This Is American Soccer, US Soccer, MNT, WNT, and MLS - Tackling the subject of Soccer in the US, and worldwide.

I wasn’t sure Frank Dell’apa would want to talk to me. Like most I presume, I heard via du Nord that he was being moved at the Boston Globe, where he has been a sports reporter since 1989, from covering his preferred beat (Revolution and international soccer) to the Celtics. To be moved from soccer to basketball would be a promotion to most, but not to Frank, not to his loyal readership. It would be understandable if he just didn’t want to talk about it for a number of easy to deduce reasons.

But he said yes. And as with his decades of reporting, we are all the more lucky because of it. And for the digital time capsule of this here site, it kind of comes with perfect timing (sorry Frank). It is just that for a man who has spent his life in sports journalism chasing soccer this unexpected career tangent elicits perspective, which begs to be gathered up, marked down, and reconsidered as we determine the future—-journalism and soccer, observers and participants. Our conversation is after the jump.

I obviously want to learn about the Boston Globe and how all of that went down, but I also would like to get some of your background. I think it will help to give context to situation. So maybe just a little bit of biography leading up to where journalism and soccer first came together for you?

I grew up in Denver, CO, and Boulder, CO. We were an Italian-American family but totally mainstream sports and everything. To tell you the truth, Adam, we didn’t have a soccer ball around. If we ever did, I treasured it. It just didn’t exist when I was growing up. It’s been great to see the players come out of the Denver/Boulder area. All the clubs there in the last 10 or 20 years is incredible because we had nothing. I’m telling ya, the German club, the Denver Kickers in Golden, which is out of Denver was a really good amateur club, and the university had club teams where the players were actually decent but there was nothing in the high schools. Nothing in the club level. When I say nothing I mean I would go years and never even see a soccer ball. Even today I have a collection of balls, old ones up to the state of the art ones, so any of the nieces or nephews come over they always get a ball so they are never without one. I’ve had one in my car ever since I had a car. Which is since I was 16 ya know. I thought we were deprived. I didn’t play much until I was older, because there was nothing to do, so I played baseball and all the other sports. I got to a decent level in baseball and then got into writing basically. I went to University of Nevada Reno and played baseball one year there. My coach was Jackie Jensen, who actually was one of the great Red Sox players. But it just wasn’t my personality. In baseball they want you to stand around a lot and I like to move around, a more aerobic deal. You really cant do that with baseball. Unfortunately we only had club-level soccer and I wasn’t even good enough for that. Those guys were pretty good. And there was Hispanic leagues. I actually tried out with those guys, but I wasn’t good enough to play in those days.

So I majored in journalism. It took me awhile to get it because I went to work before I graduated. I started working covering sports when I was 19. Part time and then full time when I was like 20, which was a temporary fulltime deal, where I went back to school. And then I got hired fulltime in the early to mid 70’s. One of my first jobs, first beats, was covering the NASL. I was at the Las Vegas paper, the Review Journal. I guess that was 1977. It was a special, magic time for soccer, which kind of snuck up on people in a lot of ways. For my generation, we knew there was top level soccer out there. We knew there was this thing out there we could sort of touch but not quite get into because it wasn’t here to stay first of all, players were mostly on loan, and all that stuff. It was a super league with super players, but without any planning going on. But there wasn’t too much planning in any sports at that time. But it captured a lot of people. When I got into journalism, I really felt that was what I was going to do for my life as a writer. I just didn’t know how it was going to work out (laughing) because the league was a bit ephemeral, teams were moving around; I lost my beat after a year because the team moved back to San Diego, and I really didn’t cover soccer again until I came to Boston in 1983 to work for the Herald. Whatever soccer they were doing I was covering, but it really wasn’t very much.

July 4, 1988 was the magic day, the day FIFA awarded the 1994 World Cup to the United States, and on that day a lot of us realized that now we were going to get a chance to write about soccer, and soccer was going to be here. Or at least we hoped; all the signs were pointing to that. So I got to write a little bit more about it. Italy in 1990—I was working for the Globe at that point—was the first World Cup I covered. Even when the World Cup was held in Mexico (in 1986) we didn’t send anyone down there as close as it was and as weird as it seems now. The currency the way it was, it would be an easy trip for a newspaper, but nobody covered it. The Globe’s Mexico City correspondent, Phil Bennett, covered the final and that was it. He is now the managing editor at the Washington Post.

So anyway, I knew I would be covering it, but I couldn’t explain at that time how or what I knew but certainly things started happening. MLS was going to happen, the World Cup in 1994 was such an incredible success. Go back one more time to the 1984 Olympics. That was a huge time because soccer was the biggest well-attended event and anyone paying attention knew that the U.S. could have a league and could host the World Cup, but the mainstream public and soccer’s internationals weren’t convinced that was the case. But the numbers were so incredible it had to happen. It has had a cultural hook, but just not one that was recognized by the mainstream media, especially not in the 80’s. To some extent not in the 90’s either, but now it is happening.

