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Episode 10 - The Beautiful Pod with Matt Shadoan
8 Plays1 year ago
This week we are joined by a fan favorite Matt Shadoan! We discuss Shadoan's time in college and his path to a national championship, why we call it Soccer in America, and the Pod discussing the best uniforms in professional sports.
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Transcript
Opening & Introduction
00:00:12
Speaker
Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight, gonna grab some afternoon delight. My motto's always been, when it's right, it's right while we
00:00:26
Speaker
good afternoon delights I'm your host Matt Latimer just trying to bring you a smile on this Wednesday but I couldn't do that alone so I brought on a very special guest the one and only a fan favorite the biggest league bitch you've ever seen Matt Chaddone how are you doing today Chaddone I am doing just fine it's a happy hump day to everybody out there hopefully we can help you get through your week listening to us ramble a little
00:00:55
Speaker
That's why the people tune in. You know, she don't know most of our listeners know who you are, but there's some out there that maybe don't.
Guest Background & Sports Interests
00:01:02
Speaker
Why don't you give us a quick little background of you and your hobbies? Well, first I'll start by how I got to know you, Mr. Linamer. I know your older brother, Chris. We've been hanging out since, my God, it feels like since 1996, went to grade school together. And when you would invite me over, sure enough, you were always around and you were always just hanging out with us.
00:01:25
Speaker
Glad we were able to make a friendship out of that. Just a little bit about myself. Grew up in Columbus, Ohio and ended up going to college at Ohio Westland up in Delaware, Ohio. Loved the state of Ohio so much, I decided to stay in it. And then I moved back to Columbus and started my career in insurance underwriting and have been doing that ever since 2014 when I graduated.
00:01:50
Speaker
In terms of hobbies, I still love to play soccer. I am going to keep doing it until I can no longer do it anymore. Right now, I mean, I got a game tonight. Looks like we're playing Capitol University's team. It is going to be an absolute shit show for me.
00:02:05
Speaker
because that means I'm going to have to tap into my younger self and try and keep up with those guys. But hopefully we'll have enough subs so I can do a quick two minute shift like you see in hockey and get the hell off the field. I also am obsessed with golf. Ever since I graduated college, you know, I've been trying to find things to focus my competitive spirit on.
00:02:27
Speaker
And I couldn't think of a better sport than golf. You know, it's just you out there by yourself. You can compete against yourself. And really like the vibes every time I go and play, it's always fantastic. It's just you and the guys just hanging out, drinking some beer, just trying to put this ball in the hole. And then I also like to take on house projects. I'm not very good at it yet, but hopefully with some of this experience and home owning, I will, I'll get better. But yeah, that's just, that's a little bit about me.
00:02:56
Speaker
I'm going to have to call Bologna here on you being obsessed with golf because every time that I ask you to play, you tell me that you're busy or that you can't go or that Christie won't let you. I don't know when the last time you played golf was. I played on Saturday. I shot in 87. I was very proud of myself.
00:03:11
Speaker
And I knew that in order for me to continue playing golf at the rate that I want to, I had to get Christy involved in golf too. So she's been seeing a golf instructor and her swing and her game has significantly improved.
00:03:28
Speaker
and we started going to a coach probably in early September and she has gone from like not consistently hitting the ball to she hits her irons pretty flush and she's hitting the driver like around 200 yards which where her T's are going to be at is a huge advantage for her.
00:03:47
Speaker
Nice. I've been trying to get Brianna into it, but she's more of a just riding the car kind of person, which that's no big deal. Whatever it takes. Right. Well, you know what I think, and you can, you can call BS on this, but I think you take her to PGA superstore and you get her, her own set of irons and a driver and a nice putter. And then it's like, Hey, listen, you invested all this money into your golf game. You better use it. I got other things to spend my money on. I'm not spending it on golf clubs for her to use once a year. No way. Fair
Soccer Career & Championship Journey
00:04:16
Speaker
enough.
00:04:16
Speaker
You did mention you played soccer in college. You went to a small D3 school for you. Was it always all soccer all the time or when did you really feel like you made the jump to the beautiful game? It kind of all started when I was younger. I mean, you're just playing to play. It's an incredible distraction from everything that's going on in your life. And I didn't really start to get the sense that
00:04:40
Speaker
Oh, hey, maybe I can play at pretty high level. I know it's division three and people can hate on it, but I know that not until my junior year of high school was I like, okay, I could do this thing and play somewhere in college. And, you know, I loved soccer enough that I felt like that transition was going to be easy.
00:04:58
Speaker
I mean, to be honest with you, if you're going to play division three sports, I'm sure your brother will tell you you got to love it. I mean, it is not it's not gratifying. I mean, you don't get treated any different than you would from any other student. I mean, you still got to go to class, still got to do the work. And we had games on Tuesdays and Thursdays at seven o'clock. You had an exam on Wednesday or Friday. You had no out. You had to freaking do it. So yeah, but I but I loved it. I loved the structure of it and I loved the grind of it.
