Category Archives: Seattle Pacific University

NW Collegiate Soccer, Seattle Pacific University

Never, Ever, Give Up

Forever they will be known as the guys who refused to give up. They easily could’ve quit, well before even reaching the 1993 NCAA Championship game.

Instead they stood strong, stood together and, ultimately, prevailed.

For the record, Seattle Pacific’s fifth national title was won in workmanlike fashion against reigning champion Southern Connecticut. But that match was anticlimactic in comparison to the epic semifinal two days earlier.

(Joanie Komura photo/Frank MacDonald Collection)

Seattle Pacific and top-ranked and undefeated Florida Tech played a game for the ages. The sleepy Space Coast city of Melbourne, Florida was forced to stay awake well past midnight to learn the outcome of the 4 hour, 7 minute marathon.

FIT followers firmly believed the Falcons had been put to bed early after the Panthers pulled ahead by two goals, 5-3, in overtime. But SPU refused to surrender, and went forward in numbers as All-America sweeper James Dunn pulled-on the keeper shirt to become an 11th attacker.

Travis Connell’s header closed the gap to 5-4 with 62 seconds left. Then in the dying moments a loose ball fell fortuitously to the feet of record-setting scorer Jason Dunn, James’s identical twin. From the right flank Dunn uncorked a low 25-yard drive which caromed into the net off a lunging defender – just as the clock expired.

The two teams played another 30 minutes of sudden-death overtime before finally settling matters in a gut-wrenching, 13-round penalty-kick shootout. James Dunn, still in goal, made two saves, Jason converted two kicks, and SPU won the tiebreaker, 10-9.

Although physically (an injured James Dunn was unable to play) and emotionally spent, some 44 hours later Seattle Pacific parlayed an early goal by Dominic Dickerson and clutch goalkeeping All-American Marcus Hahnemann (served red card suspension in semi) into a 1-0 result against Southern Connecticut.

During that off day, in between the semifinal and final, Jason Dunn was asked about those dying seconds of the overtime, when all hope seemed lost. Immediately after the goal was scored, Dunn whirled and ran, screaming, past the celebrating SPU bench. What was his cry? “That’s why you never give up!”

Thanks for reading along. If you enjoyed this content, perhaps you will consider supporting initiatives to bring more of our state’s soccer history to life by donating to Washington State Legends of Soccer, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to celebrating Washington’s soccer past and preserving its future.

FC Seattle, Indoor Soccer, MLS, NASL Sounders, Seattle Pacific University, USL Sounders

Got Game, Will Travel

Sometimes following your dream means leaving town, again and again. For a couple of Seattle native sons, they started at home and finished here. But in between they moved around a lot.

Chance Fry and Peter Hattrup both came out of local high schools in 1982, when the sun was still high in the sky for American soccer. It would go dark all too quickly.

That summer there were 28 teams, both outdoor and indoor, that were paying livable wages across the continent. Within two years, that number was cut in half, and when Fry and Hattrup reached their prime, pro soccer in this corner of the earth, after years of bleeding red ink, all but went black.

Hattrup refers to his peer group as The Lost Generation. They may have made some bucks, even gotten a taste of MLS or made a World Cup squad. Yet there’s long been a lingering question of what might’ve been.

If there was a silver lining, says Hattrup, the game was overflowing with players and coaches with an unquenchable thirst to find a game. Any game. “The great thing was you only had guys that loved to play,” he claims. “No one did it just for themselves, just for the money. They loved being part of the game.”

The Sounders drafted Chance Fry as a Sammamish High School senior and U.S. Youth National Team player.

An Auspicious Start

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Attendance, MLS, NASL Sounders, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle Reign, Seattle Sounders FC

Big Crowd. Big Cause.

Without question the best, most dramatic match I ever witnessed live was played before less than 1,500 fans and ended near midnight. The largest crowd to which I was a party was for a scoreless affair under a scorching midday sun. And five of the eight biggest attendances for matches played in Seattle didn’t matter at all.

That’s what makes this coming Sunday such a beautiful convergence of the masses with the most meaningful afternoon of footy our state has ever seen. When the first whistle pierces the mid-autumn air for Sounders v Toronto, CenturyLink Field will be teeming with people who came to be part of history, part of a unique experience in Seattle sporting culture: One game to determine the champion of an 8-month marathon known as MLS.

