Times Picayune article on the Shell Shockers

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SOCCER SUSTENANCE

Shell Shockers officials believe they've found the formula to keep organized, competitive games in New Orleans by using local talent and playing in a non-professional league without the expenses that doomed a previous attempt. The city's Hispanic community, which has long supported the sport, is embracing its newest team.

Tuesday May 27, 2003
By William Kalec

To Jonas Lopez, the moment ball meets net never sounded like that before.

A loud but contained roar was directed at the round-faced, thick-calved player when he scored in overtime to give the Shell Shockers a 3-2 home victory against the Memphis Express on May 17.

Previous winning shots by Lopez didn't cause his friend to storm from the stands, waving the Honduras flag across Tulane's Westfeldt Field. Lopez's mother, Ulda, cried while WFNO broadcaster Marco Garcia belted a "GOAL!" call powerful enough to bring down rain.

Lopez is a 9-to-5 laborer during the week, a Clark Kent turned temporary minor-league Superman on Saturday. Until this summer, he didn't have the forum for such theatrics, as he does now that local United Way president Gary Ostroske has brought competitive organized soccer back to New Orleans by purchasing the expansion Shell Shockers -- a squad that competes in the 51-team Premier Development League.

"People have asked me about the goal," Lopez said of the overtime winner on May 17. "And for the people who don't know about it, I tell them about it. And I tell them to come to the next game and watch me play. They're missing it."

The premise of the PDL is to offer collegiate and soon-to-be collegiate players younger than 23 the opportunity to play during the summer without violating eligibility rules. Most of the Shell Shockers, like most PDL team members, are from or have ties to the area.

For Lopez's friends and acquaintances who haven't seen him in Shell Shockers green yet, six home games are still remaining. But given the recent history of soccer in the New Orleans area, they might not want to wait too long. Outlets for local soccer enthusiasts vanished when the professional Storm of the A-League was dissolved.

"But there is a market. That's what people don't know," Ostroske said. "New Orleans is a soccer city, just an untapped soccer city. This community is in perfect position for this to work."

Community connection

The pulse of New Orleans soccer prosperity lies in the Hispanic community, specifically the Hondurans. For close to 30 years, Sunday Islano League soccer in City Park or local municipal stadiums has been a pastime for Hispanics and continues to grow as it becomes more organized.

Originally, the Islano leagues pitted local communities against each other in essentially pickup games. Teams were primarily divided by nationality (i.e. the Hondurans would play the El Salvadorans), and the clubs eventually evolved with European and American players joining.

"When you see an Islano game it is really quite amazing," Shell Shockers coach Kenny Farrell said. "You've got 1,000 people standing around watching, music going in the back, barbecues grilling. And the people know soccer. It was and is vital for us to grab hold of that tradition."

In fact, Ostroske said, the Hispanics are the Shell Shockers' target demographic, followed by the Europeans and the "soccer moms." So Farrell scouted top Islano talent and has six players on his roster, including Lopez, the Shockers' top scorer through four games.

Inclusion of Islano players has given a sense of belonging and ownership to the Hispanic fans and generated enough interest for WFNO AM-830 to broadcast home games live and field calls about the latest attempt to make soccer work in this area during lunchtime and drive-home talk shows.

"The fans of the Islano, they have a lot of pride in their sport and their players," Shockers forward Kenneth Viquez said. "They believe their players are the best and they are skilled. Now we have the chance to show what we can do.

"If we didn't get a chance, they wouldn't have given the Shell Shockers a chance. They probably would not have come."

Instead, seated mainly in the midfield grandstand, Hispanics made up approximately one-third of the 1,100 spectators May 17. Lopez's friend, who waved the flag, was one of the more vocal fans, hollering at the referee after missed calls and blowing a wooden horn after goals. To the right, a group huddled around an old transistor radio pinned in the railing as "La Fabulosa" provided the soundtrack.

The next day, many of those fans watched the same players at Islano games. Because the Shell Shockers are not salaried, many players compete all weekend. The two entities are able to coexist without the perception that the new team is raiding the Islanos.

"The Hispanic community has almost adopted this team," Garcia said. "And if they continue to win, that interest will grow. I think the Hispanic fans have wanted something like this, a league for some of their players to perform at a higher level. They wanted a chance.

"And many felt they were not given a chance before with the Storm and Riverboat Gamblers."

