There was a nice story about Tim Howard on last night's sports report during the WB11 local news. The reporter was a guy whose been around as a local sportscaster for years, I think Sal Marciano, not a soccer guy, as far as I know. At any rate, the story lasted about a minute or two, and basically focussed on the fact that Tim has Tourette's. Tim was interviewed, and they showed both game clips and clips from practice of Tim in action. The reporter mentioned that Tim was one the best keepers in "the MLS", and that he might be a starter in the World Cup in the future. All in all, it was a good, positive piece from a media outlet that, I'm assuming, has not paid much attention to the Metros in the past.
Sal may not be a soccer guy, but during the World Cup, ch. 11 newscast gave the best tretment to the US Team (along with Ch. 2). It was almost always a lead story and Sal always gave a positive spin. Their weekend sports guy sucks (he always skips the Metros), but if Metros play on the weekend, Sal will always mention it. Even though I don't think Sal is a big soccer guru, he's always been pretty fair to the sport.
Whatevah. Sal used to be an anchor on MSG and their early history with Metro was very poor, ie, first halves missed because they just HAD to show the 30 minute Jankeez post game show even if the game itself went extra innings and way over time. Some games listed as live would be shown on tape w/o explanation. When these things would happen Sal would respond on air to the soccer callers with haughty indignance, and tell them to just go away. His basic stance was " MSG will show soccer when it gets good and ready and not before." Any other time he had the chance to take a shot at us he did so. But then he got canned from MSG, perhaps that put his overt expression of his soccer opinion in check. Something tells me his current cha-cha is just a thin veneer.
Yes, Tim has Touretts. There was a piece on it during half-time of a ABC game last season. Crazy isn't it? I would have never known it from seeing him in net. I have a friend with Touretts, and it is something hard to control. More power to Timmy.