In the tough Denver market, the team that Mooch built searches for a fan base A sweltering morning in Westminster, 15 miles from downtown Denver. Must be 90-odd degrees in the shade ù if there was any shade to be had. The Colorado Rapids lease their training facility here, a steal at $10,000 a year. Four full-size soccer fields and a handful of trailers sit atop an adjacent hill. Most of the players live nearby and one trailer has a DirecTV satellite on top for the team to watch MLS games. The Rapids sweat away, working ù unsuccessfully ù at transition plays. The final piece, in this case the telling ball, is missing. Which sums up the Rapids situation: The training facility will one day be a permanent fixture, rather than trailers; the team is a player or two away from really clicking; and the front office is hopeful that it can make that final push to boost the attendance and place the Rapids in the sporting big time. That’s a tall order. Denver is a small market (1990 population: 467,000), and could be called tiny considering it is represented by all four major sports. The beloved Broncos occupy the top spot in the public’s consciousness, followed by the Colorado Rockies, which despite a disasterous mid-season slump, are still playing to packed houses from Colorado and surrounding states. The Nuggets may be in the doldrums, but the NBA is still the NBA. And the Avalanche had the temerity to win the NHL’s Stanley Cup in its inaugural season in the Mile High City. It’s a tough market. Not that the Rapids did themselves any favors last year. The franchise, from the front office on down, painted a perfect how-not-to portrait. Head coach Bobby Houghton was hired on the strength of an impressive resume, but he was also ill-informed about American players. The on-field solution was to bypass the midfield, and to employ the crudest hit-and-hope, long-ball style. “It was all over the head,” says Colorado Foxes coach Lorne Donaldson. “No one enjoyed it, not the public, not even the players.” “We’d go a goal down and that would be it,” says Chris Henderson. “You know, there goes another one, and we’ve lost the game.” The Rapids reeked. To combat growing disenchantment among what few supporters turned up for games, the front office embarked on a series of incentives, the most brain-dead being the Guaranteed Win Night, which gave each fan a free ticket to the next home game. Naturally, the Rapids didn’t win, and to add insult to injury, MLS slapped a $25,000 fine on the club for its promotion. What was worse, nobody seemed to care. The team struggled for column inches in the local press ù a battle it continues to wage ù and announced attendance settled at the 6,000 mark. Houghton quit in early September (assistant coach Emilio Romero was an earlier casualty), followed by general manager Rich Levine three days later. Roy Wegerle took over as interim coach, the Rapids posted an 11-21 record, dropped into the Western Division cellar and failed to make the playoffs. And then the new broom arrived.
Mooch sweeps the place clean
“Hi, my name’s Mooch and I’m the coach of the Colorado Rapids,” beams coach Glenn Myernick, addressing a group of preschoolers, who sit cross-legged on the lawn in front of him, eating packed lunches. “Eating lunch, huh? My favorite’s a henway. What’s a henway, you ask? About two-and-a-half pounds!” The introductions are not only part of a make-good with the locals, they’re also necessary. Since joining the Rapids last November, Myernick’s been busy rebuilding the team. Six players have survived Mooch’s cull: Marcelo Balboa, Steve Trittschuh, the Hendersons (Chris and Sean), Matt Kmosko, and Brian Bates. “I took over the club after a very disappointing season on and off the field,” says Myernick, sipping mineral water in his office. “The atmosphere here was very tenuous because there were some players who didn’t want to be here. They felt that the club really wasn’t moving in the right direction and I needed to find out right away who wanted to be here and who wanted to go.” Dominic Kinnear went to San Jose for Paul Bravo. Other players wanted to remain because they felt they’d be guaranteed playing time on a weak team, and were released. “The players who very clearly wanted to make a commitment to the club, to turn it around, and were at the level where I thought they could help the team, I was very interested to have them stay,” says Myernick. Rebuilding continues. The Rapids recently off-loaded two of its marquee players: Roy Wegerle went to D.C. United