What happened at the Sports Desk of the Globe when MLS debuted? Did you have to fight for that beat or…

No one else wanted to do it. I volunteered for all that stuff. Just like in the 70’s they usually gave it to the youngest guy who didn’t now much about it or didn’t have any power or standing on the staff. So, I was low on the totem pole in both cases, and the natural guy to do it. There was a little reluctance of making the Revolution a beat—and even now it is not a full time beat at a lot of papers. But at the time the Globe was at least open to doing it, not that it was the highest priorities. They put me on it from day 1. I covered the first revolution practice and have been on it ever since then. There were a few weird things happening in that day, but the league was planned out and they have stuck to it. I’ve always been skeptical of the salary caps, the over control, the central planning, and all of that—I never liked it—but it has proven to bring stability, and that is the most important thing, to have MLS going every day. They’ve been able to do that and Phil Anschutz, and the Kraft family, and the Hunt family, that have put that together have helped the game in so many ways, sometimes in spit of all of their planning but mostly because they put their money on the line and committed to it for years now. Nobody ever did that before. They’ve had the will and the deep pockets to do it. So I’ve been covering them since the beginning, but now I’m gonna be covering the Celtics. But I’ll be back because a long time ago I chose soccer, or maybe it chose me.

Run through if you will what happened to take you away. A few Celtics writers left correct? Were those buyouts or other causes?

Yeah, so buyouts were offered. New York Times owns the Globe now and they have been cutting back. It’s a corporate deal, stock holders going by quarterly things, not like the old days where the Taylor family was a local family that ran the paper through upturns and downturns and were committed to it. This stuff can happen at anytime now. What happened this go-round is two people took the buyouts and it started a domino effect. I will move over and someone else will take over the Revolution beat for the rest of the season. Let’s hope it smooths itself out, but right now there is no one on the staff who is in the position to take over the Celtics beat—it’s a two-man beat that I will share with Mark Spears, who is an expert on it, been doing it for many years. I did it 20 years ago in the time when I wasn’t doing soccer so its not like I don’t know what’s going on, so I should be able to handle it.

So it was a matter of you being the most qualified for it?

I guess so. It’s a little bit complicated. It’s a desirable beat to say the least. In any other country this would be a demotion, but not in the US. Its actually a step up, but its not really in my career trajectory right now. So it’s a little weird or surreal for me to be doing it. But I can do it—I was covering the Celtics the last time they won the championship. Now it’s a different era, different culture, everything else, but I can do it. I’ve always said that if you can cover soccer at any level you can cover any sport. If you can understand the subtleties of the game and actually be self sufficient enough to cover games sometimes where there is no scoreboard any other sport is actually easy. In a lot of ways.

That’s a good point. The at times amateur-ish production of soccer in America does have its challenges for journalists. Makes it great too, though.

There is some of that. But it is real life. I covered the Open Cup game between the Revolution and Richmond Kickers in the rain storm. They couldn’t kick off because the field was flooded, lightning was flashing, you could barely see the scoreboard from the press box. But its real life. That is what happens in other countries too. You could go from the Champion League final as slick as that is to a game like that and its still the same game, which is what I love about it. In the more mainstream American sports its all pretty choreographed and set up and regimented and everyone knows what they are doing. Not a whole lot is left to chance. You don’t get quote sheets at Open Cup games. In the NBA it is all set up. They give you running commentary of everything that happens. That’s part of the reason soccer is the way to go. Everything that happened in that Open Cup game, you couldn’t predict one thing.

Is it fair to say that is one of the biggest things you will miss about the sport?

Oh yeah. I feel I’m here to write the story of the game, of how its progressed and where its going. And that means writing the stories of the people who are in there. I’m not the only one doing it; you guys are doing it—a lot of people are doing it, which is great. There is a lot there. I mean there is a lot a lot there, so I just enjoy doing it and its important to get it down. If the history is not written, you hardly know if it happened or not. Certainly it happens, but take the Open Cup. It is a great example. It has been going on for so long, and there are so many stories, but it hasn’t been documented so a lot of people don’t know its happening. Even though it is the Cinderella story of team sport in this country but no one knows about it. Like the ASL—American Soccer League—was a pretty big deal in the 20’s and 30’s but apparently all the records were lost. So until Colin Jose dug them all up, nobody really knew about it. Soccer is the universal sport we need to tap into. And it’s not a total television sport; everything else pretty much is in this country. Things are dictated by the agencies of TV and sponsors, but soccer is not. Not yet anyway, and I don’t think it ever will be. There is a lot of reasons to think it can exist. If you watch a game now and a game from 50 years ago it’s the same game really, even 100 years ago.

