Tag Archives: Peter Hattrup

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.

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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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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.

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When Falcons Took Flight

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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The Gifts of Cliff McCrath

Wanted: Someone to supervise 300 kids 24/7 during summer, take 22 rowdy college boys cross-country to win a soccer championship in the fall, marry a couple on Saturday, christen a newborn on Sunday, keynote a corporate speech to hundreds first thing Monday and pull votes for a stadium initiative on Tuesday. Ten fingers not necessary. Sense of humor a must.

Unless your name happens to be Charles Clifford McCrath, there’s no need to apply.

Cliff McCrath often shares company with soccer’s royalty, in this instance Pelé.

On Saturday, Feb. 11, a true treasure of Seattle and soccer, Cliff McCrath, will be inducted into Seattle Pacific University’s Falcon Legends Hall of Fame. McCrath knows the drill. After all, it’s his 10th such enshrinement around the country.

Unlike the others, however, this will be celebrated on his turf, where since arriving 47 years ago he grew to be an outsized figure capable of accomplishing amazing feats for a sport that, at times, struggled to take hold.

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First, and Creating a Belief That Would Last

When Seattle Pacific soccer alumni of a certain age inevitably gather, there’s no shortage of stories.

From tales of seemingly endless cross-country road trips to innumerable narratives regarding their leader, Uncle Nubby, there is plenty of fodder. And while hundreds of alums experienced final fours and dozens contributed to the Falcons’ five championships, there’s a certain reverence for those who did it first.

Two overtimes? Actually it was three.

By winning the 1978 NCAA Division II championship, SPU set in motion a Puget Sound tidal surge that would extend for more than 15 years and, some would argue, unceasingly to this date.

Upon returning home from Miami in early December of ‘78, Falcons coach Cliff McCrath, a.k.a. Nubby, took fast action on two counts. The first remains the most sensational and storied publicity stunt in our soccer community’s long and distinguished history. The second was to affirm the source of bounty McCrath molded into champions.

It was plain to see that Seattle Pacific was the beneficiary of leadership and coaching throughout Washington youth soccer, so he immediately drafted a letter to the statewide association.

“Eight of the starters came from the area,” McCrath notes. “Effectively, this national championship belonged to them; it was dedicated to them because these were their players.”

Uncle Nubby Did What?

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