Category Archives: Sports

Seattle Sounders – A New Flag To Fly

Seattle Sounders have enthusiastic backers, known for flying Sounders supporters flags, especially in the Emerald City Supporters’ (ECS) section. I’ve been to dozens of games at the Seattle stadium (CLink or whatever it might be called) and with ECS in Salt Lake City, Philly, New York City, Los Angeles and elsewhere. #EBFG #SoundersTilIDie.

Recently, there has been a big discussion about if the “Iron Front” flag, from the Weimar Republic (pre-World War II) era in Germany, can be waved during the Sounders’ game. Although some say it is a symbol of anti-fascism, others — including Major League Soccer and the Seattle Sounders front office — are trying to keep politics and sport separated. When an ECS member flew the Iron Front flag recently in the general admission section at a Sounders’ game — in definance of MLS and the Seattle Sounders — they were asked to take it down. When the person responsible didn’t comply, they were removed from the game. As a show of solidarity, hundreds of ECS members left the game. Www.WeAreECS.com has a discussion about the event on their website.

You can read a conservative view of it from Jason Rantz, a Seattle-area radio talk show host and #SoundersFan. Yesterday, I wrote and posted a sonnet expressing my feelings about the flags I fly at my house.

As you can read, MLS and the Sounders basically gave in to demands and are letting the #IronFront flag fly at Sounders games. It will be interesting to see if everyone can now fly political flags. For example, #RSL (Real Salt Lake) supporters recently had to take down a “Betsy Ross” (13 Stars Revolutionary War) flag. #PortlandTimbers fans had to take down a “Trump 2020” banner. But if the Iron Front flag can fly, can’t those?

I’ve said all along that Seattle Sounders fans are among the most creative in the #MLS, and that they certainly can find other ways to say “Anti-Fascist. Anti-Racist. Always Seattle.” (Which I think is a great slogan.) Personally, I think they should stick 100% to supporting the #SeattleSounders #SSFC.

Trump Minnesota non-political Seattle Sounders banner.
Double Trump: Beat Minnesota Oct. 6th, secure 2nd place.

With that in mind, I created a new slogan and banner that combines a winning (All In) poker hand with the admonition to beat the opponent, and is 100% Non-Political!
(Note: The bottom part of the banner can be changed, depending on the opponent.)

#ComeOnSeattle #EBFG #NoPoliticsInSoccer #SoundersTilIDie #CFCOwner

Come On, Seattle! TRUMP your opponent!
Non-Political Seattle Sounders Banner #EBFG

Did You Have Fun? Soccer Haibun and Haiku

Soccer. Fussball. Futbol. The beautiful game. I started playing it my sophomore year in Nicolet High School, as a club sport, in gym and intramurals. I was on the BYU “C” team (you know: A, B, C) … or maybe the “Z” team … my freshman year, the same year a team I player/coached were crowned intramural champs.

In 1981 I started assisting coaching soccer in the Fond du Lac soccer league. With a few breaks, I continued assistant coaching nearly every year, especially in the Lake Washington Youth Soccer Association. I also became a referee, as did my two oldest kids. I also played in the Eastside adult “Co-Wreck” league.

da Blues LWYSA girls youth soccer team, Kirkland, WA Sept 1999, Coach KuhnsEventually, I became a head coach of several recreational teams, especially of da Blues girls team and the Tarantulas boys team. Sometime around 2005 or so, I stopped coaching, as my youngest grew into Select and Premier soccer, but I always went to their games, including their high school games.

In about 2010 a group of guys I’d coached since they were little came up to me and asked me to coach them one last time, the fall season of their senior year, in recreational soccer. They said, basically, “soccer has gotten too intense. We’re not going to play in college. We just want to have fun again.”

It was rewarding they’d learned at least one lesson from me. After every game, win, lose or draw, I would always ask the kids I coached the same question:
“Did you have FUN?” They would (almost always) smile and say “Yes.” Then I’d tell them how proud I was of them, we’d do some goofy cheer, and we’d go get snacks.