Certainly technology and equipment alone have remade the other American sports, and others like tennis.

Yeah. It’s just important for us to recognize that and document it. I don’t know. People participate in this sport too, and other sports, you cant really participate in after a certain age. There’s that armchair deal and I’m not sure that is good for society.

Will there be a skip in the beat for the Globe and the Revs? Some time before your replacement begins?

Monique Walker is actually going to take it over and she will do what she can. It is a steep learning curve so she will be fine. The Revolution and MLS have so many things coming up now that it will be an interesting conclusion to the season. I think as long as a professional is writing about it, it will be fine. This thing is bigger than all of us, so whatever the planners do now is key. They have the Superliga and the Champions League which I think is going to be really interesting. That is the start of something big, even if it isn’t this first year. We will look back and say this was the start of something. So all of that stuff will be covered by the Globe, though we wont cover the road games as much, which leaves me a little bit, I don’t know. If we were covering all those games and I was missing trips to Trinidad for the first year of this tournament, well, I want to write that first chapter, but we’re probably not going to cover them, so I can go to the home games and Monique will cover them.

What was your travel budget for the Revs?

I covered all the MLS road games except for some West Coast away games where the 10:30 Eastern Time kick-offs forced it passed deadline. So the Superliga and some of these things that were thrown in after the budgets were made just aren’t there.

Could you switch out a MLS road game or two for the Superliga?

(laughing) Some of that stuff is possible, but it is a never ending battle. There is an endless list of things that could be covered and maybe should be covered. What I learned in all my years covering soccer is that you just have to pick your spots. For example, The Revolution play the Galaxy in LA on July 4th, and we aren’t going to cover it. (Editor’s note: this interview was conducted the week before July 4th). There’s Beckham and the whole bit, but we did cover it a few years ago when John Kerr Jr. was playing for the Revolution and scored the winning goal. There is not a lot of consistency in the planning. Like I said, you have to pick and choose. Some things I have covered on my own, or just happened to be there, but you cant do that all the time.

I know they need to fill spots and look down the line and there isn’t an off-season really for reporters, but I find it kind of unusual that NBA season is just ending while MLS is in the midst of theirs. And they move you now.

Yeah, there is not a whole lot to do, some free agency stuff maybe, which you can from anywhere, what with our mobile society. The NBA pretty much shuts down, but that doesn’t much happen with soccer; there is always something to do. I was on the soccer beat basically totally on my own. So whatever happened, if anything moved on soccer, I had to do it or nobody did it, for the Globe anyway. Now we’ve got a lot more eyes and ears on the Celtics so we don’t have to be on it everyday. As long as you have your cell phone on you can do it. But it is a little weird the timing. There’s not a whole lot you can do about that. Good thing is with Basketball is you can take some time off during the good part of the year, which was difficult to do with the Revolution. I could take off maybe in January or something, but it was hard. I wanted to be available, be it because of the Revolution or national team or something else, to cover a story. It was hard to decide when I could vacation.

Right. Every week, somewhere on earth there is some good soccer going on.

Exactly. That’s not a problem with basketball. So I can take a little break here.

Will the ESPN column continue? And will we maybe see you writing about soccer at new outlets now?

I do the Soccernet column once a week, and hopefully I can continue that. I do get two days off a week, and with my own time I can do whatever I want. And I would like to spend one day doing that, so I’m gonna try to keep doing that for ESPN. And if anything major happened I could be available to the Globe if need be. But I’m just hoping noting huge happens until I get back on it. It could be a year, could be two years, but I don’t think it will be any longer than that, and then I will be back where I was.

Where does that time line come from?

They have a couple of people they are grooming to take over [the Celtics beat]. And they are just a little young without much experience, and they think that within a year or two they should be OK. Monique Walker who is going to do the Revolution beat is one of them. Its basically a tryout for her. If she can do the Revolution, maybe she can get over and do the Celtics too. She’s young and has all the energy; she just needs experience. I have noticed that the young people coming up in this professional know about soccer. In my generation you just didn’t see that. They are just way ahead of where we were, so I think a lot of guys and girls could step in and be good. I see a lot of people doing freelance and radio and website stuff that are very good. It’s great. the soccer IQ for people who are doing stuff is so much higher than it ever was, which is so so so encouraging because that is what the game needs. We need people to write about it, that know the game, that played it when they were kids, or play it now. And they can see the world game which is what we need. That all helps the sophistication level that is the one thing we don’t have. We haven’t observed or coached in a sophisticated manner and that’s gonna take some time. Hopefully that is going to happen, but the media is just as guilty as everybody else of not being there at the level we need to be at. I see that happening but still, look at the Globe; it doesn’t have people waiting in line to cover soccer that know a lot about the game, even though we’ve had the guys to do it. I’ve had guys interning with me at the Globe that could have stepped right in to cover the beat, but they are just not there right now.