00:05:26
Speaker
Nice. You know, you are our second national championship winning person on this podcast. Who's the first Julie salt. She won a national championship at Ashland playing, uh, playing basketball. Good for her, dude. That's hard. That is hard. Her team went undefeated. You have to listen to her episode and it's a good episode. Absolutely. I will, uh, you have any Ashland was a D two, you know, like D one double A.
00:05:54
Speaker
So for you, what year did you guys win the national championship? Uh, 2011. What was different about that year in that team? And were you a starter? What position did you play? So I'll start with what was different about that team. The previous year we made it to the elite eight and we had a really good senior class, my freshman year, who kind of took a lot of the freshmen under their wing. Now, keep in mind, like most of
00:06:22
Speaker
Like kind of how our program worked was you would bring in probably 20 freshmen and you would kind of weed out, gosh, maybe like 75% of them. But for our class, we were very deep and very talented. So we had about 11 guys that stuck around and we're really, really good.
00:06:39
Speaker
So once we got that year under our belt, and then we had a returning class that featured the division three player of the year, which, you know, that helps. And then our class having a little bit more experience. I mean, a lot of tournament success is how good your gold tender's playing. And we had a hot goalkeeper and he was unbelievable down the stretch. That year we lost our first game. We played Messiah, who is a division three soccer powerhouse. I don't know if you've heard of him before.
00:07:07
Speaker
But they beat us in the first game. And then we did not lose a game after that until our conference tournament final. And we lost to DePaul. And it was an awful game for us. But the way we kind of rallied around that was we lost to Messiah first game of the season. And then we went on a 20 game win streak. So maybe there's a little bit of a pattern here. And we had a first round bye and then played Washington University of Missouri. Beat them 1-0 or 2-0. I think it was 1-0.
00:07:37
Speaker
then we had Ohio Northern in the sweet 16 beat them three to two we were down to nothing at halftime and made a made a comeback scored three unanswered goals in the second half all under 15 minutes it was it was incredible and then uh that i mean after that uh you kind of feel like man this could be something really really special here
00:07:57
Speaker
And even more as we kept winning. So we had hope in the elite eight out of Holland, Michigan, and we beat them to one and we're heading to the final four final four is down in San Antonio, Texas. As we're getting closer, you kind of, you know, there were kind of murmurs going around that if we win that national championship game, that our head coach Jay would be the winning his coach and all of NCAA soccer, that one win would put him as the highest.
00:08:24
Speaker
So played Montclair State in the Final Four. We just clobbered them. It was 3-0, wasn't even close. And that brought us to the national title game against Calvin. And we went up 2-0 at halftime and never really looked back after that. Just had to finish up that last 45. Gave up a goal with 10 minutes left. But we ended up holding out and bringing it home. And it was awesome. I don't know if you could ever emulate that kind of
00:08:52
Speaker
feeling. We had probably 50 old like alumni who played for Jay like way back in the day they all flew down to San Antonio and you would have thought well you know that they won the national championship too and they were on the field with us and it was it was really cool. Those guys
00:09:09
Speaker
you know you look at it and you're like okay so they kind of paved the way and showed us what to do and this is all of the hard work that we definitely sounds like quite the run there's probably not many runs just in sports similar to that one definitely a great experience and like you said it's not something that you can emulate that's like a once in a lifetime kind of grass moment most people don't win anything
00:09:30
Speaker
And even teams that go on runs where you have, you know, all we won six championships in 10 years or whatever before and after that, it might've been 30 or 40 years before they even had a shot at one. So kudos to you guys.
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, Jay won his first one in 1998, got his second one in 2011. I mean, that's quite some time to wait. And there were some really good teams in that time span. I mean, there was a team in the early 90s, like 90 to 94. They made it to four straight final fours and just never, never could get over that hump. So.
00:10:03
Speaker
We just kind of, we just kind of lucked out at like, you know, it's, it's all about the draw. It's all about if your players are healthy and you know, we just had guys peaking at the right time. And I mean, we had guys even coming in off the bench who were just unbelievable. Like I remember our practices, like, cause I had guys who I was playing against who were better than any of the competition that I was going up against that week.
00:10:26
Speaker
And the games almost got to a point where it was it was relatively simple. And, you know, you you dread practice because you're like, damn, I got to go up against this person, you know, who is better than the guy that I'm going to see on Thursday or Tuesday or what have you. And when you kind of get into that rhythm, your mentality just kind of goes to, you know, if I can just do my job, I can win my one on one battle and we can, you know, see what we can kind of create from there. And we had a lot of guys who just won their one on one battles.
