Former Roughnecks GM Noel Lemon on American soccer

USRufnex · Jul 18, 2006

Lemon: Soccer will grow
JOHN KLEIN Senior Sports Columnist
07/07/2006
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page B1 of Sports, Sports
View in Print (PDF) Format

NOEL LEMON
FORMER TULSA ROUGHNECKS GENERAL MANAGER
‘What our players see in the MLS and what they see in the World Cup are two completely different things.’

American soccer lags because United States stars are not exposed enough to high-level international competition.
The difference between Major League Soccer and the international game, highlighted by Sunday's World Cup final, is night and day.

There may be a lot of reasons for it, but no one can blame former Tulsa Roughnecks general manager Noel Lemon.

No other person has brought more international soccer matches to the United States over the last 30 years.

Lemon, who founded Mundial Sports International in Boca Raton, Fla., 21 years ago, has been responsible for bringing about 160 international soccer matches to American soil.

Lemon, who was one of the architects of the North American Soccer League in the late 1970s and 1980s, has long believed the key to U.S. soccer success at the highest levels is tied to international play.

"We've got a handful of players who get that kind of experience," Lemon said by phone from his home in Florida. "That's not enough to be competitive at the World Cup. Our guys have to go overseas to play at that level because they aren't going to get it in the MLS.

"We've known that for a long time. We've made some progress over the years, but it has been very slow. The only way for us to rise up to the level of the rest of the world is to play the rest of the world."

Lemon was the general manager of the Roughnecks, who played in the NASL from 1978-84. In 1985, after one last effort to save the Roughnecks and the league, Lemon went to Florida.

He formed a company to bring international matches to the U.S. Many credit Lemon with raising the level of play for U.S. soccer to get back in the World Cup in 1990.

Lemon formed the Marlboro Cup, a series of matches for the U.S. team against some of the top soccer teams in the world in the late 1980s.

It remains one of the most ambitious projects in U.S. soccer history. He arranged major sponsorships and television deals to make the Marlboro Cup a lucrative event.

As a result, some of the world's top teams came to the U.S. each year to play in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

The U.S. team was the beneficiary of the event.

"Noel has done so much for soccer in this country, especially getting international games into the U.S.," said Tulsan Larry Egge, who was the trainer for the Roughnecks and later worked with Lemon in Florida. "I think a lot of soccer people believe it was Noel that was able to get our level of soccer up to the point that we now get into the World Cup.

"There was about 10 years between the loss of the NASL and the start of the MLS. It was during that time that Noel filled a big void for us. His company brought top level soccer to the U.S. at a time when there was no true professional soccer in the country."

Lemon is no longer active on the international soccer scene but still carries plenty of clout in that sport.

He still pays close attention to his sport and thinks soccer is continuing to slowly evolve in the U.S.

"It is improving but progress for us has been very, very slow," Lemon said.

Until American players are regularly playing against the world's top teams, the U.S. team may be doomed to the second tier.

"I don't want to tell the MLS how to do their business, but they need to expose players to the best teams in the world," Lemon said. "What our players see in the MLS and what they see in the World Cup are two completely different things.

"Our players have to play the best competition in real games. I'm not talking about exhibitions. Those don't help. There needs to be important games against the best international teams."

That was certainly the case in the 1980s when Lemon started the Marlboro Cup.

And the NASL had the right idea with the Transatlantic Cup, a series of games between the NASL's top teams and European teams.

"It is important to have the type of backing that you can make these games serious competitions," Lemon said. "You need enough money to make it important to these players.

"We've had some of that in the U.S., and it has proven to work. You give our guys enough opportunities they can raise their level of play."

That means bringing FC Barcelona to face FC Dallas. It means bringing Real Madrid to Columbus or Manchester United to Houston.

"To become the best you've got to play the best," Lemon said. "When that happens, and I have no idea when that will be, we will be able to play in the World Cup with realistic dreams of winning."
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USRufnex · Aug 26, 2006

Another interesting Tulsa World article from winter 1998, penned months after the defeat at the polls of The Tulsa Project, which would have included funding for a 5,000-seat downtown soccer/track&field facility...

