Americanizing the Beautiful Game: the Rise of Mainstream American Soccer, 1960-2005 by PATRICK H. SALKELD a Thesis Submitted To
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Americanizing the Beautiful Game: The Rise of Mainstream American Soccer, 1960-2005 By PATRICK H. SALKELD A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY University of Central Oklahoma 2017 Acknowledgements ~ I completed this thesis with the help and support of numerous people. First, I would like to thank my thesis committee for their assistance. Dr. Katrina Lacher, my thesis committee chair, first inspired me to become a historian of sport. She encouraged me to pursue this project and constantly provided advice when the thesis evolved organically and in a different direction than I originally intended in addition to reading each draft and offering feedback. Dr. Patricia Loughlin assisted me with learning more about the history of the University of Central Oklahoma for the local aspect of the thesis. Her encouragement to keep persevering and optimistic attitude always provided much needed comfort during this crucial point in my graduate studies. Dr. Marc Goulding, the department’s resident theorist, opened my mind to postcolonial and nationalism theory. The information he taught in his Third World Rising course served as the basis for the “nativist/masculinist sport” theory I developed in chapter four. Thank you, Dr. Lacher, Dr. Loughlin, and Dr. Goulding, for all of your assistance and encouragement. I also need to thank the numerous archivists and organizations who helped me acquire the necessary resources to complete this thesis. Deborah Baker and Derek Lee of the Edmond Historical Society & Museum provided invaluable assistance. They graciously offered me a work-study position in 2014 as an undergraduate, taught me everything I know about the museum field, and allowed me to create an exhibit, “Kicking It! Edmond’s Soccer Legacy,” with the materials I found in the museum’s archives while researching for my thesis. UCO’s staff in the Chambers Library allowed me to spend hours in the archives looking through the vertical files. The library also offered numerous databases that allowed me to find significant resources. The research division staff at the Tulsa City-County Public Library also offered the opportunity 1 to spend time in the archives. The FIFA archives also graciously emailed me digital copies of materials. Without the financial assistance of UCO’s Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, who awarded me with a Research, Creative, & Scholarly Activities (RCSA) Grant and a travel grant to present chapter six at the 2015 Northeast Popular/American Culture Association Conference, this thesis would be incomplete. It provided the necessary funding to purchase various books and materials from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the George Bush 41 Presidential Library. The staff at these two institutions worked hard to send me digital copies of folders from their collections. The Institutional Review Board approved my oral interview project and allowed me to gain invaluable information for my thesis. Thank you to Larry Stevens, Andrew Traxler, Jalal Daneshfar, and Steve Kreidler who willingly spoke with me as I performed those oral interviews. I also need to thank three significant people in my life. My parents, Nancy Harrah Salkeld and David Salkeld, instilled values of hard work, morality, perseverance, and the importance of receiving an education. They also allowed me to play soccer and fall in love with sports, even if it meant spending time and money to travel to professional games, driving me to my own games, and taking me to the doctor for various injuries over the years. Thank you for all of your love and support. Last but not least is my wife, Helen Salkeld. Without her in my life, I might not have applied for the work-study position at the Edmond Historical Society & Museum nor attended graduate school. She inspired me to become a better person and to achieve my dreams. She also listens to my constant talk about soccer and encouraged me to keep going with my thesis during any number of circumstances. Thank you, Helen, for supporting me every moment of the past three years of thesis writing and the past six years of our relationship. 2 Abstract ~ This thesis examines the rise of mainstream soccer in the United States from 1960 to 2005 with a national, a regional (Oklahoma), and then a local (Edmond, OK) focus. It argues between 1960 to 2005 conservative-leaning capitalists and politicians redefined mainstream soccer as a commercial investment aimed not to truly popularize the international sport in the United States, but to Americanize it with the mindset of producing capital for them. For example: Alan Rothenberg, a lawyer who conducted the soccer tournament in the 1984 Olympics and coordinated the 1994 World Cup in the United States, established the most recent professional soccer league, Major League Soccer, as a single-entity to promote more revenue earning for the investors. Between 2002 and 2005, MLS considered Edmond, Oklahoma, as a potential new location for an expansion team with a desire to promote soccer in the area and capitalize on the strong youth presence of the sport. Even though the attempt failed, the Oklahoma Regents for Higher Education approved funding to the University of Central Oklahoma for renovations to the school’s football field Wantland Stadium, which the school needed for the possible expansion club. 3 Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Terminology and Abbreviations ..................................................................................................... 5 Preface ............................................................................................................................................. 6 Chapter 1 – “Making Soccer History”: Introduction ...................................................................... 7 Chapter 2 – History of Soccer in the United States, 1960-1982 ................................................... 28 Chapter 3 – How the United States Received the 1994 World Cup Bid ...................................... 66 Chapter 4 – “The White Businessman’s Burden”: Nativist/Masculinist Sport ............................ 84 Chapter 5 – Major League Soccer, 1993-2000 ........................................................................... 109 Chapter 6 – “MLS in OKC” and UCO’s Wantland Stadium, 2001-2004 .................................. 136 Chapter 7 – Controlling and Disseminating the History of Sport: Conclusion .......................... 162 Appendix A: “Henrietta Eleven” vs. Coach Tom Powell’s Topeka Team Roster ..................... 168 Appendix B: International Soccer League Participants, 1960-1965 ........................................... 169 Appendix C: United Soccer Association (USA) Teams, 1967 ................................................... 170 Appendix D: National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) Teams, 1967 ................................ 171 Appendix E: Major League Soccer Teams, 1996-2005* ............................................................ 172 Appendix F: Organizations in Support of the Stadium Referendum Act ................................... 173 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 174 4 Terminology and Abbreviations Terminology For the purposes of this thesis, the following terms will be used interchangeably: association football, football, and soccer; and American football and gridiron football to prevent confusion. Abbreviations ASL American Soccer League ISL International Soccer League FIFA Federation Internationale de Football Association USA United Soccer Association NPSL National Professional Soccer League MISL Major Indoor Soccer League USL United Soccer League MLS Major League Soccer NASL North American Soccer League UCO University of Central Oklahoma USSFA United States Soccer Football Association (1945-1974) USSF United States Soccer Federation or US Soccer (1974-Present) LA84 1984 Los Angeles Olympics IOC International Olympic Committee 5 Preface This thesis represents a culmination of twenty-one years of passion. At age four, I started to play soccer for the Sharks, a mini-kicker team in the Great Teays Soccer League of Putnam County, West Virginia. It sparked a life-long love, and I played in Florida, North Carolina, and Oklahoma. Over fourteen years, I sustained numerous injuries, including several concussions. I finally succumbed to the inevitable realization that I would never play at the professional level, so I turned to history and pursued a career as a historian. I changed my focus—from ancient history to the American Civil War and Abraham Lincoln to military history—many times during my undergraduate education until summer 2014, the end of my junior year. I enrolled in Dr. Katrina Lacher’s Social/Cultural History of the United States since 1865, in which we read Dr. Warren Goldstein’s Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball and Dr. Randy Roberts’ Joe Louis: Hard Times Man. These monographs opened my eyes to the world of sports history. Previously, I never knew historians legitimately studied sports. I immediately felt relief and satisfaction after I officially chose soccer history as my focus. I found the inspiration for this thesis while perusing the vertical files at the Edmond Historical Society & Museum where I worked part-time as a work-study