00:10:56
Speaker
man, you piece that together with odd goalkeeper and you piece it together with depth. And it feels like a lot of national championship teams have that same kind of feel or like story. We're like, Oh, we were so deep that our backups were better than their starters. That's like the recipe to successes when you can just reload and replace and you know, iron sharpens, iron's what it's all about.
00:11:19
Speaker
dude absolutely which is like crazy like now to think about with the transport portal and all that stuff where like if guys don't play and they're freaking out of there but you know I remember we had a couple seniors and you know one of them was a walk on
00:11:35
Speaker
And he just, I know, like I walk on on a D3 school where there's no athletic scholarships. Like, can you believe that? And this guy just, he was an absolute grinder. I mean, not like he's not, he wasn't going to be the most talented guy on the field, but any tackle he would go into, he would win. And when you have the best player in division three soccer that you can just give the ball to and let him go to work.
00:11:56
Speaker
life is easy. I remember that was my mentality, right? Is when you're one on one defensive battle and get the ball to the guys who are really good and just make runs for them. That's inner Miami strategy right now. So it's got to be a good one. Dude, exactly. Your team was like going to work kicking and screaming. Get the ball to the Italians.
00:12:17
Speaker
We, uh, we had a couple of those, but you know, you also have to pair that with a really good defense and we did, we had a really good defense too. We didn't give up a lot of goals and you know, our, our kind of mentality was if we just have the ball and the other team doesn't, then there's just no way that it can score.
00:12:34
Speaker
And I mean, it got to a point in some games where it would be a goal kick, they would kick it to us, we'd play it on the ground, find an opening, we would shoot, Baldwin hit the net, goal kick. That sounds like a good time. I wish I could have seen a couple games, but I was young and naive and thought that soccer was dumb then. I've since come around. I get why it's called the beautiful game.
00:12:54
Speaker
Yeah. When did, uh, when did you start getting interested? I went to a blue jackets game with Jacob and Jen nave and had a pretty like, okay time and I switched to a new job and I got a very large pay raise when I switched over. So I had all this extra money and I was like, maybe let's get some blue jackets tickets and give us something to do in the winter. So I bought the tickets and I don't know, like two months go by and I was waiting for the season, waiting for the season and I was kind of bored.
00:13:17
Speaker
And you
Soccer Fandom & Sports Culture
00:13:18
Speaker
know, the old company that I was at did all the electrical work and sound work and everything at the crew stadium. So we'd seen pictures. We had talked about it. I was going to go, but like individual tickets on the game by the time that you finished taking master was like over a hundred dollars for two people to go. So it's probably cheaper if I just go and buy bulk tickets.
00:13:34
Speaker
Called the ticketing office. We had a big lineup in the summer and a bunch of weddings and stuff. So I called them. I was like, I just want the last five games of the year. What would that cost me? And the last five games was the same price as if I bought two tickets to just two games off of Ticketmaster. So I was like, all right, hell yeah.
00:13:50
Speaker
Got the tickets. The first crew game that we went to was the hell is real rivalry against FC Cincinnati. So the crowd was going wild. Everybody was going wild downtown. FC Cincinnati was number one team in the MLS and crew came out and beat them 3-0. And everybody was going wild and they got all the songs, no commercials, no breaks, anything like that. And we were both just like hooked all in. Biggest crew fans in the world right off the bat. That was like Marty's biggest thing when
00:14:14
Speaker
He was like, I love how the game says it's going to kick off at two o'clock and it starts at two o'clock. And like you said, no commercials. It's a 45 minute runtime. You don't appreciate it. Like, but watching some of these guys do what they do and the tactics involved in it, it is just unbelievable. I mean, the biggest.
00:14:34
Speaker
thing that I can think of is like, look at what the crew was doing with MLS cup. I mean, the styles of play between those two teams were completely different and the crew looked great at times. They also look, you know, like you could get after them at certain times too, but they have really pieced that team together incredibly well. They're super fun to watch and the games are a completely different experience than what the old stadium is. Like it's, it's, it's a very prideful thing. You're like, hell yeah,
00:15:04
Speaker
Like, this is the crew. They're in Columbus. This stadium's awesome. Like, you got a championship team.
00:15:11
Speaker
especially with the whole save the crew movement. There wasn't that many crew fans and they fought so hard to keep the team in Columbus to not move to Austin. Like they wanted a team and now all of those people that were part of the save the crew movement are going to every game and they're all in. And so like the Nordex just always going crazy. Everybody's into it. Stadium's great. It's a great environment. You can get down there, hang out early, hang out after like people just want to be around the team and you can feel it when they're cheering, which is why people don't come in the lower.com field and walk out with the wind.
00:15:41
Speaker
really does. And I mean, like you said, like getting there before and getting thereafter, even like logistically, like what Christy and I will do is we'll park at the Hopper House over at in Grandview, and then you could just ride a scooter for five bucks all the way down to the stadium, taking the old and tangy river trail and
00:16:00
Speaker
get to the ticket booth for, I mean, it's nothing. It's seamless and easy and, you know, you go down there and you have Hot Chicken Takeover, you have Schmidt's, you have the Nottos. I mean, you can get something different every single time. It's a really, really cool environment to be in, not to mention you got the Nordecky too.
