Markgraf to be named 1st GM of USWNT

Stifler!!!!
Bet none of you remember THAT knickname.

 

I like Markgraf as an announcer. I'm wondering what about her persuaded U.S. Soccer to hire her? What qualities does she bring to the job?

She's got 4 good possibilities for the next US women's team coach. According to Grant Wahl, "Markgraf said on ESPN the likely USWNT coaching candidates are Laura Harvey, Paul Riley, Vlatko Andonovski & Mark Krikorian. Markgraf would be in charge of the hire if she becomes GM. I'm hearing federation leadership would likely prefer a woman as coach—only one here is Harvey."

 

Congratulations Kate....nothing but the best of luck to you, however, I personally think that a slightly overweight Czechoslovakian from Dallas could do a better job. On the other hand, I did officially withdrawal my name from consideration when they told me I wouldn't be able to drink at future Matches.

 

So, who is the first journalist to ask if Kate is getting paid the same as Ernie was?

 

Carlos Cordeiro says Kate Markgraf was "our No. 1 candidate throughout that process." He also says USSF waited to make the announcement to avoid distraction during the World Cup (because there wasn't any of that, anyway!)... which indicates this was decided some time ago. #USWNT

— Jeff Kassouf (@JeffKassouf) August 12, 2019

Also Markgraf would play a major role in this:

ESPN is reporting that Carlos Cordeiro announced via conference call that the USA is planning to bid for the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup.

— Chris Henderson (@chris_awk) August 13, 2019

 

Bringing over info from my post in the new coach thread: She's commentated 2 WWCs, an Olympics, and a men's Euro besides college soccer. She's also spent quite a bit of time on multiple USSF committees (Athletes' Council, Rules Committee, and Appeals Committee). She knows her way around the organization, and not just from a player's viewpoint. Besides finishing the Master's in Counseling, she already has a Master's in Kinesiology. I also recently saw that she has some experience in running a small-scale nonprofit as well.

From everything I've seen, she's very intelligent, and she is also a known commodity to the USSF. Plus, she's never been one to be openly critical of USSF; she's much more measured. And of course she knows the game and the WNT, having played on the team for over a decade.

 

As a matter of interest, according to Caitlin Murray's new book Markgraf was one of the veterans who, during the 2007 World Cup, pushed Solo off the team after the Brazil game and Solo's post-game comments.

 

I have never understood why the "solution" to all modern problems seems to be to increase the levels of bureaucracy? It seems that all that really does is decrease the responsiveness of the system and isolate those with real power from those that are impacted by the power.

It seem VERY counter productive to add a "General Manager" to the already ponderous bureaucracy that is US Soccer and now we have added two. The first used his position to place a mostly unqualified relative in as head coach and I wonder if this second exercise in stupidity may have equally stupid results.

We did not and do not "need" a GM but rather what we need is people at the top that actually can, and will make their own decisions.

US Soccer is rapidly becoming like Laputa and the top brass are surrounding themselves with "Flappers" because they cannot do or say anything of real importance on their own. I cannot believe that the hiring of GMs will have any positive impact on US Soccer's performance and I believe that it will ultimately prove to be negative no matter what the quality of the people placed in the GM position.

I have no doubt that Margraff will do the best job she can BUT I also do not believe that she will be allowed to really do a good job.

The GM position is a lot like the US Vice President. It is a position with a good bit of prestige but limited and ineffectual real power to accomplish anything positive.

Of course anything that isolates the currently failed men's program from the currently highly successful women's program may have the beneficial effect of preventing the men's program from infecting the women with all their problems and bringing them down to the men's level of incompetence.

 

This reminds me of one of my real peeves, which is that the USSF decreed that girls soccer would have to be organized, in age groups, on a calendar year basis rather than a school year basis. I believe they did this because it's what Klinsmann wanted for the boys; and they couldn't see doing something different with the girls. The result? Girls soccer participation in the US dropped by about 10%. Anyone with intelligence could see that was going to happen, yet they did it anyway. Talk about the men's program infecting the women ....

 

I did not know this had been changed from when I coached. At that time your "age" was the age you were on August first. (I Think but it might have been September)

I agree that it "should" remain that for any kids in High School, doing it differently would just server to break up the girls from their friends that are in the same grade and there are a LOT of girls, some that end up loving the game for its own sake, that would not play club soccer if they could not play with their friends. More than boys, by far, girls are social animals and the socialization is every bit as important to them as the sport itself. In fact for many girls it is even more important. (I always gave my girls about 10-15 minutes in warmup to socialize at practice without me interfering so that they could catch up with their friends. The only rule was that they must be actively warming up. I did not need to do that for the boys.)

That kind of change, even though it makes selection at the national level easier, serves to drive girls away from sports. It, probably, helps the National Team but the kids that make it that far are a tiny percentage of the total that play the game and I do not think that the gain to the National Team of making international age groups easier to choose offsets the loss to the sport and the girls caused by that shortsighted thinking.

As much as I love the national team I do not think it should be built at the expense of harming the majority of female soccer players.

 

USSF has actually added two layers. They added the GM position and then the Sporting Director position (what Earnie Stewart got promoted to and why we're also now looking for a men's GM). The GM will report to the Sporting Director, and the Sporting Director to the CEO (who is currently Dan Flynn who has announced he's resigning this year, so USSF will be looking for a new CEO as well.)

Also I'm curious: are you against extra bureaucracy in general, or is it something in particular about the GM position that makes you think it can add nothing positive?

 

Adding bureaucracy is has much the same impact as committees and conferences.
"A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done." Fred Allen
"A committee is a group of the unprepared, appointed by the unwilling to do the unnecessary." Fred Allen

“I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern." C.S. Lewis

Any time you add one layer of bureaucracy you add at least two times that good decisions made at the implementation level can be rendered bad, once on the way up and once on the way down. It is not recorded that a bureaucrat ever blocked a bad decision. And to put in bluntly the GM and the "Sporting Director" (Dictator ??)

The only way I see anything positive coming from doing this is by simple dumb luck.

Of course, as with all bureaucracies, it does protect the CEO from ever having to take real responsibility and therefore protects his or her or its job, but that is all adding bureaucracy does.

 

To add to that:
-frankly, I'm not sure how many well qualified candidates they have considering the storm about to hit. Do people want to relo to Chicago for a shortish stint that could be more trouble than it's worth? I don't know. That said, she lives in Milwaukee a short hop on train to USSF and has a lot of ties to Chicago. Doesn't seem like much and it isn't for men, because there are all sorts of avenues one can take from this 2-5 year (likely) gig in soccer to be a GM in the pro game, etc as a man. No idea what she's making, but it's probably about 150k. They may have had a half dozen women they were eyeing for this slot. Is a West Coast candidate going to uproot a family and a current clear career path where you're doing pretty well when there's no obvious next step when you're done?
-she's clearly bright and her achievements stand on their own, but that aside, her husband is a Harvard MBA in private equity. An intelligent and curious person is going to pick up a lot of informal training related to business/finance from a spouse running in those circles. It's a helluva extended boot camp. That's the kind of stuff that shows up in interviews. Guarantee you she raised a few points from a managerial/financial aspect other candidates couldn't dream of, even if they had her background in US Soccer.

She's a really well-rounded candidate and the sort whose life lends itself well to jumping at this chance.