[Editor's Note: Monique Walker, 29, declined an interview request over e-mail but said "It's a tough transition to make in the middle of the season, but I'm excited about the opportunity to cover the Revolution, and more than a little nervous that I'm replacing someone like Frank who is so connected and respected, especially in the soccer community."]

Was it a given in your mind when the buyouts happened that it would be soccer taking the hit?

I was a little bit surprised by it, sure, but lets say the baseball writer would have taken the buyout which he wanted to do by the way, I could be covering baseball. So this could be a lot worse. (laughing) Look I played the game growing up so I understand it, but that is a tough one to cover. That would have been tough, lets put it that way and leave it at that. There’s just some domino effect that is happening here that is beyond us all.

You’ve been there for awhile, was a buyout an option for you?

It could have worked for me and I probably should have set it up to where I—I might set this up in the future. If it happens again I don’t want to be caught like this, because like I say, it could be a worse assignment than what I am having now. I want to cover soccer. What other guys have done was take the buyout and continue to do what they do but do it for a website or whatever. Take more money sometimes, and take the buyout, and be happy. So, that’s what I would need. Is to be in a position to do something like that. It’s a little vague right now but that’s what I want to do. I want to keep covering the game so if its not for the globe it will be for someone else.

When you arrived at the Globe in 1989 what was the state of the soccer coverage?

I would write once or twice a year at the Herald. Only a couple times a year could you sneak in anything at all. Nothing came over the wire in those days either. People don’t realize this part of it. That news was out there, but when it got to New York and the AP office, they would not put it on a domestic wire. There was no other place to get it; no internet or anything. So if it didn’t come over on the AP or UPI wires, the domestic ones, you didn’t hear about it. You had to have the international service, which was a different wire, and even that didn’t have a whole lot of news. Soccer America was pretty good because they would pick up that stuff and publish it in the 70’s. And maybe you got a European magazine, but even in the journalism business soccer news was hard to come by in sports. Nothing came over the wire. Maybe a Champions League Final.

So in the 80’s there was definitely a news blackout happening. I would say that. No weird conspiracy but sports is business in this country. Number one they are a business and it didn’t serve the business need of any other sport to promote soccer, so nobody did. Maybe that’s another tangent, but as for as news and publicity if anything happened with soccer it was in spite of mainstream media not because of it. But that’s another positive about soccer. It has been able to exist and thrive despite media apathy and even hostility. No other sport could do that. Believe me. No other sport could do that. without the huge amount of promotion and advocacy from the mainstream media, none of the other sports would thrive. Even close to what they’ve done. They may not even exist at all. And soccer is able to somehow still hang in there. There was not one word in one mainstream paper about soccer for years. And I’m not exaggerating about that. And it still hung in; people still played it.

So, when I started writing about it again, I’d say qualifiers for 1990. Our sports editors realized that that was something that was happening, fortunately, but it was still a bit of a novelty act. I developed a weekly column in the early 90’s and sold the editors on that. They were receptive to it. So I’ve been doing that weekly soccer column for Tuesday’s paper since then. I give them a lot of credit for that. It might not have happened at some other papers. The LA Times has been good at it. A few others. But its tough. None of that even meant the story or column would run. I wrote stuff numerous times that wouldn’t run, and that’s never happened in any other sport for me. That was just the price you had to pay. A little frustrating, but you have to get through it. the bigger picture is more important. And I see the sport get slighted in the paper now, maybe they don’t run a picture when they should or they run the story below the fold. I’ve had plenty of stories that were perfectly good that got buried, but they got it, so that’s all you can hope for.

I’ve yet to speak to anyone who had the career direction you did at such a young age. To witness so much in both the soccer and journalism worlds. I can imagine a lot of this stuff sort of flashing in your mind since learning of the move.

Yeah, you mean if I’ve gotten a little perspective about it? yeah, some of that. I do feel good about it that the sport is in good hands. It has a lot of momentum, financial backing of major people; the league is solid. I sort of feel like its Ok for me to step back now. You know, at one point I kind of felt many of these years that I have to do this, even if I have to sacrifice whether it gets in the paper. Even if its going out into the wasteland and nobody sees it I have to write this and keep this thing going and make people aware. A lot of us were crusading out there. I don’t feel like I have to do that now. That anybody does. I can go away because its in the mainstream and in the culture, but I still want to be a part of it. I think I can help. We need to shepherd it, grow the quality and sophistication, but its here to stay. MLS isn’t going away. Soccer is here. So I have been thinking about that, saying, yeah I guess I can take a break if I absolutely have to.