00:16:21
Speaker
Now that I've been watching more too, and I try and convince other people at work and other places that have cities where MLS is growing and it's getting better and better and better. People are becoming a part of it, but it's not even just like isolated to the crew. There's a lot of other cities that invested money into their own individual soccer stadiums. And those teams are shelling out people also like FC, Cincinnati sells at every game. Crew just played Minnesota United in Minnesota. They had a sold out stadium. It's definitely grown across the league. And I think as it gets more serious everywhere, it
00:16:51
Speaker
makes it better. Do you have an MLS team or sorry, EPL team? I got a couple of EPL teams. How I picked my EPL team was I didn't know anything about soccer, but I watched Ted Lasso. I didn't even know that the teams were real. Then they made sports gambling legal in Ohio. So I randomly started betting on soccer at the beginning of this year. This was my first year watching English Premier League. I didn't look up any history or anything.
00:17:16
Speaker
I just started betting on teams that I had good feelings about or that I recognized from Ted Lasso. And if they won me money, I love them. And if they lost me money, they're my mortal enemies. So I'm a big Manchester City fan. They've won me a lot of money this year. I love Liverpool Arsenal, but Man City is my go-to. And after I told Alec and Jacob that that was my go-to, they're like, you're a bandwagoner. And I was like, I don't even know what that means because I don't know anything about any team. And then looked up Man City and they've won the last four straight.
00:17:45
Speaker
for mere league titles. I was like, I pick the best team. The team that you like. I think it's called like the big five. So you got Man City, you have the Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Chelsea. Those teams just have a bigger bank account. There's no salary cap in the EPL. I mean, you have the fair play stuff, but there's no salary cap in the EPL. So the teams that invest a bunch of money typically are the ones that end up at the top of the table.
00:18:12
Speaker
but there are some really, really cool stories. Like look at Leister, for example, who won the Premier League, what was it, 2016, 2017, 2018? Okay, well, anyway, they are run by this guy. The owner of it was a guy who owned a airline. It was like Fly Malaysia, I think, something like that. So when COVID hit, he took a huge loss on his balance sheet.
00:18:40
Speaker
And so he couldn't invest that money in the club anymore. And Leister became this team that won the Premier League and was maybe in the top half of the table. Well, all of a sudden, he couldn't invest money in them. So the players that they did have, they had to let go because they couldn't pay their salary. And then you find yourself, they get relegated. And it's the same thing with some of these other clubs, like Leeds United is another example.
00:19:04
Speaker
where back in the day they were unbelievable. And then something happens financially where all of a sudden the owners can't divvy up the money the way that they want in the way the club needs to keep it afloat. So ultimately these teams end up suffering.
00:19:21
Speaker
I love it. I love the relegated system and English sports. I know in a lot of American sports, that's an vodka thing that could really happen, but I feel like it could turn around baseball for sure. I love that you can move up and down just by winning and like being better as you get better automatically.
00:19:37
Speaker
the EPL where there is no tournament and it's essentially you play every team twice and you accumulate as much points as possible. Or do you kind of like how the American system is where you play and like let's say the NFL, you have to win your conference and then that gets you into the playoff.
00:19:56
Speaker
I wish in the EPL that maybe like the top four teams would go at it and just a four team playoff at the end of the year for English Premier League champion. I just feel like that would add like another level to have like truly crowned champion instead of just points. And then it's also like you're forcing the best teams at the end of the year to play each other. So you're just getting.
00:20:14
Speaker
another so that you have the money for that would be good. And they have stuff like the the FA Cup and stuff like that where they'll have league cups where like, like a bottom tier team could as they win more games, they could end up playing like a Tottenham or something like that. But for the most part,
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, I love the fact that there is no playoff because it says you play every team twice. If the NFL did something like that, it would be like, okay, Bengals play the Browns twice. Then they have to play the Chiefs twice. If you accumulate all the points that are needed, then that should be your champion. The problem with that is you could have a team like Manchester City who just destroys everyone. And then the league is essentially over three quarters of the way through.
00:20:57
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. This year, it's a bit of a tight race, but I just think too is you could have a team, you know, lose by one point because or two or something because they had a couple extra draws. But what if their best player was hurt for eight games? So it's like as a team, you know, they didn't get the most points, but they were missing their best player. So let's like see what these guys can do when they're both at full strength.
00:21:18
Speaker
That's the only thing, but it's also, it's just, I mean, that's why you love tournaments, right? You want to see the best teams play each other. Like I don't want to see a Sunday game after watching on Saturday. It's like, well, if Manchester city wins, then they're the English premier league champion. But if they lose it's Liverpool is the English premier league champion. And Liverpool has to play Arsenal for their last game of the regular season. And Manchester city gets to play like Sheffield United.
