Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 232: An interview with Pete Fewing
65 Plays9 years ago
With the short week, we weren't able to do a full episode. We did however get a chance to talk to Seattle U men's soccer coach and Sounders broadcast analyst Pete Fewing. We figured now would be as good a time as any to share that interview.
If you don't know, Fewing is a Seattle soccer original. He's been around the game here his whole life, playing against the likes of Brian Schmetzer as a youth, then playing at the University of Washington and for Seattle FC. He began coaching at Seattle U way back in 1988 and put together one of the strongest NAIA programs in the nation, winning a national title in 1997 and eventually moving up to NCAA Division II. There, he led the Redhawks to an undefeated campaign in 2004 that culminated with another national title. He left Seattle U in 2005 and spent a few years coaching the Kitsap Pumas, notably nearly leading them to an upset of the Sounders in the U.S. Open Cup in 2011.
He eventually returned to Seattle U and helped guide them to Division I in 2012. Last year he guided them to a Western Athletic Conference title and into the NCAA's Sweet 16. Over 18 seasons, he's won 220 games, registered a winning percentage of better than 60 percent and suffered through just three losing seasons.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 232
00:00:34
Speaker
Welcome back to a special edition of Nos Adiades, made possible due to the support of Bootstrapper Studios.
00:00:41
Speaker
We'll go ahead and call this episode 232. Although I'm recording this intro on Thursday, October 13th, the interview was actually recorded on Friday, October 7th, 2016.
Pete Fewing's Soccer Legacy
00:00:52
Speaker
I am your host, Jeremiah O'Shan, and this week we'll be talking to Seattle University men's soccer coach, Pete Fewing. Of course, Fewing isn't just the Seattle U coach. You probably know him as one of the Sounders broadcasters. He does halftime analysis. He works the pregame. You probably heard him on the radio.
00:01:09
Speaker
but he also runs one of the oldest soccer camps around, which has been in operation since 1981. He's also a Seattle Soccer Original, having come up in the game during the heyday of the NASL Sounders and was playing against the likes of Sounders head coach, Brian Smetzer, as a youth. He also played it for UW and for Seattle FC and started coaching at Seattle U in 1988, leading them to an NAIA title in 1998
00:01:36
Speaker
into the Division 2 crown in 2004 that actually saw the Red Hawks go 22-01-1. He would later coach the Kitsap Pumwuns before returning to Seattle U in 2012 to help guide them through the transition to Division 1. He's compiled a 220, 125, and 26 record.
00:01:54
Speaker
in 18 seasons at Seattle U, posting just three losing campaigns along the way.
Insights into Seattle's Soccer Scene
00:01:59
Speaker
Last year, he guided the Red Hawks to an 18-4-1 record and their first-ever berth in the NCAA's round of 16. He was nice enough to sit down with me and share tales of Seattle soccer, give some of his thoughts on his most promising pro prospects, and generally give us some insight into one of the more interesting figures in the local soccer scene.
00:02:21
Speaker
So without further ado, this is my interview with Pete Fuehling. So just so I have for my own notification, you've been at Seattle U for 23 years, is that right? Correct. But five years in the current stand. Correct. Yes. I'm just gonna tell my son come on in and be
00:02:56
Speaker
How old are your kids?
00:03:06
Speaker
is 27. He's a carpenter and does high-end homes. So they have to sign. Seems like there's a lot of people doing construction in the Sanders family. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Hoos family? The Sanders family. Oh yeah. Cam Weaver. Oh yeah. Brian Schmetzer. Yeah. All you guys. Yeah, Dick McCormick. Marcus,
Evolution of U.S. Soccer
00:03:24
Speaker
Dick McCormick. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of.
00:03:26
Speaker
A lot of guys, if you were going to make it in soccer, you had to do other things. I've always had three jobs. Yeah. So, you know, honestly, I've had my camp since I was 18. When I was playing for FC Seattle, I was a youth minister for a couple of years. I played six years for FC Seattle. Three of those years I coached here. So I was coaching and playing, which is great because we'd come into the fall college soccer season and I was as fit as there's no one more fit than I was because I just played the entire season.
00:03:55
Speaker
three years older than those guys. So I'd say, come on, we're going to go for a run in old school. Yeah. So I started here in 1988. Yeah. Coached here till 2005 was my last season. And I was gone for six years. Took over the kids at Puma's for two years. Right. And then now I'm in the fifth, fifth year back. And when I started, we were in the N.A.I. Then we chose. Yes. Yeah. We transitioned to division.
Sounders' History and Influence
00:04:19
Speaker
three for a few years. We played two years in the Division III conference, the Northwest Conference, which is UPS, Whitworth, Whitman, PLU, Willamette, Pacific, all those schools. But we still stayed in the NAI for postseason. So we won an NAI national championship in 97. And then 98, we went to the final four. And then we've been to a few NAI
00:04:48
Speaker
rounds of 16. And then we went, we did the school decide it's a school decision. It's not based on right, you know, population or any student attendance. It's all about what the school where the school wants to put their emphasis in athletics. Then we went NCAA Division Two. And in five years, we won the national championship when undefeated. So the jerseys outside this wall are Tom Hardy was the 97 national player of the year first team all American.
