Category Archives: USL Sounders

Features regarding the A-League and USL-1 era of the Seattle Sounders (1994-08)

All Salaries Aside

Professional sports is generally depicted as glamorous, a high life where players mix with other celebrities, relax at exotic and exclusive destinations and, all and all, lead a jet-set existence.

Truth be told, the majority of those being paid to perform in the athletic arena are relatively simple folk who face many of the same struggles of the common human. And while the rock star may flash a Rolex and rumble off in a Lamborghini, the stories told by the rank and file are interesting in their own right and, without question, more relatable.

Take the fishing story of Roger Levesque. Our smiling, swashbuckling former Sounder forward is well-known for his pirate face and his scuba celebration. But how many know that Levesque made his pro soccer life possible by fishing the open sea?

For over 12 years, Levesque held a commercial fishing license, working out of ports such as Astoria, Westport and Bellingham. Out into the Pacific they’d sail in search of sablefish, a.k.a. black cod. When the USL Sounders season ended, he would go out to sea where the catch enabled him to make ends meet.

“I couldn’t buy a house or condo, and it was a huge investment at the time,” explains Levesque, who took out a line of credit to pay $90,000 for the license in 2006. “It helped bridge the gap.”

Thar he goes: Roger Levesque , commercial fisherman. During his USL and post-MLS days, he supplemented his income by catching black cod, a.k.a. sablefish, off the Washington and Oregon coasts. (Courtesy Roger Levesque)

Stormy Weather

In October, the weather can contribute to rough seas, and Levesque and the crew would usually stay out 2-3 days until they reached their limit. At times, it could take a week. They might sleep for a couple hours as the lines soaked, but it could be 36 straight hours of demanding and sometimes dangerous work.

Continue reading All Salaries Aside

How Legends Are Made

There was not only a new head coach and GM but also literally a ton of new players. And if Zach Scott thought he was the only substitute schoolteacher among the lot of 2002 Sounders, the know-it-all student in the front row would soon inform him. There was at least three.

However, Scott was probably the only player/teacher whose Sounders career began by commuting 4-5 hours each way and who not only graduated from college but got married within the first two months.

“I flew back to Maui for three days, we got married, and then,” recalls Scott, “I flew back because we had a game that weekend.” All that and no pay.

Having made Brian Schmetzer’s squad through a tryout, the rookie from Gonzaga signed for the minimum. “We were getting $250 per game, if you made it onto the field,” Scott confirms.

But in the first match following his nuptials, a one-sided win over Hampton Roads, he never got off the bench.

Zach Scott progressed from first-year trialist to legend status after 15 seasons.

Those final years prior to Seattle joining MLS are remembered for their four trophies and two extended runs and upsets in the Open Cup.  Yet as that A-League and USL era fades in the rearview mirror, some may not comprehend just how lean was the Sounders’ payroll.

Reminder: It’s A Business

It should be noted that it’s unlikely Seattle would’ve scored an MLS franchise, at least in 2007, had that USL club not existed. And it only existed because Adrian Hanauer and fellow investors kept it afloat by running a tight ship. Three pro soccer franchises in Seattle and Tacoma had drowned in red ink, and when Hanauer became the managing partner the club was coming off its worst finish for both attendance and league standing.

Continue reading How Legends Are Made

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

Continue reading Got Game, Will Travel

Too Much Fun to Complain

One evening, not so long ago, Peter Fewing was dining out with friends when a tablemate mentioned that Fewing once played professional soccer. It made him giggle, just a little.

When Jeff Stock first signed with the original Seattle Sounders out of Tacoma’s Stadium High School, he wanted to maintain his amateur status and eligibility for the 1980 Olympic Games. Still, his earnings, when adjusted through an inflation calculator, were exponentially more than Fewing’s. In fact, in 2020 dollars it exceeds that of some top players for Reign FC today.

It’s madness, in many respects. But for those who have played at the top levels of American pro soccer the past 45 years, this hardly comes as a surprise. Any yet, none of the journeymen interviewed for this story have many complaints. In fact, all maintain they were enriched by the experience, intellectually if not financially.