00:21:41
Speaker
All the drama's gone. You're just like, oh, well, you know, the best teams playing the worst team. Right. But like, how, like, would you say that the NCAA tournament for basketball, does it solve the problem for who's the best team or who's just the hottest team at the time?
00:21:58
Speaker
So I feel like the NCAA tournament for basketball is like the FA Cup. And then how your college football playoff is, or was before they went to 12 teams, would be like your English Premier League. You just go right to the foremost deserving team. And let's see what they can do. You would probably like the European Super League then.
00:22:19
Speaker
I mean, probably it would definitely make it like you do the European super league and it's all the best teams from all the different countries. But that's already what like the European champions. Do you really need it? Like you already have that tournament with them so you don't need the super league and then you lose the relegation. I love the relegation more than anything. Like I can deal without a playoff. If there was like a 14 playoff, I think it'd be great, but I can deal without it. But I love the relegation. I love the up and down. I mean, that might be the way to go though. Like if you're an investor standpoint,
00:22:46
Speaker
We find a team that's in the lower tier, just pump a bunch of money into them and see what can happen.
00:22:54
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's definitely growing. I think with Messi coming over, especially after just winning like the balloon day or being the best player in soccer, it's not like all the other European guys that are coming over when they're washed up. He's literally still a top, probably five player in the world. He's got such a short contract, which kind of sucks. If they could have got a couple other guys with him to on different teams, it like really would have built it up. But if they can keep bringing in high profile people like that, I think they can maybe get to like a top 15 league worldwide.
00:23:22
Speaker
in the next 10 years. We'll see if people can continuously pump money into it, right? With the MLS, there is a salary cap, isn't there? Yeah, there's a salary cap. And then they have five designated players per team where you can get a special player and pay them outside of the salary cap. Their money doesn't go against the salary cap. So you get five, like four or five of those guys per team. That's how they were able to get Messi. So like Messi's hit doesn't affect inner Miami's salary cap. Because the salary cap in MLS soccer is like $5 million.
00:23:54
Speaker
I know that's the hope. I mean, obviously it's on Apple TV. I think it's starting to grow. I mean, the big thing with soccer is like these individual countries aren't pumping people up to make them rich. Like England isn't making all these teams in the English Premier League rich. It's because it's watched globally. So you have to get other countries to start buying into and watching the MLS. And the only reason why I think that's maybe possible, especially if you start getting like some big name players that people recognize as the MLS plays opposite of everybody else in the world.
00:24:22
Speaker
I mean, they're playing like at the same time right now, but you know, EPL ends in what, April, and it doesn't pick up again till the middle of summer. So you got a three month period where the MLS is the only sock going on. And they've talked about this in the past is it affects the schedule for the MLS. Like in a world cup year, there's what a month break. And this year you're going to have the same thing with the Olympics. And I think in the MLS schedule, there's a full month off.
00:24:48
Speaker
But you can't play the MLS in the winter months that England does because nobody wants to go to freaking Minnesota in December, you know? It's gonna be terrible.
00:24:59
Speaker
No, it's too tough. Unless if they pop money into their stadiums to be full dome, there's no way you can do it. But people don't want to play full dome because they don't want to play on turf. I don't know. It's the chicken. It's the egg. But I mean, they're growing. So that's good. All the matters are having a good time. I mean, the crew was the inaugural club for the MLS. That was back in 96. I mean, think of where it's come within our lifetime. And hopefully it just keeps getting bigger.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's only 30 years old. I mean, English Premier League is 140. The Manchester Darby, they were like, here's the 198th meeting between these team. I'm like, oh my God, this thing has survived like two world wars for Christ's sake. Amazing. I think you give it time and you start getting like more of the American youth into
US Soccer Future & Challenges
00:25:42
Speaker
it. And I mean, there's just more and more people in the world and there's more and more money being pumped into it. And dude, I mean, I walk my dog every single day and I live right by an elementary school. So I walk my dog every single
00:25:52
Speaker
day. And every day that it's nice and the latchy kids are out on the playground playing, there's like four kids wearing messy jerseys every day. And every time that I'm out walking here and I walk past somebody's house and somebody's playing soccer, they all have either a crew jersey on or a messy jersey on. Yeah. Question for you. Did you watch the World Cup this summer, last summer? I think I watched like a couple of bits and pieces, but I hadn't gotten fully into it yet.
00:26:13
Speaker
So the U.S. made it out of its group stage, which, you know, it's impressive. Do you think that the U.S. will ever get to a point where we could be competitive with the Spain's, the Argentina's, the Brazilians of the world?
