Coming from a Crew fan, I'd say he is one of the few players respected by most supporter groups across MLS. Good luck to him.
Speaking of MLS originals, can anyone other than Ralston boast of being on an MLS team every year that MLS has been in existence?
Just got the pregame email from the Revs It includes this bombshell (bold is mine): "Revs legend Steve Ralston is expected to announce his retirement from professional soccer tonight. While he will be unable to play against Monarcas-Morelia, a formal ceremony to honor him is currently being planned for later this season." Dammit, Revs PR staff, get your shit togther already. First he wasn't playing, then he was cleared to play and now he's not? WTF.
Thank you! I was thinking about going to the game to see him play one last time. Now I can stay home and watch on TV. At least this explains why they didn't use it as a marketing opportunity (yeah, I almost typed that with a straight face). P.S. Kudos on the avatar.
"Ralston hadn’t prepared a speech because he was too busy preparing for the game, although he didn’t play, due to legal circumstances involving a risk of injury." http://www.boston.com/sports/soccer/articles/2010/07/21/ralston_i_wish_i_could_do_it_forever/
You can't be pro-active until his retirement becomes official - and it seems like this whole thing is hinging on Houston's coaching decision. All this criticism is more of just blaming the Revs for anything and everything (don't take my word for it, try Kyle McCarthy's).
Are you effin serious? Really? You can't be proactive? The guy said he's retiring. The player knows it. The team knows it. Apparently, the league didn't know it. Or something. Paperwork issue, we were told. After the fact. Now, from what I've heard, the league sprung this on the Revs at the last minute, which threw everything off kilter. I understand that. HOWEVER, as soon as the team found out, they should have been going into spin control mode. If it wasn't the team's fault and it was a league issue, there should have been public announcements via the website, the blog and a follow-up email to STH's. Tweets (only) from the team just aren't going to cut it. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that people going to the game to see Steve's last match are going to be upset/angry when they find out he isn't playing. So the PROACTIVE thing to do is offer an explanation/apology as soon as they know the situation in order to diffuse the situation. Plain and simple. Just answering the question "why?" would have gone a long way here. And they didn't. So they deserve criticism. If they do something right, I will laud them. But far too many times, they do the wrong thing or nothing at all. And for that I will offer my criticism. That's only fair.
I'm sorry, but this is bullsh*t. Any communications professional worth their salt would have had something prepared in advance whether a package of photos, video, or at the very least, a boilerplate press release/story that could easily be modified or updated. This is almost a necessity in the day and age of the 24 hour news cycle and is hardly atypical practice, especially when the likelihood of this happening (Ralston's decision to retire) was reasonably strong. You have to get out in front of the story, and the Revolution have no excuse for not doing so, and as a result, they particularly bungled a situation that easily could have, and should have been prevented.
As Ives Galarcep said, Steve Nicol is probably the one thing preventing us from being the Clippers of MLS. And with the complete bush league organization above him, it makes you wonder how much longer he's going to put up with amateur hour.
Looking at the crowd at the game, it sure didn't seem like too many people changed their plans to come and see Ralston play - it was just a typical, lousy Superliga attendance night. Maybe because it's not true? Ives is a great source of a lot of news, but he can be as partisan as anyone. He's been on the RB lov-a-thon ever since they signed Henry (Ives:"Henry last one off the practice field, OMG he's *such* a hard worker!"). One decent season and their own little bandbox (in the suburbs) and everything is great in RB-land. So now he's free to take his shots at the Revs. And what would that accomplish? They were not going to sell thousands of extra tickets based on a story breaking hours before the game (Rev fans are notorious for not coming to events that aren't on the schedule months in advance). They'll have their big Ralston-night later in the season. This was just a too chaotic and fast-changing situation to do anything (as it was, they apparently over-committed when they didn't have all the clearances necessary for him to play). On the one-hand people are criticizing them for publicizing something that they weren't able to deliver and on the other people are criticizing them for not publicizing it enough.
I'm criticizing them because they lackadiasically post information indicating one thing, then lackadaisically post conflicting information and when asked to clarify the information, they do it in a half-assed manner. Simply put, it's unprofessional.
How about doing their job and doing it right? The club's communications staff bungled this one plain and simple, end of story, period. If they don't understand how they didn't get the job done then I'd be happy to talk to them... say for about $200 dollars an hour.
Actually, you should read some of the other BS threads about Ives. I don't follow him enough to know for sure, but the conventional wisdom is that he had burned bridges at RB-land, in a large part by palling around with Arena, who would leak all kinds of dirt. He (apparently) was particularly critical of de Gradpere, the guy who eventually left for a marketing job with another drink company. Supposedly he's been frozen out of info at RB, and has been writing more on other teams in the last couple of years. And as my Law of the Press professor used to say back in college, "the best defense against a libel charge is the truth." Is there anything untrue about what Ives says about the Revs? Have they done any of those things? Maybe I missed the big signing, but I don't think so....
Dynamo officially welcome Ralston as assistant Manager Dominic Kinnear welcomes former teammate into fold Dwain Capodice MLSsoccer.com July 22, 2010
Does anybody know if the Revs offered him an assistant coaching job? Or if he would have been interested in staying with the Revs in some capacity? Is his family local and will they have to move again? If he did not get injured he was planning on playing all year and maybe longer, correct? It just seems odd that he came back, suffered a freak injury in his first game, and then he is gone for good.
I flat out said this to Brian B and he didn't respond, but I think there's something funny going on here. He wants to play, but wants more money than the Revs are offering and goes to StL. They fail and he comes back here, hurts himself, is talking about being excited to get on the field again as he's been waiting a while … and then all of a sudden retires?
No doubt it's been a pretty bizarre run lately for Ralston, but I suspect that when he came down with a relatively serious injury on a routine fall he realized that he's just gotten too fragile. He probably had plans to play out the season, but when a good opportunity for your next career comes along, it made sense to grab it. As for a similar opportunity with the Revs, the timing didn't really work out. They were looking for a coach in the off-season, when he was determined to keep playing. I don't know if the Revs would have considered him, but I think he might be a little too laid-back for what Nicol needs in an assistant (which I think is a "take charge" kind of guy). Both Myles and Mariner had a lot of experience with English managers, so they probably were exactly on the same page with Nicol about what the 2nd man's job needs to be.
I'm sorry, but 8 years under the Nicol/Mariner system isn't enough experience with English managers (nationality aside)?