Hosting the College Cup may be just what St. Louis’ soccer image needs
By Matthew Halverson
Photograph by Pete Newcomb
Somebody get Jeff Macko an Ambien. In the 14 months since Saint Louis University won its bid to host the 2006 NCAA Men’s College Cup this December 1 and 3, the poor guy’s had more than a few restless nights, mainly because he’s responsible for the greening of the field it will be played on and, well, it’s December. “It’s a tricky month,” he says. “It could be 50 degrees, it could be snowing.” (Not for nothing, a look at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center records shows that it was in the low thirties with a little snow on the ground last year at the same time.)
Macko is SLU’s manager of grounds and custodial services, so when he first heard the news in September 2005 that the Final Four of soccer was coming to Robert R. Hermann Stadium, his initial reaction was natural for a guy who was used to spreading some winterizer in November and calling it a year: “Why are we hosting this?”
It’s a simple question, but the answer goes beyond how one man deals with his turf to how an entire city prepares for an opportunity to remind the country that St. Louis is still every bit the soccer hotbed it’s been known as in the past.
Frank Viverito sounds like a kid who gets to open his Christmas presents a month early when he talks about the Cup’s arrival in town. “This is something the soccer fans of St. Louis deserve to enjoy in their own community,” says the president of the St. Louis Sports Commission. When, in July 2005, Los Angeles’ Home Depot Center pulled out of its commitment to host the 2006 Cup, SLU and the Sports Commission put together a bid that included moving the presentation of the Missouri Athletic Club’s Hermann Trophy (college soccer’s biggest individual honor) to the weekend of the tournament for an added attraction.
Call it calculated compensation. Hermann Stadium seats 6,500 and will be expanded to cram in another 600, but that’s on the low end of the scale for College Cup sites. (The Home Depot Center seats 27,000, and more than 13,000 attended the championship game there in 2004.) The “soccer celebration” planned for the first weekend in December may just be what helped St. Louis beat out other bidders like Dallas and Richmond, Va.
If Viverito is feeling the pressure of hosting a tournament that usually goes to cities with bigger venues and warmer climates, he isn’t letting it show, but he does mention more than once the importance of making a “favorable impression” on the NCAA and admits, “We have a lot at stake.”
Like recruiting. SLU’s recruiting classes are routinely ranked far below those of schools like UCLA and Duke, which will cherrypick local players. Kosha Irby, SLU’s associate athletic director, won’t call the weekend a recruiting exercise, but he does say that it will be an opportunity to show young soccer talent what the school has to offer.
The biggest issue, though, may be the city’s image as soccer central. It’s been a long time since the St. Louis area has hosted a soccer championship (try 31 years), and it’s been even longer since SLU has won a championship. Add to that the fact that we’ve been passed up for an MLS team multiple times and the fact that the cities like Orlando and Detroit hosted men’s World Cup games in 1994 while local soccer fans watched from home, and that image starts to look a little worn.
Viverito takes issue with that suggestion, stressing that those slights were strictly a matter of not having the right facility, and he points out that interest in the game among St. Louisans is still high.
In the meantime, Macko and his grounds crew are praying for favorable weather. They’ve been tucking the field in at night under special turf blankets that will keep the grass growing—or at least prevent it from dying—and getting the shovels ready.
“There are probably people out there saying, ‘Why are they giving it to St. Louis? There’s no way they can pull it off,’” Macko says. Snow or shine, he and the rest of the soccer community are determined to prove that they can.