00:26:29
Speaker
yeah i think you're probably a decade away from getting there at least but you know you're starting to see a lot of the pro teams come out with you know the crew twos like every team has like the two and they're doing the youth stuff like they do in the english premier league you know they're finding 14 year old kids that are really good taking them out of school you know homeschooling them or whatever putting them in like a charter school-ish
00:26:51
Speaker
thing inside of the team and then they're starting to play soccer like with those coaches and everything at the age of like 14. I think eventually you're just gonna get to a point where it's like England, you know, getting 12, 11 year olds and then you're putting these kids like in a situation where that's all they're doing all the time and they're just gonna keep getting better and the more and more popular that it gets, the more it's going to draw the better athletes away from other sports to soccer. And if America, like if America right now, if you just said, okay, every kid that's 10 years old,
00:27:19
Speaker
that was gonna be a professional football player or basketball player, all these elite athletes or top tier athletes that all play football and basketball are gonna switch and play soccer. They would destroy every single country. It wouldn't even be close. Like you have a six foot six athletic as hell player out there that is taller than every single person on the field and faster than every single person on the field.
00:27:39
Speaker
Yeah, but you have to have the right coaching with that too. So I don't know. Yeah, and I'm with you. It could get to a point someday where it looks like we are at least a top 10 country in the world. It's got to change at the youth level, in my opinion.
00:27:54
Speaker
So let's say you had a 12 year old who is pretty good at the rec level, right? Like he's dominating every single game and you're like, you know what, maybe instead of what the city has to offer, I want to see, or like, you know, the community like Dublin and I want to see what some of these other cities have like Westerville and Worthington or.
00:28:17
Speaker
Hilliard. So you signed them up for a club team. Well, a club team costs what? I mean, we looked at it the other day, Christy and I did, it's like $2,000. It's crazy. Whereas like, what's the entry fee for like DFL? Do you know? I don't know, probably like 100 bucks or something like that. Not expensive.
00:28:33
Speaker
You got to be like baseball. They're just finding kids on the street and then bringing them into those schools. That's what they do in the Dominican Republic. Like they literally, Chris was like, they see a kid throwing rocks and the kid just throws rocks harder than everybody else. And they go and they find them and they sign them up and they bring them to the school. And then he goes to the Cardinals in-house school and then plays baseball every day from the time that he's 12 to 18. And then if he's good enough, he makes the pros. Like that's what they would have to start to do with soccer. All right, Chaddone, are you ready for some afternoon delights place at the table?
00:29:02
Speaker
Let's do it. We're going to keep the good times going with soccer or football, as it is called throughout the world, the beautiful game or as we call it in America, soccer. But how did the name soccer come to be? And why is America one of the only countries in the world that calls the sport soccer? Do you know the answer? I'm assuming it has to do something with American football being around longer and more popular.
00:29:25
Speaker
A little bit. So to find out the answer, we got to look all the way back to the 1800s in England. And, you know, as these young men were starting to develop recreational sports, mainly playing at boarding schools, they were playing a tons of sports that were just different combinations of
00:29:41
Speaker
how to move a ball with either their hands or their feet and to get it across the opponent's goal line. And the two biggest was at the rugby school. They played a version where they could use their hands and at Eton College, they played a version where they could only use their feet. And then in 1863, there was a new association form. It was the first
00:29:58
Speaker
of its kind in the world, and it was an administration to set a standardized set of rules for these sports. From that association they developed two different codes. Rugby, which was after the rugby school, and association that was named after the association itself now.
00:30:13
Speaker
We all know how these youths and these young kids love to come up with new slang nowadays. Well, there was no different way back in the 1800s. So in 1860s England, it was very popular for kids to shorten words, leaving out either the end of the word or possibly pronouncing just the middle of the word.
00:30:29
Speaker
So for example, breakfast became Breck, rugby became rug, football became foot, and association became ASOC. And then that was eventually shortened to just sock. Well, then in the 1870s, it became all the rage for at the end of every word, they would add an ER. So breakfast became Brecker, rugby became rugby, and yes, sock became soccer.
00:30:49
Speaker
and the first time this term was recorded was in 1891 now as the popularity began to spread and the name soccer started to travel around the world the united states picked it up but they had already started developing their own form of american football that was adapted from rugby and rugby was also called rugby
00:31:08
Speaker
football and then shortened to rugby and in America they switched it to just calling it football so soccer just kind of stuck in America they never adapted they never changed they never switched it back like England did so that's why in America it's called soccer instead of football but we are not alone the Canadians also call it soccer along with Australia New Zealand and Ireland because those other three countries they have Australian rules football and Gaelic football and that's what they consider just football
00:31:37
Speaker
I love it. I love it. It's always going to be soccer for me, pal. It'll never be football. No, soccer just has a better ring to it, but football does make more sense. I don't know why soccer sounds better, but technically, football isn't even the actual name for the English soccer. It's not the full actual name. The actual name of the sport of football in England is Association of Football. I love that.
