We are pleased to announce that our book Make This Town Big: The Story of Roy Turner and the Wichita Wings is now available for purchase. This book tells the history of the MISL's Wichita Wings from its humble beginnings in 1979 and through the 1980s and early '90s when the team became part of Wichita's landscape. We spent over a year interviewing former players, coaches, front office personnel, owners, fans, etc about their experiences and the book is told through their words as well as background context that we provide through multiple media sources including newspaper archives, Missile Magazine, TV quotes, etc etc. Now for the first time the true story of the Wings is available and told through the voices of Roy Turner, Andy Chapman, Norman Piper, Chico Borja, former GM Bill Kentling and many others. We also interviewed Tom Marshall, the man who in 1978, staged the first ever professional soccer game in Kansas. It was from that game that his dream of establishing professional soccer on Kansas's great plains was realized. Whether you were a fan of the MISL in the '80s or are a new fan of indoor soccer now, this book will recount a time when indoor soccer was becoming a legitimate part on the American sports landscape: Teams could outdraw many teams in the NBA and NHL and would regularly share the front of the sports page with those local NBA and NHL teams. Games were shown on major cable networks including USA and ESPN. And the money, while not quite at the level of the four major sports, was nonetheless nothing to sneeze at-- the best players at the time were making the equivalent of half a million bucks in today's dollars! The Wings were always the smallest market team and played in the smallest arena. This book shows how the franchise, though a combination of shrewd budgeting, great marketing and a frenzied fan base could compete and succeed against its bigger and better-funded opponents in St.Louis, Kansas City, San Diego, Cleveland, New York, etc. This book is available for purchase at our website makethistownbig.com
Here is a sample quote from this thorough book about the Wichita Wings (and the MISL by default): "Jackie Knapp (front office & PR employee of Wings) -- I remember Steve Zungul smelling like he hadn't bathed in years. He was a little cross-eyed. I remember meeting him and thinking 'That's the Lord of All Indoors?' He looked like he was whacked with a skillet." I have not yet finished the book but it is an absorbing and true 'inside story' about not only the history behind the Wings and the people involved (including the history of Roy Turner and his time in Dallas with the NASL) but the interviews about the formation of the MISL. Anyone who is a fan of indoor soccer needs to read this book. Interviews with former players, referees, staff members, owners, fans and of course, Roy Turner give the reader a sense of being there at the crazy time of the MISL's creation and Wichita joining soon thereafter. This 499 page tome is a seminal work in the history of the game.