00:05:14
Speaker
MVP of the national final and Bob McAllister was the same in division two in 2004 national player of the year first email American so and then I left when we were division two for six years and then I've just been back now for five and now we come back into division one, which is great fun.
00:05:32
Speaker
No, that is fun. And so that's a great intro to this show that said, welcome back to No Sadietes. This is Jeremiah Shannon. I'm joined by Pete Fewing. In case you didn't recognize that voice, this Pete Fewing, who is one of the voices of the Sounders halftime show, you've been involved with Seattle soccer for effectively time immemorial as far as it goes, the modern era.
00:05:59
Speaker
You've seen the landscape change so much. You've been involved with it on so many levels. Granted, this is a question you've probably been asked a million times, but it's 2016. Did you ever think that you were going to see a soccer market, a soccer kind of environment like you're seeing now? It's just so blown up. Yeah, it's a good question. So I started when I was about six years old playing, and the sounders, I don't know,
00:06:27
Speaker
what year that would have been. But the early 70s and then the Sounders came in 74 and my family's from England. I'm the only one born in the US. So my mom was from Manchester City. My mom, my dad was from Bath. And so they came over. Bath. San Jose State used to do an exchange program at Bath. Oh, no kidding. And I went to San Jose State. OK. We were just there yesterday.
00:06:47
Speaker
Oh, really? Yeah, that's right. That's right. I know I was very mixed emotions about that result. Yeah, I was glad we won. So we went, we were season ticket holders from the first year. There were memorial stadiums where the first sounders play. It holds 11,500 in its current configuration because of demand. They bumped that to 18,000.
00:07:09
Speaker
So I've seen it be very popular. That was before the Sonics, before the Seahawks, before the Mariners, maybe not before the Seahawks. Check my dates on that one, but before the Mariners, I believe, and before the Sonics. So Sonics came in.
00:07:27
Speaker
79. I might be, no, they won the NBA title in 79. Bottom line was, it was really well attended. When they shifted to the Kingdom, the attendance figures started to plummet. They were getting 25 and as much as 40 in Pele filled the Kingdom. But then demand was, seats were available. So the demand dropped, right? It wasn't such an urgent ticket.
00:07:50
Speaker
And then we just watched all of the North American Soccer League go down. So I'd seen that heyday. I liken it to Woodstock. You know, if you were there, it was the greatest thing, right? And everybody talked about Woodstock. If you were an NASL, North American Soccer League guy at Memorial Stadium, the field was awful. The talent was okay. We thought it was fantastic. And so,
00:08:14
Speaker
So I saw it then. It went south for a long time. I played on a team called FC Seattle that started, I think, in 85. I joined it in 86. And I played six years. We folded. Casey Keller played in the Western soccer. We started in the Western Soccer Alliance. Casey was playing for Portland. We talk about those days sometimes. And they were just hanging on. And honestly, Jeremiah.
00:08:39
Speaker
I feel very lucky that I got to do that. I got to play against Man City, North City, Bournemouth, Middlesbrough, Portsmouth. I mean, the thing that's amazing to me about this, and one of the things I am so bad, like I've talked to Wade Weber and I've talked to Brent Messer, and kind of in a lot of ways, you guys were part of, for lack of a better term, like a lost generation of American soccer, where you were old enough to remember the NASL, but you probably weren't old enough to have
00:09:08
Speaker
played a significant role in it. Right. And your most of your prime years were spent kind of in the soccer wilderness. Yeah. Yeah. Unless you were unless you know the handful of guys like Casey or Marcus. Yeah. Who went to England and kind of made it happen. But for the most part you like if you were coming up in an American soccer in the 80s
Seattle U's Rise in College Soccer
00:09:29
Speaker
and 90s. Yeah. You were just kind of on your own.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah. And in my case, I wasn't good enough. Brian was drafted right out of high school. Right. And I was I played one year at a community college, had a pretty significant injury and then went to the University of Washington. So there was only a handful of handful of guys my age.
00:09:47
Speaker
Chance Fry, Brian Schmetzer, Jeff Wall, who's a fire chief now, Timmy Bartrow, Billy Crook, there's probably a handful of, and then of course there was a group, Jeff Stock, Jeff Durgan went to the Cosmos, Stocksey went to the Sounders, and was a mainstay there. Mark Peterson was terrific with the Sounders.