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'Something to call their own'

Sitting about halfway up the Westfeldt stands is real estate developer Donnie Pate, watching the action on the field and the overall atmosphere with a personal interest.

His son Stephen, a former soccer standout at Duke and St. Paul's High School, is playing midfield and is minutes away from ripping a 25-yard equalizer in the 88th minute. Pate concentrates on Stephen, but also scans the crowd, curious if an idea he first brought to the table in 1993 -- that soccer could thrive in New Orleans -- might work on the third try.

During his four years of sole ownership of the New Orleans Riverboat Gamblers, Pate's squad moved up in classification each season, eventually landing in the A-League (the equivalent to Triple-A baseball). Climbing each rung of the minor-league ladder increased Pate's annual operating expenses to $700,000, making it impossible to individually support a higher-quality product with lackluster attendance.

"We never could get the fan base," Pate said. "It would have taken about 3,000 to 4,000 fans per game to come close to breaking even. You want to give the kids an opportunity to compete at the highest level. It was fun, but I couldn't handle it by myself."

So in 1997, Pate sold a majority share to Zephyrs owner Rob Couhig, whose interest in soccer piqued when he witnessed 6,269 attend an exhibition game between the Gamblers and the Dallas Burn, its Major League Soccer affiliate.

Couhig renamed the team the Storm and marketed the franchise in the same manner that produced busy turnstiles during the Zephyrs' first season in their new stadium. In the three-year history of Couhig's experiment, however, the Storm did not come close to reaching break-even attendance figures.

"You can't say they didn't try to get crowds," said Rene Broussard, a New Orleans resident and former Storm season-ticket holder. "They had promotions, they tried to get the youth groups to come. It's just the Storm had this perception of being the red-headed stepchild."

Competing at the A-League level required the Storm to look beyond the area for talent, meaning many Islano players felt they were slighted by the team, resulting in little interest from New Orleans' most passionate fans, Hispanics. Conversely, having a large contingent of Islano players might have resulted in larger crowds but not necessarily in a winning record.

"In order to get that high quality of soccer, we had to pay bigger salaries," New Orleans Storm minority owner Stewart Peck said. "There was a salary cap, but we had to pay for their housing. So player cost was very big. We had to have $200,000 just to pay the players.

"I mean, you look at Major League Soccer. The only guys that can afford to do this are billionaires. And they're losing money. Donnie lost money, we lost money; maybe Gary has it right. He's not taking the big-time A-League. There are not the league fees. He has a nice facility, more intimate. Maybe this is the way to do it."

Ostroske said his out-of-pocket expense is roughly $100,000 this season. The Shell Shockers have accumulated half that amount in sponsors through cash or services, the majority coming from Shell Oil's title sponsorship. Given the crowds from the first two home games, Ostroske is on pace to stay out of red ink.

Before starting this project, Ostroske researched marketing methods used by the Storm and Riverboat Gamblers, planning to tweak past attempts at sustaining soccer in the region.

"He talked to us," Pate said. "And we just told him to be careful. (Gamblers coach) Mike Jeffries, when I first started getting this team together, he gave me some very poignant advice that I didn't take. He said, 'Donnie, I've been in soccer my entire life in the United States, and I've never met anyone who has made any money at it.' I know people who have lost a lot of money at it.'

"I lost a half-million dollars the last year. That's not fun."

Ostroske said he would eventually like to build the Shell Shockers into an A-League team, but remains realistic in his assessment that it would be risky, especially without a soccer-only facility larger than Westfeldt. He noted that the time isn't right, that soccer must wait for a generation of youth players to become parents and take their own kids to games, altering the sport from participation to spectator status.

Even then, there still will be no precedent of top-level minor-league soccer succeeding in an area where the sport is not widely embraced. Ostroske can't follow a blueprint.

In addition to the financial loss, Pate said, selling the Gamblers left an emotional void in his life. What began as "fun" quickly turned to "work" when expenses grew. He said he would warn Ostroske a move up could also do the same, and once again leave New Orleans without competitive soccer on any level.

"Right now, we're just learning," Ostroske said. "A move up is a long time off."

Until then, he shows up at practice daily wearing shorts and a T-shirt, watching Farrell mold his everyday workers and college students into a team.

"We will give players that wouldn't have had an opportunity to get looks at other teams," Farrell said. "I've had colleges call me about Islano players that didn't go to college. And we are giving a core of soccer lovers in this area something to call their own.

"And it's working, so far. We might be legitimate a lot sooner than we thought."

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