00:31:58
Speaker
Now it's time to get into what is usually the meat of our draft, but right now we're coming up, you know, it's, it's more towards
Sports Uniform Draft
00:32:04
Speaker
the end. I luckily don't have a lot of detail, but we're going to draft the best uniforms and sports. That's what you wanted to go over. We're talking about the big five NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and the MLS. We're each going to take one Jersey from every sport. And we're going to see who comes up with the best collection. You want to take the first pick or the second pick?
00:32:24
Speaker
I will take the second. So, for the first, be like, I'm picking from the NFL, and then I will do the NFL, and then NHL, NBA, all those. You want to do that way? Okay. Let's do it. If we're doing it that way, and I have the first pick, I ain't letting it go. My first pick is from the MLS. Only one team comes to mind, and that's the black and gold, baby. The yellow home jersey. We got the three stars on the front now. We got the new Charlie Brown look going up and down. The crew's got the best jersey in the league, and it ain't even close.
00:32:54
Speaker
Ooh, okay. I will throw this one at you. The newest jerseys from the Seattle Sounders. The blue and the green with the white trim. It is an absolute beautiful jersey. I mean, I wish that the Columbus crew could do something like that. We could do like a little bumblebee, but I don't think that's ever gonna happen. But I am obsessed with the kind of throwback Seattle Sounders uniform. Okay, that's a good look. All right, what's your next pick?
00:33:22
Speaker
All right, why don't we go NHL? And for the NHL, I don't think it gets any more classy than the Toronto Maple Leafs. Those blue and white sweaters are just the cleanest look. And that logo is so classy and it is timeless. It'll never get old. I honestly can't believe that you took my pick. That blows my mind. I didn't write down a backup because I didn't think anybody was going to take it.
00:33:46
Speaker
All right. Well, I mean, that's a cap in your feather because we both have the same pick. All right. Well, if I'm coming up with a backup off the top of my head, this one I almost put down. I'm going with the Edmonton Oilers. I like the blue and the orange combo. You know, they got a sweet logo up front. Think about Wayne Gretzky, the great one that played there. I think he really popularized that jersey. A lot of the NHL jerseys were actually really good. I liked a lot of them, especially compared to most of the other sports. Just the standard jerseys for the NHL, I think we're probably the best across all the sports.
00:34:15
Speaker
Oh, for sure. The Phoenix Coyotes, that little desert coyote with the stick. Oh my gosh. That thing is, it's just a nice, nice sweater. I love it.
00:34:25
Speaker
my pick
00:34:55
Speaker
I understand why it's Ryan's favorite team. I love that pick. Do you mind if I do a 1A and 1B? Go for it. All right, 1A. I'm going to do the Tampa Bay Buccaneers creamsicle uniforms. When they wore those, that was just... I don't think they won the game, but I think that they need to bring those back full time. I mean, those things are just classy. I love it. The orange and with the red on the border of the numbers. I mean, it's just, it's a sexy uniform.
00:35:25
Speaker
That is a good uniform. That was going to be on my list, but I decided to only do the bait like their standard uniform. So I did no alternates. All right. Well, we'll do alternates at the end for the honorable mention then. How about that?
00:35:36
Speaker
But no, you take what you want to take, how you feel. I just didn't do alternates, but I just want people to know that. That's why I think that a lot of the uniforms are plain Jane, because all the alternates are better. And then give me my 1B, the Seattle Seahawks, the blue and the green jerseys with the silver helmets. I love that.
00:35:55
Speaker
Yeah, they're new light blue ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Great jersey. Again, I think they need to bring those back full time. They do. All of the NFL's throwbacks that they've worn the last couple of years are better. The Eagles, Kelly Green, the Cream Sickle, the Colts had their dark blue with the black helmets. They're all better than the standard uniforms that the teams are wearing right now. I agree. The standard uniforms are outdated and old, and they're not even classic anymore. They're just boring, and they're almost all the same. I agree. All right. Give me your next sport.
00:36:24
Speaker
All right, we're going to go MLB and it does not get any classier than the New York Yankees home Jersey with the pinstripes. I mean, the thing is like, if you can have a uniform that still stands to test the time from when the club originally opened to today, it speaks to just how nice that uniform is. And I love how they kind of rode into it too, right? It's earn your pinstripes, earn your pinstripes. I love it.
00:36:53
Speaker
Why do the Yankees win? It's because people can't take their eyes off the pinstripes. Love it. Well, for my MLB pick, you know, I'm taking the St. Louis Cardinals. I just like it. It is nice little bird on a baseball bat. I like the red with the white. They do have some good alternates also, but they're standard uniform. I just like it. And especially you imagine Chris Latimer wearing that uniform sitting in the dugout. That's just a classy look. All right. Now my last pick.
