnear had moved back home to coach the Earthquakes, and I remember catching up with him before the game.
But one of the centerpieces in this performance, Kljestan, had a cameo in the 2010 game as the player Lovel Palmer turned past before scoring from distance. Consider Kljestan's five years in between: getting married, moving to Europe and playing 180 games for Anderlecht, including Champions League contests, falling out of favor with the US national team, and then transferring back to MLS with the Red Bulls. He hadn't lived as many places as I had in those five years (4), but he had been busy!
Last MLS goal for @SachaKljestan? April 24, 2010 for Chivas USA against ... wait for it ... San Jose. 4 years, 51 weeks ago.— Jonathan Yardley (@jtyardley) April 18, 2015
Kljestan has had an eventful five years since, as well, winning the Supporters' Shield, reaching the rare 20-assst milestone, captaining the Red Bulls, being traded to Orlando, and now winding up with the LA Galaxy. Still getting used to that!
But it just goes to show, a lot can happen in five years, and I'm very glad I was able to inaugurate the Red Bulls' English-language radio presence back in 2015.
Flashback 2010: Palmer's ridiculous rip and Cameron's "unique" celebration
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.
April 17, 2010
2010 was, in many ways, a lost season for the Houston Dynamo. The club missed the playoffs for the only time in its first eight years of existence (2006-13), and it led to a lot of pressure, angst, and, ultimately, changes to both the team on the field and the organization behind it.
But that doesn't mean it was all bad. There were some incredibly cool and fun moments to that season, even if they did wind up overshadowed by the frustration of it all.
So I thought I would start this series of flashbacks with one of my favorite goal calls from early in my radio days, one that survived on my demo reel for several years, even after I had transitioned to mostly TV work. Houston brought in a Jamaican midfielder during preseason named Lovel Palmer, he scored a great long-range goal in preseason, and the Dynamo pulled the trigger on a transfer, paying his club Harbour View an (of course undisclosed fee) to sign Palmer.
Lovel Palmer! That's how you do it!
His first Houston start came 10 years ago today – April 17, 2010 – in the fourth game of the season, and when he pulled the trigger from about 35 yards away in the first half, firing a shot past Zach Thornton to make it a 2-0 game, I exploded:
So I went back to watch and enjoy the highlights:
and I found a lot more than just Lovel's outstanding finish.
Geoff Cameron, Easter Bunny?
Geoff Cameron scored the opening goal on a feed from roommate and constant odd-couple-partner Corey Ashe, then launched into a …bunny-hop celebration? What the heck was that? Was it an Easter thing? No, this was almost 2 weeks after Easter.
I really couldn't remember, so I had to Google it, and it started to come back to me. Geoff, a Best XI selection as a center back in 2009 but returning to the Houston midfield in 2010, had done a commercial for Volkswagen involving various elaborate goal celebrations, and his was: the bunny hop. Somehow he decided to bust it out in a game (he had also used it in the 2009 Dynamo Charities Cup), and I seem to remember all of us busting out laughing at the same time.
(As an aside, look at how wide-eyed Geoff is for this commercial shoot! I don't think he's acting when he's looking around on that pedestal all uncomfortable. And who came up with this campaign, anyway? Disaster or genius?)
Dom Oduro's "shoes are hot!"
Cameron did keep the shoes on for this celebration, which cannot be said for the day's third goalscorer, Dominic Oduro. After tapping a Brad Davis feed into an empty net from about 4 yards away, Oduro "play[ed] hot-potato with his cleat," a celebration I certainly had never seen before. When asked about it later, Oduro was quoted as saying, "My shoes are hot. It's going to be hot from now on. It's a goal, and the shoes are hot."
So our communications office definitely had a "shoes are hot!" saying whenever Oduro's name came up from then on. Of course, he proceeded to score 1 goal in his next 17 games …
A Moonlight Graham moment
This highlight reel closes with the debut of 18-year-old Francisco Navas Cobo, the Dynamo's second Homegrown Player and first to appear in a game. This was a big deal for the club at the time, trying to prove to anyone and everyone that the Houston academy could and would provide opportunities no other local club could.
Of course, if you've read this far, you probably know that the Houston academy is considered one of the least successful in MLS, and Navas Cobo never made another MLS appearance, one more cautionary tale of American soccer: We're all looking for the next big thing, but the success rate is low.
End of an era
My lasting memory of this game is just bliss: a 3-0 win for the team that employed me, some great goals and entertaining celebrations to call, and a couple of debuts to boot. But in some ways, it was the last hurrah for the great Houston(/San Jose) dynasty. The Earthquakes were MLS Cup champions in 2001 and 2003, Supporters' Shield winners in 2005, then moved to Houston and won MLS Cup titles in 2006 and 2007, won the West regular season title in 2008, and tied for the West regular season title in 2009. This was a juggernaut, pushed off course by postseason misfortunes in 2008 and 2009, but still feared around the league.
The roster on April 17 had six players who had been in San Jose, with two other starters injured. Yet one week later, on a rainy night in Chicago, Cameron ruptured his PCL, and the jig was up. Having already lost Ricardo Clark and Stuart Holden in the offseason, Houston never recovered in 2010. The club finally had to go younger, and so Brian Mullan was traded closer to home during 2010, and Pat Onstad, Richard Mulrooney, Ryan Cochrane, and Craig Waibel all moved on after that season, with Eddie Robinson limping through one more campaign in 2011.
