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

Hurricane Katrina floods, devastates New Orleans. photo credit: Tyrone Turner for National Geographic.

Two years ago this week Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States altering the relationship between Americans and the environment, or did it?

That same week, two years ago today in fact, the day the levees broke, this here website got its start at a World Cup qualifying game chronicled in the inaugural piece, Breaking Tupperware with the US MNT and The PTA.

And there, in East Hartford, Connecticut, I remember sport once again filling the void left by disaster and in need of relief…

Against the recommendation of some brilliant thinkers, New Orleans will rebuild, encapsulating even further the unique community and its culture behind towering steel and mud levees. Scientists, environmentalists, and some thoughtful residents understand the calamity, but others just want to return to their homes. Neither is wrong, per se, but the Earth is not sympathetic. No matter what is rebuilt or more importantly where it is rebuilt, New Orleans will never be the same.

It’s hard sometimes to witness the lurch of progress. But it can also be inspirational. American soccer isn’t that much different, and in its presence, like that of Katrina or any unstoppable force, I am humbled.

I’m not about to think in the last two years that I have unlocked the mystery of the unpredictable storm that is American soccer. I’m not going to wax poetic about what I’ve learned. All I can say is I’m still looking. Not gawking, but looking, thinking, and looking again, taking a moment to think this through: HOPING we learn from experience and take the right path away from crisis.

This indefinite digital document is evidence of that search, and it will continue.

But it can’t continue without you. And I’m infinitely indebted to all of you for spending time here and sending me your stories, photos, and thoughts. Keep reading, commenting, e-mailing, and suggesting what you want me to write about, or even what you want to write about.

Before we turn the page on year two, and before I launch my own rebuilding process this fall, it seemed appropriate we look back. I don’t want to call it a greatest hits – but here’s a few stories, interviews, and essays selected from the last two years. Hopefully you enjoyed (or will enjoy) reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

FEATURES:
Kings of King: In producing MLS players and saving lives, soccer is the easy part. Inside a New York City high school soccer dynasty. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3

Spending a day with New York’s famous fan (and youth soccer coach). A Spike Lee Joint

COLUMNS:
Skimming the Surface

Nationalism For a Free Market

Projecting Values Upon The Media Glut

State of the Union: 2000 Words on 2006

The MLS Layer Cake

THE DIARY PROJECT (for us, by you):
A Few Good Men

Brother From A Different Mother

Clean Enough For Me

A Frontier Future

CONVERSATIONS:
Sport Illustrated’s Grant Wahl. Wanted: Full-Time Soccer Scribe

du Nord’s Bruce McGuire. Sport of the Internet

Washington Post’s Steve Goff. Bringing People Together

Houston Chronicle’s Richard Justice. Due Justice

North Jersey Herald News’ Ives Galarcep. Vehicular Aspirations: Amplifying A Beat

New York Times’ Jack Bell. Pay to Play, Even At The New York Times