00:37:16
Speaker
For the NBA, I also didn't like any NBA jerseys that people are wearing today. They got some good, they got some good alternates. I like a lot of like the throwbacks, but for this one, I had a tough time finding a pick, but I'm going to take the Oklahoma City Thunder. And the only reason that this is the best jersey is because I can picture Matt Martin wearing those colors, man, those little baby blues, and they just pop. And he's looking good in that jersey. Let me tell you, he wears that jersey out on a date and he's going to have a girlfriend. No problem.
00:37:46
Speaker
I know, maybe we need to switch that up on his little dating profile, you know, throw him in the nice like light blue uniform. I like it. I think that's exactly what we need, man. I think that's exactly what we need. All right. What's your last pick? All right. For my last pick, I am going to go with the Chicago Bulls. They're just standard home and away uniform. I love the fact that whenever you look at that uniform, you just think of
00:38:15
Speaker
the last dance, that documentary, and they still wear those. I just, I love it. I love it. It's kind of an ode to the glory days of being a Chicago Bulls fan. There's just a lot of cool meaning behind it, at least for me. So that's why I love that jersey.
00:38:30
Speaker
I think my all time favorite NBA jersey is the 90s Toronto Raptors. Oh, with the purple. They got the actual Raptor on the chest. Yeah. Or the Utah Jazz with the mountains on the jersey. And it just had jazz across. I was going to pick a lot of the jazz stuff, but it's all their alternates. I like the sunset.
00:38:50
Speaker
Yeah. What do you think about the Yankees uniforms? I get it. But what do you think about like the NFL uniforms with the Dallas Cowboys offset blue or like the Oakland Raiders? Do you ever see them like changing that look up? No, they'll never do. I mean, they'll do like the mix and match kind of stuff, but I could never imagine like Dallas doing an alternate helmet. I think all hell would rain down in Texas if that happened. I do like it when the Cowboys wear their blue with the gray pants.
00:39:19
Speaker
I do too. I do too. I even like the ones where they wear the all white with the blue star on their shoulder that kind of runs down their sleeve. I think that's a clean look too. I love the 49ers throwback jersey where they wear the all white with the black 3D lettering, the red numbers with the black 3D.
00:39:42
Speaker
All right, we're coming up to our last segment here, Afternoon Delights Book Club.
Book Recommendation & Conclusion
00:39:47
Speaker
Why don't you tell the people what you've been reading lately or your all time favorite book that you would recommend for them to take a peek at.
00:39:54
Speaker
You know that Apple TV Masters of the Air TV show, for those of you who are not watching it, I would highly suggest you do watch it. I started getting into the World War II history. So I read a book called Citizen Soldiers by Steven Ambrose that kind of just gives a breakdown of all the events after D-Day. And it's just a really, really interesting book. Just a different kind of generation that America had back in the day. And it's incredibly interesting.
00:40:21
Speaker
It'll make you reflect a lot on how you view life and how thankful we are for that generation. All right, people, take a gander at it. I know we got a couple veterans listening to this pod that are definitely going to put it on their list. I hope so. Oh, just a last token for you, a good podcasting, but I got my national championship ring for you, buddy, so you can take a nice little gander at that.
00:40:43
Speaker
Oh, look at that. That's a hot ring. You're going to have to post that on your social media. No, never. We didn't know it at the time, but we got these in a box. Oh, a gold watch? Yeah, that doesn't work. Nice. It's just collecting dust. I don't know what to do with it. Take it to a jeweler and have him fix it. Yeah, maybe. I got it fitted, but I don't know. I'm more of a silver guy, not a gold guy. Now you wear it on special occasions. Maybe. I haven't worn this since 2011, so I don't even know if it's going to fit around my wrist.
00:41:13
Speaker
All right. Well, you were a great guest. The people are going to love the episode of this podcast. I'm glad that you could come on and join us. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of soccer. So, you know, hopefully we educated the people on on the beautiful game. I hope we did, too. I hope that they get in there and they they take a gander at some games this year. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
00:41:33
Speaker
Last thing that I forgot, to anybody out there listening, if you've been trying to reach me by the email that I gave two episodes ago because you want to be on the pod, that email does not work because Google thought that a bot made it, thought that a robot made that email and it told me that it shut it down. And then I appealed it and I said, no, this isn't a fake email. I'm just a dude that loves making podcasts with his friends. And they said, too bad, it doesn't work.
00:41:56
Speaker
They shut down my email. So we're gonna pivot to a plan B for those of you out there listening so you can send in your suggestions and get on the pod. So be on the lookout for that. Thank you again to everybody out there listening. We do appreciate it. And I'm your host, Matt Latimer, just reminding you that it's a good day to have a good day.
00:42:16
Speaker
I'll be to Saint Goodnight I hate to go and live this pretty side So long, farewell, I'll be to Saint Andrew I do, I do, to you Andrew, Andrew