Stone shows value of strength and conditioning--Warwick Beacon, RI Wahine 1 win from WAC berth--Honolulu Star-Bulletin Soccer Prodigy Adu Wins Cybersquatter Case--Washington Post Dream comes true for Decker, Wynalda--Ventura County Star Jeff Greenwald: Quakers leaning too heavily on sophomore goalie--Daily Pennsylvanian Cannon's vision in goal seeing Rapids through--Denver Post Galaxy prays or a shot at another title--Pasadena Star-News New England in playoffs with unimpressive mark--Kansas City Star Tollway to grow through Frisco--WFAA Andy Swift Joins MLS and SUM as Senior Vice President of Marketing --OurSports Central
Swift Move AWESOME news about Andy Swift. I'm usually on here whining about things the league did wrong but this is great news.
MetroStars stand United for Game 1 -Michael Lewis: NY Daily News Dempsey ready for the unknown -Gus Martins: Boston Herald Heaps entertained by his Sox -Gus Martins: Boston Herald
Re: Swift Move Tell me why you're so psyched about this. (I have no sentiments to the contrary at all. I'm completely uninformed about him and don't want to stay that way.)
He has the right background: a tri-lingual American soccer guy who lived abroad and worked for Spanish TV. Experience: earned his way up the ladder at Dallas, lots of hands-on experience in both the marketing and soccer sides of the biz. Track record of success. Attitude: This is important. Too many American soccer execs enjoy being a big fish in a small pond. They like to chomp cigars, shoot the bull with players and each other and dismiss the fans. My impression is Swift is a genuine community relations type. It's no wonder he's one of the few who had clear success attracting a Hispanic crowd. I also like that he's coming from Dallas, which until recently was an MLS hinterland. Swift did great things for the Burn before taking the bullet for/from Hunt Sports Group. MLS needs people like this guy but too often they get chased away. This is just my impression from afar. Any Dallas fans want to chime in?
Any one know why you can edit posts sometimes but not always? I'd like to say Swift has a track record of ambition and success. It also seemed to me that Southlake was concoction of HSG, that Swift was being a good soldier in trying to make the best of Hunt's plan because Hunt ownership and the prospect of a stadium was a godsend. Still, he didn't last long.
Well, Andy Swift was a great GM for the Burn. He ran a team that got whatever pocket change the other league owners wanted to shell out for team and managed to build the fanbase through strong grassroots work. His work in Dallas is pretty much proof that MLS teams can draw Latino fans to their games, but that it takes more than signing token players and translating all of your advertising into Spanish. He understood the cultural differences. He understood that many Latino fans already had a "first love" in the soccer world and showed respect for that. That may not sound like much, but too many people in US soccer think that if you're in the US and you're still supporting a club in Mexico or El Salvador or wherever, you're a bad person. The Burn's approach with those fans when Andy was in charge of Hispanic relations and later when he was GM was to say to them, "Look, we know that you're a fan of Chivas or America or Cruz Azul or Aguilas or whomever and we're not going to try and change that. But while you're here, we'd love to have your business." Once, I remember Andy talking about one of the cultural differences in promoting something to Latino customers, as opposed to Anglo customers, was that Latino customers valued a personal, one-on-one approach to customer service more highly than Anglos. Advertising is nice, but to be able to give your customers a face and a name and say, "This is the guy you can talk to," that's very strongly valued in Latin American countries, moreso that here. To that end, he would go on the sports-talk show on the largest Spanish station in town at least once a week for an hour or so and he'd take calls from listeners. He also returned every single phone call. Andy Swift gave the Burn credibility in the Latino community. He spoke their language, listened to their concerns, and understood the cultural differences. In the end, I think that that was his downfall. All of this is just my opinion, not anything that he's told me, but I think that when the Burn moved to Southlake, he knew that it would not be well-received, he knew that he could not sell it with any sort of credibility, and he would rather get out than risk his good name and his credibility. Getting the local Latino fans to come out to Frisco will be a tough sell. But while I think that Greg Elliott has a somewhat defeatist attitude about it, as evidenced by his most recent statements in the DaMN, and while I think that much of what he said will be a self-fulfilling prophesy, I think that Andy would look at it differently and would make a much stronger push to have those fans come out to Frisco. Andy's a friend of mine, so I'm biased on this count, but I think that he could make it happen to a certain extent. And I will say that I have yet to be convinced by the Greg Elliott regime at the Burn, so I am a bit biased in that regard. I hope that Elliott proves my skepticism to be unwarranted, but until then, that skepticism will remain.
What a great article. 'O'Shaughnessy' (that's what Dwight was calling him in the first half on opening night in '96) is one of my all-time favorites, an original Crew man.