“I was playing at the highest level of soccer in the country at the time,” notes Fewing, now 26 seasons into a career as Seattle University’s head coach. “It was fun, we had fans, we signed autographs, and we got two free beers and a burger at the postgame party. The sentiment was that we were having too much fun to complain.”

Craig Beeson, left, and Peter Fewing , center, celebrate an FC Seattle goal. (Joanie Komura photo/Frank MacDonald Collection)
Continue reading Too Much Fun to Complain

Seattle Seeing Red

What’s been Rave and white and red all over? Ah, that would describe the inauspicious start to the Sounders’ MLS season so far.

Two games, two red cards; no goals, no points. Even for historically slow-starting Seattle, this is a bit unsavory for the faithful. But when referees are showing cards, might as well go all-in. In other words, let’s dive in to an anecdotal history of notable Sounders walks of shame.

First Impressions

In the beginning, there was Dave D’Errico. Seven games into the original Sounders’ existence and, personally, just his second appearance, top draft pick D’Errico decked Toronto’s Gene Strenicer. It did not go undetected. While D’Errico sat in the locker room, Davey Butler scored late to give 10-man Seattle the road victory.

Tommy Jenkins no sooner arrived in Seattle than he saw red flash before his eyes.

Newly-imported from England, Tommy Jenkins was billed as an elegant playmaker to support Geoff Hurst. Yet when the pair debuted in 1976 at St. Louis, Jenkins introduced himself to the NASL by getting stuck-in, way in. He saw red then, but never again in his four seasons. Three other openers were marked excessive force, most recently Tony Alfaro’s double yellow versus LAFC.

Early? You want an early shower? Leo Gonzalez had barely broken a sweat in Columbus before his seventh-minute sending off in 2013. You probably don’t remember that; instead that game is best known for Eddie Johnson’s winner, celebrated by his ‘show-me-the-money’ mime.

Continue reading Seattle Seeing Red

View to a Kill

[Part One] Guatemala City’s Estadio Mateo Flores is a classic, midsize, nondescript bowl, with the playing field surrounded by a running track. The participants enter through a tunnel at one end.

In October 1996, Estadio Flores had drawn world attention for all the wrong reasons. Counterfeit tickets and breached entrances resulted in an estimated 60,000 fans jamming into the facility for a World Cup qualifying match between Guatemala and Costa Rica. Mateo Flores capacity was listed at 45,800. The crowd surge began one hour before kickoff; eventually the stampede resulted in 83 dead and 180 seriously injured.

By the time the 1997 Champions’ Cup was held, further security and crowd control measures were in place, and pale blue plastic seats had replaced the concrete terraces, reducing capacity to 26,000.

Awaiting the Seattle Sounders at Estadio Flores on this hot, muggy, summer Sunday afternoon was Mexico’s star-studded Cruz Azul, seeking its fourth Concacaf Champions’ Cup title but the first in 25 years. La Maquina (The Machine) needed a victory versus Seattle to secure first place in the group and, thus, lift the trophy.

There may have only been an inch of copy in The Seattle Times, but in Mexico City there was no missing the score.

For anyone associated with the already eliminated Sounders, a sense of foreboding would be understandable. Yet as Preston Burpo and his teammates made their way through the tunnel entrance, their spirits were lifted.

“I’m a big believer that any game you walk into, you can get a result,” states Burpo. “When we’re walking out the tunnel, all the local fans were rooting for us because if we got a result against Cruz Azul, then (host Comunicaciones, playing Necaxa afterward) had a real chance to win.”

Positive Thoughts at First Continue reading View to a Kill

Bury the Score

Sitting in his living room, watching the catastrophic match unfold on the TV, Neil Megson had a growing feeling this would be his last day as head coach of the Seattle Sounders.

This was his team being shredded, gutted and embarrassed before its biggest audience and on the greatest stage to date.

Megson’s father, a former coach himself, sat with him, staring at the screen in shock. Neil broke the silence.

“Holy s***. Holy s***,” he repeated. “I think I’m going to get fired in the morning.”

