WashPost 11/13 :: Mike Wise :: Nowak creates a United state

[geordienation]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46503-2004Nov12.html

Great column from Wise. He was an absolute STEAL from the NYT. Even though his best stuff is basketball related, this shows he can write outside his usual area.

Last April, a grown man violently swept a 14-year-old's legs out from under him on a District soccer field. The kid had stolen the ball, begun to laugh, and the next moment he was on the ground, looking up at this maniacal, tree stump of a man who could not deal with having the ball taken from him -- even during a routine drill.


The adults nearby did nothing because, well, the man was their coach.

[geordienation]

Just noticed the dateline: Carson.

Looks like Wise is there for the weekend.

[Jose L. Couso]

Great article.

I was shocked to read the beginning part specially just after reading Timoteo's thread!

[seahawkdad]

Just noticed the dateline: Carson.

Looks like Wise is there for the weekend.Nice...Gildea, Goff and now Wise. Post big sports guns interested in soccer, and TWP paying to have that happen.

This is good.

[sckrmom]

What a great article about Piotr! He deserves all the recognition (and the Cup) :)

[TEConnor]

I have only one thing to say about this article:

This guy Wise, he's a writer.

Tim

[Sundevil9]

That was a good article. It's nice to have another writer in the stable.

Are the print media the only ones with folks in(and around) Carson? I noticed that Channel 7 had a crew at the last practice at RFK, but nothing since. And WTOP has been going out of thier way to mention it during almost every sports segment.

[JoeW]

First, I can understand giving COTY award to Andrulis--the streak is really hard to ignore (even if Andrulis is a fool). I personally think Gansler deserved for how KC produced despite the pieces that went down. But that said, this article shows just how outstanding Nowak is. The team didn't really come together until the last month before the playoffs. So it's hard to argue he's COTY on the basis of that. But I see so many parallells to Arena here. I know they're different personalities with different strengths and weaknesses. But it took a while for Arena to get things together as well.

Second, outstanding writing by Wise. There is a lot he could have chosen to write about--focusing on Nowak was perceptive on his part (as opposed to a glitch piece about "Freddy's first MLS Cup!" or "Olsen and Moreno return to past glory" or other stuff that would be easy to identify as a story. Chosing Nowak as the story (and getting some of the details that he did) demonstrates a decent understanding of the sport.

Third, very nice to see that Gildea, Goff and Wise are all out there. We haven't seen anything from Solomon yet either--I'd not be shocked if he was out there as well.

[Lowecifer]

Nice addition!

I particularly liked this paragraph:

Something happened to this franchise the past seven months, something beyond marketing and ticket sales, something beyond Adu. A coach whose intense vision of winning won out, over everything.

[PumaJohnny]

Great article. It's always nice to see positive, legitimizing, people-really-do-care-about-soccer articles,

[greenbill]

Great article!

[Hedbal]

I'm thinking about fining my teenage son for putting his shirts in the laundry basket inside-out. Why didn't I think of it before? Thanks, Piotr!

[feverPitch]

I love Peter Nowak. =) I had been kind of sorry to see Hudson go last year, but not now that I've seen what Nowak's been able to do. He handled the Freddy thing really well, too.

Great article!