Seeing Stars

The final leg of the trip involved a journey down to Baltimore to meet up with the Cleveland City Stars, a professional mens soccer team competing in the USL-2 division of US soccer. The City Stars are a second-year franchise I first encountered last year while coaching at soccer camps in Cleveland, Ohio. The team was in Baltimore to play the first of two away games that weekend, so Jaime drove myself, Connie and Hunt down to meet them. We arrived a few minutes after kick-off so we went straight in and were met by the City Stars General Manager, Mark Geissbauer. The game didn't go the City Stars way but we got the chance to go into the locker room at half-time and see a bit of the behind-the-scenes action, which was exciting. After the game we really got to experience the glamorous world of third-tier professional football in America as we piled into minivans and drove for over 4 hours to Pittsburgh, where their next game was being held the following night. Arriving at the hotel sometime after 2am, we got our rooms and stumbled into bed. Fortunately the players were allowed to sleep in until midday the next day, which meant we were too.

The next day was a strange combination of sitting around, eating, swimming, team meetings and more sitting around. Fortunately the Euro championships were on TV at the time so that passed some time and I was also able to catch up with some of the players I'd met the year before, as well as meeting some of the new ones. There are some definite characters on the team, with Dana McGregor leading in the charge in this area, and watching him get tossed through the air during the pool session was a lot of fun. Finally it was time to head out to the ground, where again we were able to spend time in the locker room with the team and watch as they prepared for the game, which included a team devotion by team owner, Jon Ortlip. The players were really tired, having played a long stretch of away games in quick succession, but they managed to ground out a victory in the game and so we hopped back in the vans content and with everyone looking forward to a big, long sleep upon arrival in Cleveland.

Over the course of the next week I was able to go along to one of their training sessions and interview a bunch of key players, coaches and staff. I was also able to go along with some of the players to two inner city Salvation Army centres where the players go each week to coach and encourage Cleveland's inner city kids. The City Stars have as their motto, "Serving the City & Changing the World", and from day one have tried to set themselves apart as a professional sporting team that is about more than just performances and results on the field. A number of players have been involved in humanitarian and mission projects around the world through soccer and you can see that for some of them, the off-the-field activities are just as much if not more of a passion than their responsibilities on the field. In the end, it is a tough balance for them as a professional sporting team and as professional players - results and performances on the field are important, as are the financial realities of professional sport - but nevertheless they remain committed to making a more lasting impact on their city and beyond, and given the behaviour of other professional clubs and players around the world, that's got to be a good thing.

I finished the week off by attending a City Stars home game, where I really got the chance to see the interaction between club and city, players and fans. The result of the game may have been a disappointing draw but the atmosphere felt really good and spoke well of the positive culture the City Stars are working hard to engender in their club. The night also represented the final bit of filming for the trip so I thought I would end it dramatically by standing out in the middle of the field as the lights go off and the night descends in darkness. The game finished at 9pm and I was told the lights were due to turn off at 11:30pm so we hung around and then at 11:25pm I walked out to the middle and Hunt starting filming. We waited... and waited... and waited... until at 12:15pm, with the lights still on, we packed it in and went home. It was a nice thought, but I guess I'll just have to end the film as I had originally planned - by streaking at an international football game :) I'm kidding...

It was a fairly anti-climactic way to end the filming component of the trip, but I was so exhausted by all the travelling I was stoked to have got to the end of it. Making a film is quite hard work... who would've thought?! Now it was all done though I could look forward to a week off, a month of soccer camps in Ohio, and then, finally, home.

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