His father, Don Megson, went further, stating, “You deserve to get fired.”

Neil Megson, Seattle’s player/coach, was obligated to coach the A-League West All-Stars rather than take his team to Guatemala.

If Sounders lore could bury a single score line from the past 44 years, certainly this selection would be weighted heavily. There are many reasons, the 11-nil beating being first and foremost. However, there’s more to it.

In some ways it was Exhibit A of where American professional soccer existed in the mid-Nineties; the scarce resources, skewed values and naiveté. It’s also a story of the Concacaf Champions League’s past and Seattle’s first encounters with Mexican powers and playing abroad. Stir it all together and it’s one hot mess, even if some failed to recognize it at the time.

Continue reading Bury the Score

SEATTLE VS VANCOUVER: BY THE NUMBERS (USL ERA, 1994-2008)

A-League/USL Era – Sounders vs 86ers/Whitecaps (1994-08)

League – 73 Meetings

Home (form):19-8-9 GD: 59-29 [WWWLWWL(TW)LWLWWWL(TW)DWWLWWWDWDDWDDWWLWDL]

Away: 16-12-9 GD: 61- 52 [(TL)LWW(TW)WW(TL)WWWLLWW(TW)LWLWLWLWWDLLLWDDDLLDW]

Total: 35-20-18 GD: 120-81 [(TL)WLWWWW(TW)LWWWW(TL)L(TW)WLWWWLL(TW)LLLWWWWW(TW)L(TWLWDWLWWLLWLWWWWWDDWLDLLDWWDDDDDWWLLLWDWDL]

Playoffs – 10 Meetings

Home: 1-1-3 GD: 3-6 [(TW)(TW)LDW]

Away: 1-2-2 GD: 3-7 [WLL(TW)D]

Total: 2-3-5 GD: 6-13 []

Extremes

Record Win: 5-0, Tacoma Dome, 7/30/1994; 5-0, Memorial Stadium, 9/8/2001

Record Defeat: 5-0, Swangard Stadium, 9/4/2000

Record Total Goals: 8, Seattle 2:6 Vancouver, 9/15/2002

Doubles (win home & away same season): 9/1

Individual Leaders Continue reading SEATTLE VS VANCOUVER: BY THE NUMBERS (USL ERA, 1994-2008)

10-Men Can Tell A Tale

If they were writing a book entitled The Team Most Unlikely To, the Sounders would already be well into chapter four.

On the heels of the improbable second half and 2016 playoff run to an MLS Cup, in the first 18 matches this season Seattle has staged a three-goal comeback in the last 15 minutes versus New England and, earlier this week, come from a man down and a goal down at Portland to earn a dramatic draw at the expense of two points to their most despised rival.

An instant classic: Clint Dempsey celebrates his stoppage-time equalizer at Portland. (Courtest Sounders FC/Charis Wilson)

The first two acts are unprecedented. Seattle had never won a top flight championship, let alone after such a disastrous start. The Revs also proved to be a foil for Sounders history.

Continue reading 10-Men Can Tell A Tale

Seattle vs Portland: By The Numbers (USL Era, 2001-08)

A-League/USL Era – Sounders vs Timbers (2001-08)

League – 32 Meetings

Home (form): 9-4-3 GD: 26-16 [WDWWWWLLLLWDWWWD]

Away: 7-7-2 GD: 15-16 [LWWLWWLLWLDLWDLW]

Total: 16-11-5 GD: 41-32 [LWDWWWLWWWWWLLLLLWLWLDDLWWWDWLDW]

Playoffs – 4 Meetings

Home: 2-0-0 GD: 4-0 [WW]

Away: 1-1-0 GD: 2-2 [LW]

Total: 3-1-0 GD: 6-2 [LWWW]

Open Cup – 2 Meetings

Home: 1-0-0 GD: 2-1 [W]

Away: 0-1-0 GD: 0-2 [L]

Total: 1-1-0 GD: 2-3 [LW] Continue reading Seattle vs Portland: By The Numbers (USL Era, 2001-08)