The P.U.N.I.S.H.ers: Part 1 of 3
The Story of the Professional Underground Network of Indoor Soccer Historians
It is June 1979. In Kansas City, Missouri, a high school student named Brian Holland sits watching television coverage of the Kemper Arena roof collapse. He prepares to turn off the TV and go to bed, but pauses as something new flashes on the screen.
“On that particular night, channel 4 aired a one-hour condensed version of the MISL playoffs. I had never heard of indoor soccer before,” Holland said.
It was the first season of the Major Indoor Soccer League, which had yet to come to Kansas City. Holland had seen outdoor soccer, but it never quite grabbed him. This was something else.
“They are playing soccer in a hockey rink with AstroTurf. I was drawn to it immediately. … I’m thinking, I wonder if we’ll get a team someday?” he said.
Two years later, the Kansas City Comets debuted at Kemper Arena.
“I couldn’t afford season tickets yet because it was my senior year in high school. I went to the second game. I couldn’t really afford to go that much. I only went two or three times that year. My attendance gradually increased over time,” Holland said.
But he watched every game that was on TV.
In April 1985, the Comets grabbed his whole heart. It was an overtime game against the hated St. Louis Steamers, with whom the Comets had accumulated great experience as a losing side. But this time was different. Tasso Koutsoukos scored the game-winner for the Comets.
“The thing that really drew me to the team was that they made you, the fan, feel like a part of the team. The Comets were always out in the community. By comparison, the Kansas City Kings franchise didn’t connect with their fanbase,” Holland said.
It is 1982 in Wichita, Kansas. Miriam Romalis starts up her Buick Skylark and drives her elementary school-age son, Mike, to the Kansas Coliseum to watch a Wichita Wings game.
“It was loud, wild, and overwhelming,” Mike Romalis said.
It is the Wings’ fourth campaign and they have taken the city of Wichita by storm. The Romalis family, along with thousands of other locals, buys season tickets. It doesn’t take long for them to get into it.
“We got to know the players. We would go to the autograph sessions and meet them. We all emulated the players. We wanted to act like them, be like them,” Romalis said.
The experience would define his childhood. But it would also reach into his adulthood and define much of that too.
Travel 363 miles southward. You are in Dallas, Texas. Now travel two years forward in time. It is January 1984. A news conference is held to announce a new indoor soccer team to be based at Reunion Arena. The colors are the same as the NBA’s Mavericks. The team is to be their little brother: “sidekick,” if you will.
“The Tonto to their Lone Ranger,” Alan Balthrop said.
The Dallas Sidekicks come into existence. Balthrop, a teenager, has yet to see a game but is already a fan. The local independent station on UHF, channel 33, airs 10 games that first season.
“The first time I saw a road game on television, I was hooked. I had never watched hockey before, but this was human pinball. This was hockey with a ball. I had never seen anything like it. I was absolutely hooked and wanted to know everything there was to know about it,” Balthrop said.
The son of a single mom with limited resources, Balthrop couldn’t afford to go to sporting events. He was a rabid fan, but from a distance, he said.
“I clipped every newspaper story and pasted them on my wall like teenage girls pasted Leif Garrett photos,” Balthrop said.
Every game would be a drama played out in his home via the television screen. Finally, during the second season, his patience paid off.
“I had to finally win tickets in a trivia contest,” Balthrop said.
His journey into Reunion Arena resembled a pilgrimage.
“I think it was San Diego. I had never attended a sporting event before, so the crowd noise and experience was different,” Balthrop said.
Halfway across the country, in Long Island, New York, on Dec. 22, 1978, a 14-year-old experienced indoor soccer for the first time.
“I played soccer in junior high and remember reading about this thing called indoor soccer, which I knew nothing about. I started reading articles about how they would have this team at the Nassau Coliseum, about 6 miles from where I lived,” said Rich Paschette.
Paschette convinces his parents to let him go to the very first MISL game (New York Arrows versus the Cincinnati Kids) by himself. His father drives him to a tobacco store, of all places, that is selling $5 tickets. He occupies Section 329, Row L, Seat 1.
“I was a 14-year-old kid walking into the Coliseum like an adult, with my $5 ticket and $.75 copy of Missile Magazine, and buying a $1 hot dog at the concession stand. I walked through the concourse into the big seating bowl and saw this big green soccer field and what I didn’t know were some of the best players in the world at the time. I saw this little-known player from Split, Croatia named Slaviša Žungul who scored four goals that night. Shep Messing was making the big saves,” Paschette said.
The most famous tenant of the Nassau Coliseum at the time was the NHL’s New York Islanders, the reigning Stanley Cup champions. One of their more popular players was named Chico Resch. The Arrows had a Peruvian forward who happened to share his name: Chico Baylon. Thus, every time Baylon touched the ball, the crowd erupted with chants of “Chico, Chico!”
“There were 12 games that year and I think I went to 10 of them. My buddies Bill and Scott started going regularly. I was enthralled with the game. Shep was the big drawing card. My favorite player was Pat Ercoli, who had a journeyman career in the indoor game,” Paschette said.
A few years later Paschette managed to score a menial job with the team.
“One day I was walking past the practice center, and a sign said, “Help Wanted.” I didn’t have a job and was 18 years old. I talked to a guy named Brett Flipsy who knew me from the games. They were looking for someone to help out with maintenance of the practice field and organize the merchandise,” Paschette said.
His duties included cleaning out under the bleachers, a task forgotten for the last five years. He kept the field glued down and used a gas-powered vacuum to keep it clean. He even evicted a raccoon from the ticket manager’s office.
(TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK)
Coming Next Week: Part 2/3 of The P.U.N.I.S.H.ers…