for Steve Rammel, and disgruntled South African striker Shaun Bartlett headed to the MetroStars for their No.1 1998 supplemental draft pick and “future considerations” (read: assistance with budget-trimming on contracts on one and a big star down the line for the other). “Roy isn’t in the first flush of youth,” says general manager Dan Counce. “He’s a good setup guy, but for us we need someone to score goals. Roy’s dribbling circle right now is about the size of this room. “Rammel is the type of guy who can pop up in the box and cause problems.” And Bartlett? “Shaun made no bones about the fact that he wants to go to a big club in Europe,” says Myernick. “Between traveling back and forth to South Africa [for World Cup qualifiers], he lost his sharpness and very clearly needed more training. “New York needed help up front. It’s a bigger market for him and we felt it was a good move all round.” Adrian Paz, Tote Castaneda, and David Patino all arrived to add some much-needed flair to the team. “I’m surprised at quickly how we’ve built chemistry within this club with so many different egos,” says Myernick. “We’re three or four players away from becoming a significantly better team. There’s a big gap ù and we’re talking about dollars ù between marquee players and the rest. In the MLS we’re aware of the quality of the top players. It’s the next-level-down foreigner that we need to do a better job with, in terms of getting more bang for our buck.” The bottom-line is dear to Rapids owner Philip Anschutz, whose company’s interests lie in natural resources, railroads, communications and real estate investment that includes a sizable chunk of the Denver skyline. “[Anschutz] is a lot more hands-on this year,” says Myernick. “Practically anonymous last year would be accurate. His statement to me when I was hired was that he wanted to get more involved this year to turn this project around. He’s a very astute businessman who’s added the Colorado Rapids to a long list of concerns. He’s into it. “This is a typical soccer community in that the vast majority of kids play club soccer. I’d say the majority of our fans are white, middle-class soccer families and we’re making a concerted effort at making the game acceptable to them.”
Few fans watch Rapids blow lead
Cautioned that the Rapids-Burn matchup would be a bust at the gate ù even the buoyant zeal of Counce was tempered ù I drive to Mile High Stadium. Despite the warnings, the home support, or lack thereof, still comes as a shock. Lost on the labyrinthine slopes of the stadium, it’s 20 minutes before I encounter another human face. On the field are football markings, and a dried strip of turf runs down the center. A local boys all-star matchup precedes the main event and the participants are almost as Myernick described. The public-address announcer proclaims the attendance to be 8,125, which seems generous. Then again, given the cavernous proportions (capacity 75,000) of Mile High, 40,000 might get lost. To counter the lack of atmosphere, the Rapids have introduced cheerleaders (to date, two letters of complaint) and the team’s mascot, a blue blob called “Rapid Man.” There’s the obligatory in-stadium music and at one point the PA tries to start a cheer for Paz, whose two goals convince a
London Independent columnist that the Uruguayan was not the worst foreigner ever to appear for Ipswich Town. A baleful cheer soon disappears into the thin air of Denver. Then the Rapids fall apart. Four unanswered goals from a more patient and creative Burn give Dallas the win and a large number of fans have headed for the parking-lot by the final whistle. “To be honest, I just don’t think it’s gonna make it here,” says Irv Moss of the
Denver Post. “Soccer’s a sport a lot of youngsters play and I don’t know that they necessarily become fans when they get older. They watch American football, or baseball or basketball, and we have all that here already. There’s a lot of competition.” But Denver is at the center of an economic boom in the American heartland. The sprawling suburbs provide affordable housing to young families and the local mantra is, “it’s a great place to raise a family.” The Rapids are at least another two seasons from denting the market. The franchise has a long-time resident as coach, an improved front-office staff and the financial resources to make it work. It needs time, patience and that fickle creature, luck. And an audience ù not just a Caucasian one ù to watch them play.
by Soccer America
Senior Editor Duncan Irving