The Next Generation of Soccer Parents

I haven’t coached for a few years, although I still go watch on occassion (#CFC #ChattanoogaFC #EBFG #SeattleSounders #BYUCougars)  and I own one share of the #ChattanoogaFootballClub (#CFCowner). Now I see the next generation of soccer parents (and, really, all sports parents) coming along. These are kids of the same generation that I coached. Just like I was, they are all so earnest and excited. They all want their kids to do well. So, even though they are not asking me, I want to share a major lesson I learned from all those years coaching soccer:

“Did your child have fun?”

Here’s the haiku to go along with it.

One truth all soccer/
parents must grasp: Playing is/
never disaster.

My Immortal Cal Iron Man Ripken Story: The Night I Snuck Into Camden Yards — Revolutionary Email Prose

The Night I Snuck into Camden Yards and Watched Iron Man Ripken Break Gehrig’s Record

A friend of mine, a baseball nut, was exchanging e-mails with me about the All-Star game I went to in Seattle (where Ripken hit a home run and was named MVP). I happened to mention that, if you look really hard above the “3” in a picture of Cal Ripken, Jr., trotting around the bases in the 4th Inning against the Angels on September 6, 1995 (when Iron Man Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record for most consecutive games played, 2131), you’ll see me or at least where I was! NOTE: It says 2130 because it’s in the early part of the game, and it’s not in the 5th inning yet, when it becomes an official game. Anyway, my friend says: “WHAT were you doing in Baltimore?!?”
So I wrote him back:

Oh, my heck. I never told you my Immortal Cal story?

I was in Baltimore for a conference I’d put together. About a month before I left for the conference, I started noticing that people were writing about the first part of September, in Baltimore, would be when/where Iron Man Ripken would break “the Streak” record.

I got there, and one of my speakers and I thought… well, let’s head over to Camden Yards, just to hang out around the outside and be part of the crowd. My speaker was about 48 or so, big BoSox fan, so we just wandered around. Met Bud Selig (baseball commissioner) as he was walking outside the stadium. etc. etc. So we’re walking around, and this guy from Boston says: “Look at this security guard here, she’s not paying much attention” (it was in the store area of Camden Yards, actually in the B&O Warehouse next to Camden Yards), so while she’s talking to a bunch of college kids who are trying to sneak in, this guy and I just go behind her, say “excuse us”, and go in like we owned the place. We immediately head for the elevator to “The Camden Club”, the club on the top of the B&O Warehouse, just beyond the right field wall.

Right as the door is about to close, a teenage kid busts in. Next floor, security gets on, and immediately escorts the kid off … but ignores us! We go to the top floor, get off at the Camden Club, just as the Maitre d’ LEAVES his post … so we just walked into the bar, sat down, and ordered, oh, I dunno, orange juice. Milk. Or something. We talked to some people, then the game started, and we watched out the warehouse windows. When Ripken hit his homer that night, I was right above the “3” sign in the warehouse!

The funniest thing happened after I went to the restroom. I’m washing my hands, and look over by the urinal (there’s nobody else there) and there’s this window, OPEN, right over right center field. So I lean out and am looking around. This kid comes in, and this other guy, and we’re all leaning out the 2 windows, looking around, waving at the crowd, when BANG the door FLIES OPEN and this secret service guy runs in and yells “GET AWAY FROM THE WINDOW!!” And he comes in and shuts the 2 windows. And I leave and go back to my seat in the bar area. I’m thinking later: “Hmmm…. President Clinton in the Press Box. I’m in Center Field, in a 5th Story window in an old brick building with an unguarded, OPEN window. MAN! How did they miss THAT ONE!?!?!”

Anyway. So, we watch Cal’s home run in the 4th Inning, then when 5 1/2 innings are over and they stop the game, we’re up there yelling and waving through the CLOSED window when they unfurl the 2131 sign (we didn’t know what was going on at the time… I was wondering why everyone was looking at us!).