The runs to MLS Cup finals in 2011 and 2012 and the Eastern Conference final in 2013 looked very different, with only a few names (Kinnear, Ching, Davis, Clark) who had celebrated titles in San Jose colors. So, in many ways, April 17, 2010 was one final day of belief in the promise of that era. And boy, were we pumped!
April 17, 2010
2010 was, in many ways, a lost season for the Houston Dynamo. The club missed the playoffs for the only time in its first eight years of existence (2006-13), and it led to a lot of pressure, angst, and, ultimately, changes to both the team on the field and the organization behind it.
But that doesn't mean it was all bad. There were some incredibly cool and fun moments to that season, even if they did wind up overshadowed by the frustration of it all.
Lovel Palmer! That's how you do it!
His first Houston start came 10 years ago today – April 17, 2010 – in the fourth game of the season, and when he pulled the trigger from about 35 yards away in the first half, firing a shot past Zach Thornton to make it a 2-0 game, I exploded:
"Into the middle to Palmer, with a man on him. Nice turn to get around Kljestan. Palmer, gonna shoot … fires! Finds the net! What a goal! Lovel Palmer! That's how you do it! His first start, his first Dynamo goal, and boy is he pumped!"It's one I could watch all day, because of the goal itself and because of what I knew it meant to Lovel, an emotional player who became a fan favorite with every club he represented in his career. (As an aside, I ultimately learned to pronounce his name as LUH-VELL, with an accent on both syllables, rather than the luh-VELL I used here.)
So I went back to watch and enjoy the highlights:
and I found a lot more than just Lovel's outstanding finish.
Geoff Cameron, Easter Bunny?
Geoff Cameron scored the opening goal on a feed from roommate and constant odd-couple-partner Corey Ashe, then launched into a …bunny-hop celebration? What the heck was that? Was it an Easter thing? No, this was almost 2 weeks after Easter.
I really couldn't remember, so I had to Google it, and it started to come back to me. Geoff, a Best XI selection as a center back in 2009 but returning to the Houston midfield in 2010, had done a commercial for Volkswagen involving various elaborate goal celebrations, and his was: the bunny hop. Somehow he decided to bust it out in a game (he had also used it in the 2009 Dynamo Charities Cup), and I seem to remember all of us busting out laughing at the same time.
(As an aside, look at how wide-eyed Geoff is for this commercial shoot! I don't think he's acting when he's looking around on that pedestal all uncomfortable. And who came up with this campaign, anyway? Disaster or genius?)
Dom Oduro's "shoes are hot!"
Cameron did keep the shoes on for this celebration, which cannot be said for the day's third goalscorer, Dominic Oduro. After tapping a Brad Davis feed into an empty net from about 4 yards away, Oduro "play[ed] hot-potato with his cleat," a celebration I certainly had never seen before. When asked about it later, Oduro was quoted as saying, "My shoes are hot. It's going to be hot from now on. It's a goal, and the shoes are hot."
So our communications office definitely had a "shoes are hot!" saying whenever Oduro's name came up from then on. Of course, he proceeded to score 1 goal in his next 17 games …
A Moonlight Graham moment
This highlight reel closes with the debut of 18-year-old Francisco Navas Cobo, the Dynamo's second Homegrown Player and first to appear in a game. This was a big deal for the club at the time, trying to prove to anyone and everyone that the Houston academy could and would provide opportunities no other local club could.
Of course, if you've read this far, you probably know that the Houston academy is considered one of the least successful in MLS, and Navas Cobo never made another MLS appearance, one more cautionary tale of American soccer: We're all looking for the next big thing, but the success rate is low.
End of an era
My lasting memory of this game is just bliss: a 3-0 win for the team that employed me, some great goals and entertaining celebrations to call, and a couple of debuts to boot. But in some ways, it was the last hurrah for the great Houston(/San Jose) dynasty. The Earthquakes were MLS Cup champions in 2001 and 2003, Supporters' Shield winners in 2005, then moved to Houston and won MLS Cup titles in 2006 and 2007, won the West regular season title in 2008, and tied for the West regular season title in 2009. This was a juggernaut, pushed off course by postseason misfortunes in 2008 and 2009, but still feared around the league.
The roster on April 17 had six players who had been in San Jose, with two other starters injured. Yet one week later, on a rainy night in Chicago, Cameron ruptured his PCL, and the jig was up. Having already lost Ricardo Clark and Stuart Holden in the offseason, Houston never recovered in 2010. The club finally had to go younger, and so Brian Mullan was traded closer to home during 2010, and Pat Onstad, Richard Mulrooney, Ryan Cochrane, and Craig Waibel all moved on after that season, with Eddie Robinson limping through one more campaign in 2011.
The runs to MLS Cup finals in 2011 and 2012 and the Eastern Conference final in 2013 looked very different, with only a few names (Kinnear, Ching, Davis, Clark) who had celebrated titles in San Jose colors. So, in many ways, April 17, 2010 was one final day of belief in the promise of that era. And boy, were we pumped!