00:10:08
Speaker
So there were an Eddie Krueger, there were a number of guys, maybe a handful of guys. I was not in that group. But even those guys, they were done by 23, 24. Yeah, yeah, sadly. And you know, like Jeff Stock, for instance, I loved him. He owns Wild Waves Water Parks. He was on the Olympic team, they boycotted, right? So he couldn't participate. He had a bad knee injury, a couple of bad knee injuries when
00:10:29
Speaker
You had an ACL tear. They just absolutely locked up your leg. You know, you were in a plaster cast from your ankle to your hip. And now they have it moving within hours of finishing surgery. Right. So so he played in those days. And and when we played for FC Seattle, he loved to play like we all did. He loved to play so much.
00:10:51
Speaker
that he would still play, even though his leg was that bad. And he's got a bad knee. He'll need a knee replacement. But we all love to play. I mean, and again, we we didn't train at 10 in the morning like the Sounders. We trained at night because everybody had jobs. Right. Bruce Rieck coached us. Bruce Rieck was the last coach before Arsene Banger at Arsenal. He left. He coaches for one year. And I loved it. I have a letter in my office from 1986. It's a nine page letter.
00:11:19
Speaker
It's on small paper, but but it's a nine page letter because we loved playing for him. And the truth of the matter is he was kicked out of England for one year for kicking one of his players in the head. Oh, don't try that at home. But he ended up here. And and I was lucky enough to go to Whidbey Island with him. Just the two of us to do a camp with Cliff McCrath. And I got four hours with Bruce up there. And every night he and I hung out together.
00:11:49
Speaker
And then the next year, he stayed one year, went back and he took over Middlesbrough and Middlesbrough had gone bankrupt. So if you look on the Middlesbrough patch, it says 1987 when it was established, but it had folded. Right. And I remember sitting with Bruce and he just said, you guys and he said, I own these players.
00:12:07
Speaker
I have them for 16 hours a day. And they know that if they're not playing for me, they're gonna go down in the mines and they're gonna be digging coal or whatever. And so he says, I own them. And he said, you guys, I couldn't own you because we weren't paying you enough. I think we got $250 a game the first year.
00:12:25
Speaker
the second year third year fourth year fifth year we didn't get paid but we had a team poster and it was called professional soccer and we had Budweiser across our jersey so I felt like a pro and and then my last year we got paid so uh but Bruce just said you guys love to play so it was a fun time and I no one you know Joe Montana once said hey I would do this for 25 grand a year and I knew exactly what he was saying and I believed it you know
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that that speaks to a lot of what has made soccer in Seattle successful, though, is that your generation of guys stayed involved, that they didn't kind of get blown to the wind, that they were still coaching, that they were still youth coaches, that they were still playing for FC Seattle.
00:13:10
Speaker
And that without that kind of bridge generation, like we see it in so many other markets, they kind of, they lost the momentum. Absolutely. There's a lot of continuity. When you look at all the coaching directors, Chance Fry, right, Eastside, Bernie James with Crossfire, Wade Webber was at, is now Sounders, but he was at Washington Premier. Tom Bialek is with Eastside as well. There's a lot of guys that played that stayed in the game and
00:13:39
Speaker
And you're right. And everybody everybody wants to do it. I mean, it wasn't no one was forcing anybody to do it. Alan Hinton really created something by creating coaches that got paid. That was a new thing. And that started Crossfire. So, yeah, a lot of guy. And one of my memories, I didn't know I was going to broadcast for the Sounders. I didn't apply. I got Matt Johnson called me Tuesday. He said, Pete doing this Matt Johnson. I'm with Sounders and Seahawks like talk to you about
00:14:09
Speaker
the team or something to that effect. I thought it was about season tickets, because I was going to buy a season ticket. And then he called the next day, Wednesday, and said, Pete, Matt Johnson, I called you yesterday. And I didn't know Matt. I'm not a big talk radio follower. I had no idea he was such an icon in talk radio. So in sports talk radio. So then he called Wednesday night. He said, Pete, this is Matt Johnson. I've called you three times. We'd like you to broadcast the games. And I remember looking at my phone thinking broadcast the games. I had no experience whatsoever.
00:14:37
Speaker
But I do remember at that time Chance Fry and I talking saying, where are you going to get your season tickets? All of us who one of the things that's been.
00:14:46
Speaker
that it was hard during our time is that no one wanted to watch us play. They were all playing. Right. And so the Sounders got a lot of the players, our bar generation to buy in. We all kind of said, let's let's back this. Let's support it and see if we can help get soccer. I don't think we had the vision. You asked if I had the vision. It would be like it is today. And no, I didn't think it would. I didn't think we were going to help be a part of that. Sounders have done a brilliant job of bringing in the masses.
00:15:13
Speaker
And I guess they also did a good job of keeping their fingers in the roots. I know that there's certainly fair complaints as to how effective, but they've been pretty, there's a lot of people in this organization that understand the history of Seattle. They didn't fill out the roster with a bunch of people who were just kind of, for lack of a better term, kind of mercenary types that were just here for a payday. There were a lot of people
00:15:38
Speaker
Yes. Had experience playing for, you know, whether it's FC Seattle or the ASL sounders or the U.S.L. sounders or whoever else. Yeah, or the many iterations of the A-League sounders. Yeah, the A-League sounders, U.S.L. sounders, yeah. No, you're right.