Actually IN Camden Yards at the End of Iron Man Ripken’s Game

Then, about the 7th inning, we’re getting bored, so we leave. When we get down to the stadium level, I turn to the BoSox guy and say “Hey, let’s just see if we can get INTO the game”. So we walk up to this old security guard, and start to walk past him, and he says “can I see your tickets?”, and I say “we were just up in the Camden Club” and he says “It doesn’t matter, you have to have a ticket to get in here.” I’m bummed.

The BoSox guy says “Hey, look, all the phonies are leaving. The President’s left. How about just letting us go in. We’ll just find some empty seats, and not be any trouble”. And the old guy looks at us and says “Yeah, okay, what the heck” and lets us in. We go find some 16th row seats just inside of the right field foul pole and watch the game. Get our picture taken with the scoreboard by some local guy who later sends us both prints of us and the scoreboard. I ask them how much the tickets were, and they say “Oh, these are just regular season ticket seats, $18 each, but I could have gotten a lot more scalping them”.

Iron Man Ripken Takes A Victory Lap

Then DiMaggio, Murphy, everyone else comes out, the owner, Peter A., gives a LONG BORING talk, and blah blah blah. Then Ripken takes his trot around the bases. I’ll never forget THAT. He’s kind of tentative, waving, but not really getting into the crowd. But he reaches 1st base (about) and all of a sudden you can see it on his face, he just puts away his “game” face and starts connecting with the crowded, touching, shaking as many hands as he could. I don’t know if, until that moment, he really realized how much those fans loved him. I was sitting next to some big tough dock workers or freight workers or AFL-CIO union guys, and they were all bawling their eyes out. It was incredible. And we stayed and listened to all the speeches, and cheered, and saw history being made at Camden Yards

THEN, the next night, we’re walking around the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, and we see a bunch of people gathered on one of the wharves, looking about 50 feet away, to another wharf, where a BUNCH of white linen tables (and people) are … and a stage with a bunch of rappers (YUCK). And then they leave, and the guy comes on and says “and now what you’ve been waiting for” and everyone goes nuts, and I’m going “huh?”. And this large black woman walks out and yells “How y’all doin!!!” and everyone yells and then the music starts and she sings “Whatchu Want!? Baby I got it!” and I CAN”T BELIEVE IT! I’m 75 feet away from The Queen of Soul! FOR FREE!!!

Needless to say, I loved Baltimore!

And this is the first time I’ve ever written out my story of my Visit to Camden Yards.

Being Honest About Iron Man Ripken’s Game: It’s Not Stealing

Oh, yes, there is another part to it. I get home and am telling my family about sneaking into Camden Yards, and my son Kristian looks at me (he’s about 13) and says “But, isn’t that stealing?” Ummmm. SO I write Peter Angelos (Baltimore Orioles owner) a letter and tell him about the entire thing, and how I’m sorry and since the ticket was $18, here’s a check for $18 and if he wants to donate it to the Ripken/Gehrig Fund at Johns Hopkins, that’s fine, or whatever he wants to do with it. About 3 weeks later I get a letter on Baltimore Orioles/Peter Angelos stationary, with his handwritten signature, telling me “Thank you for being so honest. I’ve donated the money to the Ripken/Gehrig Fund. Now you can tell your son and everyone else that you were at Camden Yards the night Cal Ripken made history. Best Wishes, Peter Angelos.”

So now I’m telling you.

Soccer Come To Meeting Call: Revolutionary Email Poem

In 1999 I coached two soccer teams: The Tarantulas (boys) and da Blues. This poem, found recently, was on my email inviting the parents and kids to a pre-season meeting.

What’s the word?!?
Haven’t you heard?
Spring’s in the air!
There’s mud everywhere!
So heed the call
to kick the ball.

(This is my greetin’
to invite you to a meetin’).