There was a short blurb in the Soccer American Daily on Laurie Calloway: "Former San Jose Clash coach Laurie Calloway is leaving the Des Moines Menace of the PDL to coach the new A-League team in Syracuse." I guess its better than not coaching, but Des Moines Menace of the PDL? What is the PDL? Good luck to Syracuse because they are going to need it...
PDL is the premier development league. It's part of the USL (United Soccer Leagues), just like the A-League. The PDL is the league that Dario Brose coaches in.
The PDL is the 4th level of soccer in this country. The Des Moines Menace is not a bad gig. Outside of MLS and Rochester, it's one of the 2 or 3 best-attended clubs at any level in the country, and they're building their own 6,000-seat stadium.
That's odd, from what I heard, the Menace were going to be 'promoted' to the A-League because of their good financial standing. He scouted one of my games (community college, same league including City College) about a month ago looking for talent for the Menace.
I thought that Dario was a coach only? I know that the team wanted him to play and coach, but Dario said that his knees(?) weren't up to it. Whatever. Good luck to Calloway. I wonder if he would have done better for the Clash if PB hadn't been GM and Waldo had played elsewhere? GO QUAKES!! - Mark
Any information on this new Syracuse team? I covered the A-League for a tiny bit for Soccer America, and never heard of a team in Syracuse. Should be a good rivalry with Rochester.
      Sometimes Laurie Calloway could dish out a one-liner or two.       In October or November of 1994 (shortly after MLS announced that San Jose would have one of the inaugural ten teams of the league, although the "Clash" name wouldn't come until the following October), a college classmate and I were strolling down Santa Clara Street in downtown San Jose between classes at SJSU. We were passing by the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks main office and decided to pay a visit there.       When we entered, we saw that the receptionist was helping to clean the place out for the office's move to the Santa Clara building that was previously the headquarters for the World Cup '94 San Francisco Bay Area venue (as Dan Van Voorhis had sold the rights and the contracts of the team to MLS, I suppose they figured that a larger space was needed).       We chatted with her for a while regarding the World Cup played a few months earlier, the upcoming league, etc., when suddenly in walked Laurie Calloway (whom I recognized from watching him coach the Blackhawks at their games). After finding out that he was on the top of the list of candidates for San Jose's head coaching job, we all started chatting some more about the league. When my classmate then asked Calloway about Tony Meola (who at the time had just left the National Team to pursue a kicking job with the New York Jets, and then into acting), Calloway's response was, "Oh, Tony... he's somewhere between this place and Melrose Place!"       I wonder what Meola would have said or done had he been there - or what they would have thought had they known where each would be in the summer of 2002.       GO EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Des Moines is in the middle of nowhere, but they have an impressive team that does well in an obviously small market. Maybe going to the "A" could give the team a boost as a potential mid-size soccer market. Rochester and Syracuse are a bit far but it does have the potential for a regional rivalry. Ditto for Des Moines, Minnesota, and Milwaukee...
Source of Fabio The Menace were also the source of Fabio Eidelwein, our 4th round pick in the 2001 draft. This site shows only former USL players that were drafted. Looking through the draft order again is interesting. Fabio was the 37th overall pick, while we took Waibel as the 31st overall. Of the players below Waibel, I recognize only two players (Kante and Ring) who I think joined the MLS and are still in the league after the waiver draft, since Saavedra did not get picked up. Most of the players picked above Waibel are still on MLS teams.