I feel utterly embarrassed to ask this, and I'm not asking it out of a quest for scintillating gossip. It's just that this rumor/fact/urban legend just never goes away. It makes for interesting background info to establish the kind of f'ed up locker room b/s that plagued the '98 team. I did a search, but b/c Wynalda is still an important figure inthe game in the US, I couldn't find anything relating to this rumor. What's the deal: a rumor/urban legend or fact that Harkes had coital relations w/ the woman bequeathed to Wynalda? [/lowers head in shame]
Why will this false rumor not die??!! If you're really interested, go through this thread here... https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=243928 I would rather not have to lay out all of my arguments again...
We had a several songs for him. One of them was "Harkesy is a swinger...lalalala...hey!" That sorta stuff. I made sure to ask Waldo about the woolie hat he wore while playing soccer as a child...in California.
In summary: Harkes adamantly denies this in his tell-all book He and Wynalda are still friends Both couples are still married (although I thought Wynalda had divorced and got remarried (?) Wynalda publicly says that Harkes was needed and missed on the '98 squad All these behaviors are inconsistent w/ the behavior required in this situation. But I've seen some fairly respectable ppl w/ inside info on US soccer post this rumor; but I've always gotten the sensation that it's a rumor. My question is, then, where have ppl heard this rumor???
Thank you... and you know the line about "repeat a lie (rumor) often enough..." Anyway, to be honest I don't know for sure if Wynalda is still married to the same wife, but I know that he is married and I had assumed it was to the same woman. Harkes I know for sure is married to the same woman because she was there with him at his Hall of Fame ceremony last year (about the time I was writing those posts). (I thought I had seen Eric's wife with him at his Hall of Fame ceremony too and IIRC she looked like the same woman he had always been married to.)
I'm not trying to resurrect the rumor, but apropos of dsp87260's uncertainty about whether he's just been married once, can anyone clarify why some links say Wynalda's wife is the former Amy Ward, who played soccer at Cal Lutheran, and others say his wife Amy played at San Diego State? Is this the same Amy, and a mistake by publicists who've put out the wrong information?
Maybe I'm wrong, but I find it highly unlikely that Wynalda would end up marrying two different Amy's.... here are the links that describe his wife As Amy who played at SDSU... http://www.ussoccerplayers.com/players/alumni/index.html?player_id=143 http://www.soccertimes.com/usteams/roster/men/wynalda.htm EDIT: here's an old article that says he married Amy Ward who went to Cal Lutheran in 1996... http://www.thefreelibrary.com/STEAL...SOCCER+CAREER,+WYNALDA+HAS+MADE...-a083955223 Maybe she played at both?.....or maybe they're getting her confused with Eric (who played at SDSU).
DSP, I wasn't going to put this on the web, but I tried pm-ing, and your box was full. Thanks for a response.
Sorry...I let my payed membership lapse and i didn't realize/hadn't checked that... what was it you were going to PM? your post here, or something else?
No worries. I just hesitated to even mention the two-Amy's thought, since it might tend to resurrect the rumor (as it seems to have on the other thread.) So my first thought was to PM the question. But now that you mention it, I don't have a paid membership either, so maybe I can't receive PM's.
You can. Free members have a limit of 100 messages that can be stored in their in box/sent box at any one time. Paid members can have up to 1000 messages saved. I have about 200 messages saved and until I delete at least 100 of them I won't be able to receive PM's... And amazingly enough, the rumor had been brought up in the Arena thread in the RBNY forum as well ....so I don't think you resurrecting this thread will be any worse.
1982 french team which went to the semis had a player screwing another players wife, fully known to the other player, WHILE the freaking toruney was going on... american just have this adolescent attitude towards sex.... harkes was giving waldos wife, something waldo couldn't give, mature sex, although harksie ain't a brain surgeon neither... now, the reason sampson dumped harkes, was because HARKES was violating curfew and going out drinking...sounds like most of bs posters... well, sampson had enough of that childish stuff and left harkes off the team... now, the harkes being left off the team was KNOWN to the soccer america boards BEFORE, because a huge soccer fan was a hairdresser and did sampsons wifes hair!!! and in the chit chat during one session SPILLED the freaking beans... NOW THAT is thew TRUTH, and every thing above is the honest TRUTH too
so basically the rumor is baseless like I've been saying all along, thanks for clearing that up. (PS read Harkes' book and you might get a different idea of what the truth was...)
now, the harkes being left off the team was KNOWN to the soccer america boards BEFORE, because a huge soccer fan was a hairdresser and did sampsons wifes hair!!! THIS IS TRUTH!!! martine fischer can confirm THIS FULLY as he was posting there then too!
I don't doubt you on that part....just the part about the sex and it being the reason he was cut...THAT part isn't true.
True or not its still fun to make fun of Wynalda over when he red cards your fans. He got an earfull of this during the summer at the Swamp. Its Short!! It's White!! It smells like Wynalda's Wife!! Its Harskie's **@#**!! It's Harskie's **@#**!! I heard from the guys at the Scots club in Kearny that the rumor is half true, whatever that means.
It comes up from time to time, but the only reason it gets talked about is because people come in to debunk it, but others think its funny even if untrue and like to keep it going cause its a great rumor. BTW- Why would Harkes ever admit to this in a book that you point to as conclusive proof he didn't? Lets all be honest, no one really knows if its true or not.
I'm not saying he would admit to it in his book if it were true...but he wouldn't go on about what a great friends Eric Wynalda and his wife were to him during that trying time. I don't think Eric would have been able to stay quiet if it had happened. Where's the apparent bad blood? Why would they both be still married to the same women? ... The evidence I've pointed to may not be definitive, but anyone with common sense would conclude the rumor isn't true. And though I'm not aiming this at you (just a general statement of opinion), anyone who thinks it's "fun" to spread these types of malicious rumors is a dirtbag and needs his head kicked in.
Like i said, know one really knows for sure if its true except for Harkes and Mrs. Wynalda. There are a lot of plausable explanations and simply saying its untrue based on Harkes book isnt very convincing, although its better than nothing i supose. Even if they never slept together who's to say there wasnt some sort of improper relationship there. I dont know, and honestly you dont either. I do believe it wasnt the reason he was kicked off the team even if true. So you don't like our song we sung to Wynalda?
He shouldn't have gone on national television and say NY fans were shit then. He's a play by play guy, stick to the game and leave the fandom critiques to someone else then. He said something untrue about us, we respond in kind with prejudice. If he thought we were shit before he surely does now.
But the thing is.....Harkes is the person you're injuring the most with that...NOT Wynalda. Harkes is the one who gets called names for it and gets the bad reputation.