Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #363: Early USWNT history with Marty Mankamyer

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

More oral history than a typical podcast episode. Mankamyer was a real estate broker and youth soccer volunteer in Colorado who rose through the ranks of U.S. Soccer governance in the 1980s and was a key actor in promoting girls' youth soccer, the creation of a women's national team, and the addition of women's soccer as an Olympic sport in Atlanta in 1996. She also worked with and against Werner Fricker, and helped Alan Rothenberg get elected as president.Co-producer credit: William Gordon of American Soccer Corps for help with research and historical background.----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes (more than 50 last year and already 5 this month in 2023), plus access to the Discord including live call-in shows, by signing up for our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Scuff Podcast, where we talk about U.S. soccer. Our guest today is a woman who has had a profound influence on soccer in this country, and you've probably never heard of her. Her name is Marty Mancomeyer. She is an 89-year-old, semi-retired real estate agent in Colorado, and she was one of the key actors right there in the beginning when the U.S. Women's National Team was created. Hello, Marty.

Thank you for your time, and welcome to Scuffed. Thank you so much for thinking of me. I'm looking forward to this. Before we start, I should acknowledge some people. William Gordon, mutual acquaintance of ours of the American Soccer Corps, has helped a lot with research and background. And I'll be relying on passages from Jerry Longman's Girls of Summer and Caitlin Murray's the national team.

So acknowledgements to them as well. First of all, how did you get involved in soccer in the first place? And why get involved with youth soccer administration? in Colorado? I had girls who started playing at the recreational level, and I have the kind of inquisitive nature that got interested in governance. And so because I had worked for many years, as you know, in non-sport-related events, but I had a business background,

And things like those years, they called it personnel management. Now it's called HR. But at any rate, I felt like I might have something to offer. And in a volunteer organization, they were glad to have anybody who would work. And that was Colorado State Youth Soccer Association way back. So when did your girls start playing soccer? Mid-70s? Let's see.

The oldest one was born in 1960. and she must have been eight or nine. So early mid-70s. Okay. You went to the, we can go back and talk about the 70s more, but maybe this will help sort of move that along. You went to the U.S.

Soccer Federation's annual convention in 1980. 82. In Dallas. First of all, tell us how you got to that point where you're actually going to a Federation convention? Each state association, I both, I think, senior and youth, send representatives for the annual Federation meeting.

And they have a set formula for boats, but you could bring as many people as you wished or you wanted to be involved. And in my case, I had been working with Dr. Bob Conagulia, whose name will show up, I'm sure, in a lot of your research. And so it was Dallas. It was close. It was a weekend. And he said, why don't you go as one of our representatives?

And I said, sure. That was fine. I had plenty of help as far as family was going. And so I think we flew. I'm sure we did. and I do remember that the person that picked us up had a, I think it was a convertible, but what I remember most vividly was that the decoration on the front was a set of longhorn steer horns, which was very impressive.

So that's where we started. That convention was kind of eye-opening to you, right? Certainly a world I never thought very much about. Absolutely. Well, there was, you know, you were quoted in Jerry Longman's Girls of Summer saying this. I was seeing it as a marketer's dream and all they were interested in were getting a free trip and drinking beer. It was a nightmare. There were no leagues, no national team for women, no plans for one.

That is, that is my memory. There was like a stack of beer cans at the back of the room or something like that. That was the meeting room, yes. because no one was particularly interested in anything but an election, which was the focus of why we were there, I think, and to get a handle on what this organization was all about on a macro level, rather than a micro level. And so, yes, that indeed was the beginning.

and I was because I had been involved in some church groups and Girl Scouts and there seemed to be a more focused and less exuberant. I'm trying to think of the right words way of approaching it. And in all honesty, I'm guessing, I don't know, that many of those people had very little chance to travel. I, on the other hand, was coming to that, having done that large real estate project on which I spent several years and lots of travel, including international. So my background there was not nearly the same as what appeared to me to be a number of the delegates. And I could be wrong. I wasn't going around and saying, have you ever been on a trip before? It was an impression.