00:15:54
Speaker
There's a when you're saying that happy Fernandez came here and he was an icon sixty nineteen sixty nine. MVP for Kansas City he came here he's got the indoor center his son runs now Eddie. And Jimmy Gabriel came here and stayed.
00:16:10
Speaker
He went back to England but now he's back here. But his life was here. Dave Gillitt was from Scotland and came here and stayed. And Tommy Jenkins from Southampton came here and stayed. Alan Hinton came here and stayed. And he had had quite a tour. So there's a strong connection. There's a strong bond. I wasn't able to go to the gala. We were at Harvard.
00:16:30
Speaker
Playing that night, but I got a call from chance or a text from chance and he said it was beautiful to see So many people that care about the game that have done stuff in the game that have been involved Come together. So yeah, there's a there's a rich history of connectedness I could name 100
00:16:49
Speaker
Seattle Sounders, NSL players. I really could. I've done it. I've sat in a bar with other guys and we've just, you know, we have a race to see who can get to 100. And because that's how we felt about it. Yeah. Kind of like people felt about the Brooklyn Dodgers or the Chicago Cubs or Chicago Bears, you know, teams that teams that communities embraced.
Sounders Academy's Impact
00:17:08
Speaker
The Seattle Sounders, NSL was that. And Adrian Hanauer deserves a lot of credit, as does Gary Wright, because they were aware that this is the kind of town that
00:17:18
Speaker
wants to have allegiance to a team. Yeah, I would agree with that. Well, you know, bring it back a little bit to yourself. You've seen Seattle, you, like you said, through several eras of play. The biggest move, obviously, was moving up to Division One five years ago, I guess it was.
00:17:37
Speaker
How big of a change is that really going from division two to division one? Is that in soccer? Yeah, yeah, so I was walking off the field last spring with Billy Colello I think we're in our sixth year maybe now of division one I think they went division one before I got here maybe six or seven But I was walking off the field with Billy Colello who's been a longtime volunteer assistant was an all-american here was a
00:18:00
Speaker
our captain all four years he was here. That's how respected he was by his teammates. And I said, Billy, I can't believe we're Division One. I said, it's so great to play Northwestern and Washington and Cal Poly and Santa Clara and Harvard and Dartmouth and Oregon State, UCLA, Creighton. Those are big college, you know, Air Force, UNLV. Those are big college names, you know. And he looked at me and his exact words were, dude, I didn't care where we played.
00:18:26
Speaker
I just wanted to run a great program. And he hit the nail on the head for me, because when we were an AI, we tried to run it like a Division I program.
00:18:35
Speaker
got good gear, we tried to travel well to good locations. When we were in the NAI, we played at the University of San Francisco at USF, and they were number five in the country, division one. They've won five national championships. They've dropped off from their heyday, but we beat them two to one. And on that trip, we also played Cal. And again, we're an NAI school playing the Golden Bears, right? And we tried to get Stanford. Bobby Clark, who's now at Notre Dame, said, yeah, we'll play.
00:19:01
Speaker
But he had to cancel. So we ended up with San Jose State, your old school, Cal and and USF. Those are three division one schools. We wanted to play the best competition. I offered Notre Dame when we were in a ten thousand dollars to come here and play us. And the guy swore at me on the phone and said, I know you can beat us. We're not going to come out.
00:19:22
Speaker
I said, no, we'll sell your gear. We'll do any. I just want Notre Dame. I'm a Catholic guy. I want Notre Dame on our field. So at Washington, we always played Washington. We always played Gonzaga. Always played the University of Portland. So I've seen it through Northwest Bible College, which is now Northwest University. I've seen it through George Fox. And I've seen it Linfield and all that. We're at Harvard last two weeks ago, three weeks ago. Peter Lehrer is the coach.
00:19:52
Speaker
that we were at. And I said to Peter Lehrer, I said, hey, I can't believe we're playing Harvard. And he says, I can't believe I coach at Harvard. We're kind of laughing about the fact that we were just in Boston. And then we went to New Hampshire and played Dartmouth. And I'm taking it in. I'm as giddy about the schedule we get to have as anybody. I went to Bobby Clark. As I said, he's now at Notre Dame. And we're in Dallas recruiting. And Bobby's a really
00:20:19
Speaker
He's one of the elder statesmen of college soccer and he's a class act. And I said, Bobby, we need to play. And he said, OK. And I said, I want to go to Mass at the Basilica on campus, beautiful church. I want to light a candle for my parents in the grotto. They both passed away. I said, I want to go to the bookstore and get an official Notre Dame tie or sweatshirt. I got something from the Harvard bookstore.
