8/14 - at #37 Virginia (EX)
8/27 - Presbyterian
8/31 - at #50 UNC Greensboro
9/04 - at #76 Marshall
9/09 - at #29 Old Dominion
9/17 - Davidson
9/20 - Virginia Tech
9/23 - at Winthrop
9/25 - Furman
9/29 - at Belmont*
10/02 - #85 Lipscomb*
10/07 - at North Florida*
10/09 - at Jacksonville*
10/11 - at #11 William & Mary
10/14 - #79 Stetson*
10/16 - #34 Florida Gulf Coast*
10/22 - at Mercer*
10/24 - #98 Clemson
10/29 - USC Upstate*
11/01 - #72 Appalachian State
(RPI numbers are finals from 2010; * denotes conference game)

Calabrese does it again. Last year, he got a top ten program in UNC to come to Summers-Taylor, and this year he gets a pair of ACC schools, while also scheduling the reigning SoCon champs (UNCG) and two outstanding programs from the CAA (ODU and W&M).

Hopefully the strong student support from the end of last season will carry over to this year, especially with the Hokies and Mountaineers coming to town.

Mister C, please talk to us about the "strong student support" for soccer. The Tri-Cities is becoming a soccer hotbed? Hard to contemplate. Real shame and disgrace it isn't W&M, Marshall, ODU, Furman, App State, even Va Tech, et al on the schedule for the REAL and only true American college fall sport.

(05-09-2011 07:21 AM)Buc66 Wrote:  Mister C, please talk to us about the "strong student support" for soccer. The Tri-Cities is becoming a soccer hotbed? Hard to contemplate. Real shame and disgrace it isn't W&M, Marshall, ODU, Furman, App State, even Va Tech, et al on the schedule for the REAL and only true American college fall sport.

And also ETSU this fall will again be the ONLY state university without football on its campus. A continuing embarrassment to alumni, fans and current students who deserve better.

(05-09-2011 07:21 AM)Buc66 Wrote:  Mister C, please talk to us about the "strong student support" for soccer. The Tri-Cities is becoming a soccer hotbed?

The short answer is no. The only real soccer "hotbed" is in the Pacific Northwest, where you've got Portland selling out every game (with the remarkable Timbers Army), Vancouver drawing 20,000+ at a stadium in the middle of nowhere (they move to a new one downtown in August), and Seattle with an atmosphere that would rival or surpass all but the elite European clubs. If we can get 500 people to go see the Knoxville Force, I'd be satisfied. Chattanooga FC has certainly done well for itself these past two years, but their home opening crowd this year of just over 1,100 isn't really up to their standards. ETSU drew 614 on average last year, but the last three dates of the season were all over 1,000 fans. They were, in order:

vs. North Carolina (1,350 - stadium record)
vs. Lipscomb (Tournament Semifinal, 1,036)
vs. Stetson (Tournament Final, 1,162)

Any other team in the conference would flip for those kinds of crowds. Those numbers are on par with bigger regional schools like Clemson and Kentucky, and ahead of Virginia Tech and everyone's favorite Boone-based school (which couldn't draw flies at home despite being undefeated there... until we dropped in, that is).

This is not an uncommon trend. Just like college baseball, people are starting to pay more attention to college soccer. This is mainly a by-product of the growth of the sport in the US and Canada (mostly the US, although it's quite popular as a spectator sport in Canada). ESPN has seen fit to give the World Cup proper coverage, as well as picking up the now-defunct Setenta Sports' coverage of the UEFA Champions League, English Premier League, and Spanish La Liga, giving American audiences unprecedented exposure to the highest levels of the sport, which is huge. Our domestic league, Major League Soccer, has also grown exponentially, with many teams owning their own venues and bringing in veteran players from Europe (Beckham and Henry being the obvious examples) to complement the younger players coming up through the vast jungles of the US youth system, of which ETSU could be a very integral part if Calabrese can build a team as strong as his early successes suggest.

College-age kids are flocking to the sport as spectators, especially in the regions where it is already established, like the West Coast (UC-Santa Barbara, UCLA), Mid-Atlantic (Maryland, Virginia, ACC in general), and the Midwest (Akron, Creighton, Saint Louis, Louisville, I could go on all day). Thing is, the sport doesn't really have those same strong roots in Appalachia; historically, the region has been dominated by football and baseball, which could possibly prolong the process of establishing this team as a steady four-digit gate draw as some folks are still a bit slow to embrace the sport. That said, I think that goal is totally feasible within the next decade if the program continues to find success in the A-Sun or whatever conference ETSU ends up in.

My hope is that either the new club in Knoxville will be stable, or that a handful of individuals will notice the low-cost business model that the NPSL encourages and establish a team in Johnson City. (Or, even better, both.) I'm also hoping the university will find a way to capitalize on the momentum the soccer team is building. Now would be a great time to create a supporters' group for the students. That's really what our soccer atmosphere is missing. Obviously, they can't have drums or horns or things like that, but they could still stand, sing, jump, wave flags, make signs and create a very difficult environment to play in.

What Calabrese and Luya are doing with this program really can't be overstated. They started a soccer program from scratch and went from a one-win team (in conference) in 2008 to a conference title in 2010. I would defy any coaching staff in the country to do something on that scale in three years. They've developed a team that can run with some of the absolute best that the nation has to offer, and if they keep this up, it won't be terribly long before ETSU is mentioned in the same breath as programs like Akron and UCLA.

App can't draw flies in communist kickball because they're too busy preparing for actual football games. Hopefully the program continues to be successful, but it's COMMUNIST KICKBALL. You're talking about the wild success in the Pacific Northwest, it's one team drawing 20,000. That's not successful for outdoor professional sports.

(05-11-2011 07:57 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  You're talking about the wild success in the Pacific Northwest, it's one team drawing 20,000. That's not successful for outdoor professional sports.

That's not what I said at all. Portland has a stadium downtown and sells it out every time they play (18,627, but it sounds like a stadium twice that size on TV); Vancouver plays in a temporary stadium while waiting on BC Place to be renovated, and it's usually reasonably full (averaging 20,842 in a 25,000-ish seat stadium). Then you've got Seattle doing this:



... and outdrawing 22 of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball on average attendance (36,289, just ahead of the Texas Rangers). They LOVE soccer in Cascadia, and it's spreading across the country like wildfire; after nearing the brink of total collapse in the early 00s, MLS has grown exponentially in the last six years. Another good run from the US in Brazil in 2014 could see the league reach 30 or 32 teams by 2030. As a frame of reference, no other domestic first division league has more than 20 teams, and most lower divisions cap out at 24, so we're talking a humongous league here.

As for the "communist kickball" bit, I'm not even going to touch that one. I'm assuming it's either an inside joke with someone on the forum or you just haven't done your homework.

I'm not saying you have to like the sport - although I think you're missing out on something great by not at least watching the US National Team - but coming into a thread about soccer and dumping all over soccer because it's not football (although, technically, it is) just seems a bit silly, don't you think?