John Klein: Lemon's Gamble Paid Off
World's own Service
02/24/1998
Sports

IT HAS been 20 years since Noel Lemon sat nervously in
a New York meeting room waiting for a decision from
the NASL.
He figured it was a long shot. A group of investors
wanted to move an existing NASL franchise from Hawaii
to Tulsa.

If approved, the Tulsa team would play in the smallest
television market with the smallest budget of any team
in the league.

"We put everything on the line," said Lemon. "Everyone
in the room had the same question. They wanted to know
why would we go to Tulsa, Oklahoma? What made it
different from other small markets that wanted
franchises? "

Lemon couldn't tell the future at that meeting but the
gamble was a sure bet. The Tulsa Roughnecks would be
among the most stable and financially secure
franchises in the league. The team would be among the
top five in attendance.

The Roughnecks were a hit in a league that desperately
needed several. In the end, Tulsa would outlive the
NASL by a year, finally closing the doors in 1985.

Lemon, the lightning-rod of controversy during a
stormy five-year run as the general manager of the
Roughnecks, came through town this past week. He
visited friends and reminisced about the most
successful stab at the major leagues the state has
made.

The NASL, much like the present- day MLS, was soccer's
attempt to grab a piece of a lucrative pro sports pie.

It hoped to capitalize on the booming youth soccer
movement that was sweeping the nation in the late
1970s. It certainly succeeded in Tulsa.

"The hardest thing we faced was trying to convince the
NASL that a franchise could make it in Tulsa," said
Lemon. "We had no history to tell them about. We were
going into this deal cold turkey. We were selling the
league dreams and ideas.

"When we got the team we had the smallest budget and
smallest payroll of any team. I was constantly looking
for ways to keep the money flowing through the
franchise. We were constantly moving players. We would
sometimes have to sell a player to keep the doors
open. Obviously, I took a lot of heat for that."

It wasn't just a small flame, either. Lemon caused an
inferno. He fought with players, sponsors, fans and
the media.

Seldom a day went by that didn't involve some sort of
controversy, usually instigated and fanned by Lemon.

"Well, if nothing else, we weren't boring," he said.
"There was always something."

Lemon has spent the past dozen years as an independent
soccer promoter based in Boca Raton, Fla. His company,
Mundial Sports International, arranges international
soccer matches in the U.S.

He has no intention of getting involved in the MLS,
getting ready for its third season this spring, but
follows the progress of the league closely.

The MLS, unlike the NASL, appears to have stable
ownership and an abundance of money to attempt to
capture an audience in the U.S.

It does not have, like the NASL, a small market like
Tulsa with a rabid, die-hard core of fans. In 1980,
the height of the soccer boom in Tulsa, the Roughnecks
averaged 19,787 fans at Skelly Stadium. That far
exceeds the MLS averages in 1996 or 1997.

Tulsa was a finalist for a franchise when the MLS was
formed two years ago. However, the city was told it
needed a regulation-size, grass field for its home
stadium. Skelly Stadium, with an undersized field and
artificial turf, was not adequate.

Lemon doesn't buy that argument. He said there are
teams in the MLS who play on undersized fields.

But he also does not know if Tulsa would be a viable
MLS city.

Times change and so do cities. The Roughnecks played
at a time when the Drillers, Tulsa's minor league
baseball franchise, was not a major draw. The Drillers
now draw close to 350,000 per summer and are one of
the top franchises in minor league baseball.

"I don't know if people realize how difficult it was
to keep the Roughnecks going," said Lemon. "We were
very popular in this city and it was still a struggle.

"Things are different, now. I know in our heyday, when
things were going great, we always talked about
getting our own stadium. In fact, we went so far to
have discussions with Oral Roberts University about
building a 30,000-seat facility. We would have loved
to have had a grass home to call our own."

This is an era when cities have to commit millions for
sports-related facilities. The MLS is no different.

Trying to revive the Roughnecks at the "major league
level" 20 years later would be a monumental job. But
the memories are nice.
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