00:20:42
Speaker
And then I said, and really, we just got a verbal commit from a recruit that I promised we'd play Notre Dame if he came. And so I kind of have to honor that promise. He's like, those are all good reasons. You come play us. And it's given these kids a chance to do something special. So it sounds like maybe Division I has made your life a little, it's easier to get in those doors, but it sounds like you always were trying to open them before that. Well, and the game is different now.
00:21:08
Speaker
than it was when I was in coaching in the NAI, because there was crossover, because college soccer wasn't as defined. You rarely see, we might play a Division II team in an exhibition. We'll play some in the spring, but we'd never play one in a regular season game. Whereas, Cliff McGrath at SPU, that program was iconic. They won five national titles, went to the final 10 times, and Cliff set a bar for me. I looked across,
00:21:38
Speaker
the city and they traveled great, they got great gear, and they played great schedules. So in that day, I can't take too much credit that I had created something.
00:21:51
Speaker
I bought into play the best schedule you can. And it's crazy. You call Stanford. You leave a voicemail. Bobby Clark calls you back. And he says, yeah, we'll try to play it. Now we can do it over email. But there's no chance if we were division. And people didn't want to play us as well. There was one school. I won't name them. And it's not Washington. But I would call the guy 30 times. And I'd never leave a voicemail. And then when he would pick up, I would say, oh, hey.
00:22:19
Speaker
I just wondered if we'd come play at your place, because I knew they'd never won. They'd never play us at our place, because they're Division I. So we'd go over and play them, and we'd beat them. And I always pretended that it was just a random call. But I had it on my finger, could dial that phone number. I bet if I did it now, I'd still do it, and it's been easily. So we
Seattle U's Soccer Facilities
00:22:39
Speaker
always want to play good competition.
00:22:42
Speaker
I would imagine, though, recruiting is probably one area that's a little easier now. For sure. And that you can go and be in the same, that you can be kind of on the same level as a UW or someone like that and pitch yourself, I mean, I guess Pac-10 or Pac-12 versus WAC as maybe something still. But I would think in soccer maybe the gap is not as big.
00:23:06
Speaker
I would agree. I would agree. I think certainly the gap between men's and women's soccer versus men and women's basketball. Washington and Seattle U. I think we can recruit. We're talking to a kid who's in the national team pool right now. We're a small school.
00:23:23
Speaker
Where Jesuit school it's a respected education. We're in a great city and then you look at our field that we're sitting here It's a fantastic field. We got lights you look back into the city. We have covered seating There's not too many people that have covered seating our benches our structure is concrete when we design that I said it has to be concrete matter of fact
00:23:43
Speaker
the height of that is the same height that Spartan Stadium. Oh, yeah. Yes. When I played for FC Seattle and we play the San Jose Earthquakes, I loved the height between the fans and the and the and the field stands in the field. So and it had to be concrete for me and we wanted it to be covered.
00:24:00
Speaker
And for those listening, don't sit in the front two rows if it's raining, because you'll get soaking wet. It's really just, for looks, you want to sit in the back rows. It is a great, you know, it's a small stadium, but it's a great field. It's in a great setting. You really can't beat it. It's not surprising to me that the U.S. national team trained here during the period of America, right? That was great. Yeah, we've had Man U has trained here. I wasn't here at the time, but Sir Alex walked around the place. So it's, you know, Rooney was out here at the time.
00:24:28
Speaker
So man use trained here honduras is trained here the women's national team and i brian schmetzer and i were here is a long time ago before the mls was in town and we had. That team with brandy chastane and me and michelle acres and julie foudy and they were all walking around and and.
00:24:46
Speaker
And my kids, I got my kids out of school for that day to come and watch. And Brian stopped and said, wow, these women are superstars. And they were, man, it was so great. And as a matter of fact, we had a railing right outside where we are. And I had something from me, a ham building dedication. And I came in.
00:25:08
Speaker
and I came behind the women they were kind of sectioned off by a railing and I went to Mia and I said do you mind signing this and she gave me a look like who are you like like was I some kind of stalker you know she'd had you know I was coaching the team here I don't blame her for that
00:25:25
Speaker
And so I said, oh, I'm really sorry. And she was like, no, no, it's OK. But poor girl had seen people getting a little too close for comfort. Sure. Yeah, that team was kind of another. Yeah, they all went trick or treating. It was October, and they all had planned. Brandy had them set up to go trick or treating.
00:25:41
Speaker
But anyway, yeah, so our field has seen some having the US national team here. Right. It was great. And I'm I'm not going to bug anybody when they get here. Right. But it was Clint came walking by and I looked at him and I'm sure he's going to I know that face. But but it was just nice having his artists out here and his artists from the L.A. galaxy scored so great. We played he was at Bakersfield my first year here. Uh huh.
00:26:11
Speaker
They beat us, I think, 4-2 at their place. I think he got two goals. I tried to sub him out of the game. I told his coach. I lied to his coach and said, hey, he's artists. Hamstrings bad. And the coach is a friend of mine. He's jazzy. What's the matter? And he's like, I'm fine. And I said, I see hamstring. Get him off.
