• Last weekend, the Colorado Rapids season home opener was postponed one day for snow. The build up to the storm had a flurry of comments from sports writers and fans - many proudly encouraging a good showing to the club's opening game despite the inclement weather. Visions of players slipping and sliding, nicknaming the stadium as a type of "snow fortress," fans singing full-voice in blizzard-like conditions, and playing with the dreaded "orange ball" (which still has never made an appearance in Major League Soccer) reminiscent of youth soccer games of long-ago filled the Twitterverse and Facebook status updates nearly non-stop until the club finally announced the postponement of the game to the following day. The storm did leave some

    Mar 10,
  • If you went away a couple years ago, from Major League Soccer, and came back just yesterday, you might be surprised at the new look uniforms that many teams are now wearing. The Colorado Rapids (the team I chaplain) have a new kit look (see below), but not only is the look new on the outside, but on the inside as well. There has been a tremendous amount of turnover in the player personnel from two seasons ago and as some have declared, this is truly a different team, one that second-year head coach, Oscar Pareja, can truly call his own. New beginnings, while not always easy in football or life, are often necessary. Living in a digital age, most

    Mar 03,
  • The typical coaching contract for coaches in Major League Soccer is three years, though the average length of stay is somewhere closer to 2 years (2.3 according to one source). If those statistics are comparative (there is some question to how scientific) to other leagues, then MLS coaches are among the lowest in terms of average length of stay among professional sports leagues (NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB) as suggested by this New York Times article written in 2008. So what has to happen in that 2.3 years that an MLS coach takes the reins? There are several things that a new head coach must undertake, but before looking at a few important tasks, let's look at a few reasons for

    Jun 10,
  • When David Beckham first stepped foot on American soil to play for Major League Soccer, there was a division of opinion. Some said Beckham was merely the latest in a long line of world-renown footballers, past their prime, looking to make a last stab at financial gain before retirement. There were other pundits who claimed that soccer had officially made it in America and that the Beckham brand would forever change the American landscape and attitude toward a sport with a sketchy history of attraction in the U.S.A. Now, five years later, the jury may still be out on many points of the argument but there is at least one thing (there are more) from this chaplains perspective that Beckham's

    Apr 20,
  • As I watched this afternoon's match up between the Colorado Rapids and the Seattle Sounders, there was one thing on my mind: Brian Mullan. Many are aware of the controversy surrounding Mullan and the Sounders' Steve Zakuani whose leg was broken in a tackle last April. Zakuani has been rehabbing and recovering and was relegated to watching today's match from a players box suite in a suit and tie. Mullan, who did not speak with media before the match, shared briefly after the game a few comments. In the hours immediately following last April's injury, Zakuani was at risk and needed surgery immediately to relieve pain and pressure from the break. I know many on the Sounders were holding their

    Apr 14,

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