No doubt, that’s what sparked the run on tickets, fans seeking to seize the moment. When the Reds took down Atlanta and soon after the ticket link went live to season ticket holders, no one needed a clever hashtag or promotional gimmick to go online. Seattle became a soccer capitol long, long ago; like their playing heroes, the fans are smart and opportunistic, and soon the lower bowl inventory was exhausted, and folks took aim on getting tickets for friends in the upper deck. Within 48 hours, the CLink was full-up.

Bigger match, bigger crowd. It stands to reason.

The Kingdome’s first sporting event, a Sounders friendly vs. New York Cosmos, was also the first U.S. soccer attendance of 50,000 or more.
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Know Your History, NW Collegiate Soccer, Seattle Pacific University, Washington Huskies

Live, Coast to coast

It was a big game, for sure. A chance for the Little School by the Canal to once again burnish its image as a collegiate soccer upstart. Oh, yeah, and have witnesses coast-to-coast.

Such was the set-up 40 years ago, when Seattle Pacific met Southern Illinois-Edwardsville in the second game of the 1979 season. The Falcons were defending NCAA Division II champion and SIUE arrived in Seattle ranked No. 4 in all the land, having reached the Div. I quarterfinals the previous season. And a new cable network, hungry for live content, saw fit to televise it.

SPU coach Cliff McCrath, left, next to opening goal-scorer Mark Metzger.

The yellowed newspaper clippings reference the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. Before long, it would become known by its acronym, ESPN.

“We were told, and we believe it was the first soccer game televised by ESPN,” says Cliff McCrath, the legendary SPU coach. ESPN had only been on the air for four days by September 11. Cable TV was relatively new and not available in many neighborhoods in Seattle, so in some ways the broadcast was no big deal at the time.

Only 20 million U.S. homes had cable at the time, and just 1 million carried ESPN. In Puget Sound, Viacom and Teleprompter cable systems served 73,000 homes, though not all had – or were aware that they had – the new all-sports station whose first live game broadcast was from the Slow-Pitch Softball World Series.

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Know Your History, NW Collegiate Soccer, Seattle Pacific University

When Falcons Took Flight

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It’s been well over 30 years yet Peter Hattrup remembers rolling into a September 1983 practice.

Hattrup was a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University, and the Falcons were in Atlanta, wrapping up another extended early-season road trip. Having come directly from the airport to Georgia State’s training field, the players and coaches emptied out of their fleet of five shiny, black Lincoln Town Cars.

Trudging off the field following their own practice session, the Georgia State players were slack-jawed, to say the least.

From 1979 to 2000, Seattle Pacific regularly crisscrossed the country in search of games to satisfy NCAA standards.

“One guy said, ‘Damn, you guys travel in style. I thought it was the mafia pulling up,’” recalls Hattrup. “He asked how long we drove; I said we flew. Then he asked where we were staying; I said Peachtree Plaza. He said, ‘S***. You guys fly here and stay at the Plaza!?”

Indeed, for more than two decades SPU was easily the most traveled college soccer program on the planet. In an era when even the biggest D-1 powers were largely confined to the gas tank capacity of a school-issued van, the Falcons regularly crisscrossed the continent at 30,000 feet and drove the interstates in style.

This was no anomaly, no gimmick. Upon his hiring, coach Cliff McCrath was asked to create a national-class program in an area isolated geographically from soccer bastions. Furthermore, McCrath’s program was without a true home field for the first 29 seasons. To become the best requires rigorous tests. So, Seattle Pacific hit the road.

Up, Up and Away

An early season ritual, at first the road trip consisted of a handful of West Coast games. Soon enough, the Falcons took flight and eight dates became the norm, with destinations far, far away. Although 2,700 miles away, Miami was a frequent terminus.

Lincoln’s Town Car was synonymous with Seattle Pacific’s life on the road.

Even in this contemporary age where air travel has become an afterthought, only two in-state programs are slated to step foot inside the Eastern time zone this autumn. Combined, the Washington and Eastern Washington women will play four times. By comparison, during between 1981-94, five times SPU played four or more ET games on a single trip, not to mention other locales.

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