00:26:28
Speaker
So that was on a Sunday at Bakersfield come back here and we play on a Sunday and it happens to be my 50th birthday and and Jazzy scores four goals and they were lasers upper corner lower corner Hatter I mean just non-stop great and I walked up to him afterward I walked up to him on the first game and I said hey I broadcast and major league soccer I said I'm gonna be saying your name a lot and he's like thank you and
00:26:55
Speaker
Very respectful. Nice show, man. The next weekend was here. I said, Hey, it's my 50th birthday days. Happy birthday. And I poked him in the chest. He said, shut up. You ruined it. So, so we've had some, we've had some real talent on this field. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I went and played in England in 1987 and we played at Bournemouth, Middlesbrough, Portsmouth, and our facility doesn't have the end zones that they have or.
00:27:20
Speaker
on the other side right now it's just on one side we'll get the end zones that's the goal but but if you look at that and you look at some of those pictures you'll see some similarities yeah and we it was it was picked before we got the lights it was picked in 2004 as one of the top I think it was 2004 2010 one of the top venues to watch college soccer by US News and World Report so it's
00:27:44
Speaker
You got field of the year a few years ago, which is funny. I mean is it is a gorgeous field There's no question. Oh there it is and they're really into it I mean, it's science right and they pump air into the field and that two drill bits go in 14 inches 12 inches maybe and then and then a generator comes on the bits come out they get they get
00:28:06
Speaker
that is
00:28:24
Speaker
they go in seven and a half inches and it's a big thick like a piece of rebar but pointed at the end and once it's secure and seven inches down it wiggles at the bottom to create a bigger space and and then they come in and they sand the whole field and those seven inch holes are filled with sand so it's a it is a real science we train on it all the time
00:28:48
Speaker
which our groundskeeper, Dean Pearson, does a great job. And there's a lot of pride in you can train on the field, right? As opposed to staying off it and only using it on game day, which I would not, I would fight that because you want to be used to your grass. Well, sure. That's part of the point, right? Yeah. And he takes such great pride in what he does. He takes pride that we train on the field all the time. It's not just used one day a week.
Community and Legacy in Seattle Soccer
00:29:11
Speaker
So you got a couple players here that are Sanders Academy products, right? Yes. Yeah. David Olson. And I'm going to butcher his name. What's the other? Kyle Bjornathan. Bjornathan. And then Sam Langston. Oh, so there's a third. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So in the starting lineup, Sammy's our left back. Kyle is a.
00:29:28
Speaker
has been a center back started every game of his career. And I'd say Sam has started every game but a couple only because of injury. And Kyle's moved from center back to he's playing in the center midfield now, both are seniors and then David Olson's a junior. And David led the country in scoring last year was 16. He scored and got an assist yesterday against San Jose. He's got three goals now and I think four assists. So he's starting to get going. But yeah, they're very talented players.
00:29:54
Speaker
Anything you can say are those are these players that are our future? I'm like David Olson seems like a guy who's probably a future MLS player David's got a real knack for scoring, which is not easy to do yesterday Someone from the Portland Timbers a scout from the Timbers was there I spoke with him after the game and he spoke very highly of David and Kyle is very cerebral probably his best position is his left back Sammy's such a good left back and that's his spot that and Kyle's got a little more versatility But Kyle reads the game really well
00:30:24
Speaker
Very good first touch. Same with Sam. Sam serves a good ball as well. So I think all three of them could play at the next level. It might take a little while. They may have to go through the U.S.L. process to get there. But David, if he gets good service, great in the air. And his goal yesterday was
00:30:45
Speaker
He turned, hit a great shot to the far post, keeper made a terrific save, just pushed it past the bar and we took a corner, came down, he just took a touch off his quad. First time, very calm, maybe 10 yards out, side netting. And he started off at San Diego State, right? He did. He was there for one year and then came back.
00:31:06
Speaker
Yeah. What's the process like of of that transfer? I like is that something you like had you been involved in that? It was that something he contacts you. Yeah. So the way it works, you have to have a release before there's any kind of contact that can be made. So it's a release from the university. You're allowed a one time transfer. So if you transfer. So if David were to say I want to transfer again, he would not have to sit out a year. Right. And in Division one, you have five years to play for.
00:31:34
Speaker
So, I've got a son, Nathan, who wants to go back and play, but he's exhausted his five years. So, he could play division two, division three in NAI, but you only get five years in division one. So, for David, he was allowed to transfer and play right away. But if a guy, you have to sit out a complete calendar year. And so, we're not gonna go out and talk to somebody and say, hey,
00:32:01
Speaker
After a game, he played great, Jeremiah. I'd love you to come see you. That's not how it works. That's not how anybody does it. But but there's players who go away and then and then they want to come back. David's the oldest in his family and his father passed away a few years ago. And I think there was a pang for him to come back and be near his family again, help his little sisters out.
00:32:20
Speaker
And we've seen quite a bit of that. Sounders Academy kids, because they have so much exposure to go to a lot of places, like Sam Langston went to Omaha, Nebraska first, and we've had a number of guys go away and then say, hey, I want to come back.
00:32:37
Speaker
And to be fair to them, too, four years ago, Seattle U soccer was not what it is now. We hadn't gone to the NCAA tournament four years ago. So we've been twice in the last three years. And you guys had quite a nice little run last year. Yeah, that sure was fun. We started out two and two and then ended.
00:32:55
Speaker
18 four and one regular season I think we had the most wins we had the ninth toughest schedule in the country, which is good and I'm proud of that because it's one thing to have 18 wins but if you have a tough schedule. We were three and oh in the pack. 12 we beat Washington, Oregon State UCLA.
00:33:13
Speaker
2-0 in the Ivy League, beaten Harvard and Dartmouth last year here. And so, yeah, it was a good season. We won the WAC conference, and then we have a WAC conference tournament. The winner of the WAC conference tournament is guaranteed an NCAA tournament berth. There's 48 teams go to the NCAA tournament. 26 are guarantees, automatic qualifiers, because there's 26 leagues. Yeah. So that's 22 at-large berths.
00:33:38
Speaker
So in our conference, we went because we won the conference tournament. And then Utah Valley went as an out large into the tournament. So we had first round by just just great. It's great to not have to play that and wait for UCLA and Cal Poly to fight it out. And UCLA won that one, I think two one. And then we had UCLA here. Our stadium holds just under 700. We had 2000 people here.
00:34:04
Speaker
Wow. It was great. And the fire department came in and said, well, if you put a hole in the fence right here, we can let you do this and this and this. So so we had we put a hole in the fence. You know, it's not like concrete brick and grass stadium is going to burn by safety first. Right. So so they were good enough to help us up the attendance. And so
00:34:26
Speaker
The stands were completely full, but both end zones were completely full. That's pretty cool. It was great. It was great atmosphere. People still, I was at that game, and that means they were at the UCLA game. And then we went to Syracuse. They're very good. They had gone to Churu.
00:34:42
Speaker
rounds of 16 in the previous three years. So they had the bite. We kicked off at one o'clock. We retired a lot of a little bit of travel couple, two different flights, our bus ride. And it was nine a.m. Seattle time. We kicked off. I checked after the game. I should have checked before you can. The guys can drink up to five cups of coffee and not break the NCAA violation.
00:35:08
Speaker
substance things. So if we get that situation, I don't think I'd go close to five, but I might say everybody's having a shot of espresso before we go on the field. So is that they don't want that much caffeine in your system or something? Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, just drugs. I guess so. That's funny. I never really would have thought of that. Yeah. Yes. Anyone else on this team? I guess Christian rolled on his brothers here. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing great. Alex rolled on his
00:35:33
Speaker
doing very well. He's got four goals. He's playing up front for us, and he's got a really good engine. I like our team. Sergio Rivas, the Portland Scout, said, hey, that kid can play. He's from New Mexico. He wears number seven on our team. And right now, he's wide right, but he can come underneath. And he scored a great goal against Utah Valley. And it was really a fantastic goal. He's really, really good. He got goal of the year last year as a freshman. He was WAC freshman of the year as well.
00:36:00
Speaker
I like our team. Our back four is real good. Our midfield is a lot of fun to watch. And up front, we're starting to click, although we just found out we have an injury today. So it's not a sprain, unfortunately. But we had that last year with Hamza Adadi, who's now graduated, broke his foot against Air Force. We didn't know it was broken. Stayed on the field, scored a goal, and then said, hey, I got to come off. And he sat for 10 weeks and then made it back and helped us win the conference tournament.
00:36:28
Speaker
Well, you've built a great thing here. Thank you. It's fun. It's fun to watch. And it's great to see another soccer program in the city. I mean, it's kind of neat to see two soccer programs in the city rise like this in the national, I guess three in some ways.
00:36:45
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I feel that, too. I played at Washington. So I get great texts on game day when we play Washington. I can't repeat them because some guys should be arrested for the things they say to me. Right. So there's some threats, which they're good friends. So I appreciate their zest for the game. But Jamie Clark at Washington is a class guy. I like him a lot. And and our games are super intense. And Gary Wright,
00:37:12
Speaker
press box that you and I sit in on sounder game day uh is named the Gary Wright press box Gary said because he's in the NFL you know 32 years and he said um in the NFL the rule is in the board room were teammates um in on the field were competitors and so Jamie and I have
00:37:30
Speaker
enjoyed working together on this year. We're playing five games. We're sharing five games. So with the Pac-12, he's got 10 games. I've got 10 games in the WAC. So we both look for about eight more games. Five of those games have come from our relationship.
00:37:45
Speaker
Oh, like you have the common opponent. Exactly. So we we play each other. That's one. Yeah, we both went to Harvard, Dartmouth. We played Harvard. They played Dartmouth. We flipped. We both hosted College of Charleston and Davidson. We ended up flying back with them from Harvard. Well, yeah. And through Boston, we were both we won. We each won our first game of that leg of that trip.
00:38:09
Speaker
And then we each lost the night before the flight home. And and I was sitting there and no one's happy when you lose, right? They weren't happy. Neither were we and retired. Right. And I thought we should send them Bloody Mary's. And I'm not a Bloody Mary drinker. But then all of a sudden, I thought Steve Sarkeesian got himself a little trouble with drinking on airplanes so that we won't try to get him fired. But
00:38:33
Speaker
They're good. They're good. They're a good team. I'm going to go watch them Sunday when they play Cal at five o'clock. So we play Saturday. And what's funny, Jeremiah, is that the NCAA rule is you can't watch opponent play until after you've played them.
00:38:48
Speaker
Really? So I, unless you're in a tournament with them at the same venue. So if we're at a tournament here, I can watch him play or for there I can watch him play. But if we're, I have to wait. So there's only two games and see rules there. You know, they're there for a reason. Somebody, somebody took advantage of something. So yeah. So I like that relationship. We now have a cup.
00:39:11
Speaker
between our program and theirs, the Seattle Cup, it's sponsored by the Washington Athletic Club, and it's sponsored by the 101 Club, and so it's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah, they wanted the first one, which, and Henry Wingo was a great kid that we recruited, and he was the MVP for Washington, and happy to get his name on that trophy. I wish it was one of our guy's names, but it's all right.
00:39:33
Speaker
Well, Pete, thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, my pleasure. Hopefully our listeners found this to be interesting. This is an interview I've been wanting to do for a long time. We've been together a long time. I know. We see each other. How long have you been with the Sounders? I've been covering the Sounders since 2010. OK. Yeah, I started in nine first year.
00:39:50
Speaker
I'm shocked. I'm going to call the game on Wednesday. And so we practice Wednesday at four. And I'll get to the stadium right after practice. It is such a great life experience to go up in the press box and talk soccer with Matt Johnson. Yeah, it's been really fun. And it's great for me as a relative newcomer to the Seattle scene to see so many people that have these deep roots.
00:40:15
Speaker
And I really do, and I think it's a really important story to tell about the, like I said, your generation of players who really bridged that gap between the U.S.L. or the N.A.S.L. and the M.L.S.S.A. era. Yeah, I'm seeing that too.
00:40:31
Speaker
My youth coach passed away a few years ago, Hans Klein. I played with his twin sons in Little League Baseball and youth soccer all the way from seven years old up, maybe six years old, all the way up. We all played for the University of Washington together. We all came back and played for him and now we're kind of in that era and I was just talking to a
00:40:53
Speaker
One of our former players is a guy named Ryan Sawyer and he's the president of Emerald City and I just set him up with a guy named Brian Klein when Brian Schmetzer and myself and Johnny Hamill and Brian Klein and Steve Hobb were all working to get Emerald City together and it was already together.
00:41:13
Speaker
helping move it along, right? But now players I coached are now taking over Emerald City. And it's really interesting to see that, you know, my coach has passed away, we're kind of getting older, and some experience that like us, I listened to Brian on the radio today, I was so proud of him, you know, it was a great interview. And now it's kind of our time to be helping out. And now the next generation is coming in. And yeah, it's fun to watch.
00:41:37
Speaker
It is, it is. Well, thanks a lot again for doing this. My pleasure. Pete Viewing, Seattle U coach, commentator for the Sounders, and really a great soccer mind in the Seattle area. So I appreciate you doing this. Thank you. This is Nos Arigatas. Thank you very much.
00:41:57
Speaker
Well thanks again for listening. Hopefully you found that interview as fun and as interesting as I did conducting it. Seattle U is currently 7-3 on the season including 4-0 in WAC play this year. Their next home match is on Sunday against Grand Canyon University at 6pm so if you feel like checking it out there is really not much nicer places to watch a soccer match than at Seattle U's championship field.
00:42:21
Speaker
Also, I wanted to thank our sponsors, Constellation & Company, Queen Anne Acupuncture, Full Pull Wines, Verity Credit Union, and the Book Towards Cascadia. Again, this interview would not have been possible without the help and support of Bootstrapper Studios, who supplied the equipment we needed to make this happen. I am Jeremiah O'Shan, signing off on behalf of the Nos Adietta's crew. Remember, you'll never let go.
00:42:46
Speaker
Green Douglas spur where the water's cut through Down to wild mountains and tangents you flew Canadian northwest to the ocean so blue It's Roll On, Columbia Roll On Roll On, Columbia Roll On Roll On, Columbia Roll On Your power is turning our darkness to dawn Roll On, Columbia Roll On