Yes. And I shouldn't have probably said it in those terms, but I did. You were professional. Yes. And your impression was that this was not very professional, at least at that convention. Is that right? Is that fair? I think that's fair.

Yes. And, you know, in any volunteer organization or any organization, whether they be volunteer or all paid, you do have levels of interest and levels of expertise. and soccer at that point really was far more focused. By the way, I did listen to all of Joe's podcast and researched some things that I didn't send to you. And he was great about Detmar Kramer. And what he probably didn't focus on,

because as I recall Joe in those years, it was still the adult game, the men's game. And according to my information, FIFA did indeed send Detmar over to develop soccer, but there was, I never saw anything in it that said, be a grand picture and all-encompassing age, wives, etc. And once you've been to Germany or any of those European nations, it's very obvious. You know, they do have some elite academies. And that's where our own Colorado, oh, pardon me, he's not from Colorado, but Christian Polasik, his parents went to college with my daughters at George Mason,

which is a small connection. But then he saw an opportunity to go over and be a part of BVB, which is that very well-structured German club. and they are currently, just a quick aside, I don't think I put that anywhere, making inroads into youth development in the United States, which I find interesting. Yes, yeah, very interesting. Is it your sense that Denmark Kramer, when he came over, there wasn't any mandate from FIFA to develop the women's game?

Oh, absolutely not. The Scandinavian countries had some programs that they were working on. I think it was certainly not funded to any great extent, and it was just sort of an afterthought of, you know, now we have women that want to kick the ball, what are we going to do with them? That was just an impression I had. So, no, there was not anything that was, that I can find or know of that said anything at all about the woman's game. Did you learn to love soccer when your girls started playing in the 70s? Oh, of course. You know, I'm a strategist.

I'm a thinker. And it was always a way to learn and fun to be around athletically gifted children. young adults, and I loved it. I still will, even when I watch a World Cup game, and I see what I consider to be a mistaken, some of my children will be watching in another spot, and we'll talk about it, and I said, did you see when whatever went on?

Generally, it was a defensive error on the part of the U.S. And so we would talk about it. about it, but yes, I learned to love it. I think it's a wonderful sport. I'm not sure, it's kind of a quick aside again, where the emphasis that's a fallout from the American football and concussions is going to go with the heading. I see that as kind of looming out there.

I'm sure that people is looking at addressing it. They have to because they have just of all the things that have happened in America lately. But, you know, it's an enchanting game. It's seeing kids in the young group, seeing them do their very best. And also you see coaches and parents that are not doing their very best as far as the parenting and the appreciation of the sport. And so there was in those early early days, it was clearly a learning process for all of us, myself included.

I came from New Mexico. The Indians did not play soccer. I can assure you. They danced with rattlesnakes that I can assure you too, but they did not play soccer. So I had never seen it. And my husband was from Nebraska, and that's American football country. Yep. So it was a learning process for the family.

Now, you grew up in New Mexico. You went to UCLA, right? Yes, after I transferred from the University of New Mexico. That is correct. Okay. And then you moved to Colorado. Yes. And it was in Colorado Springs where you were raising those daughters and getting involved in soccer?

Okay. That is correct. I live briefly in the Denver area. But by and large, most of what I did here, and that evolved from being active in the community, which was much smaller. Now it's much larger. But I became aware of soccer tournaments and being able to see more people, more kids play. And so for a number of years, you'll see on there on the information I gave you that I constructed and administered a huge soccer tournament at the U.S. Air Force Academy, which is I think I had 20 or 24 fields and would have 500 teams. So that just, it evolved as an opportunity both to see the other.

parts of the country and we here of course are as I look at the snow outside are limited by our weather whereas California, Florida, Texas have far less restrictions so not that you make excuses but you just know that they've had more touches on the ball than you have in all likelihood. The organizing of that big tournament was that can you sort of put that in the context of like how you sort of rose up through the ranks as a volunteer administrator? I did not do it as an attention getter or a regular step in a progress of somewhere I wanted to go. It to me was more of education and fun. It was fun. And so the acknowledgments came as an effect of that, but never sought out.

No, I was not standing, making speeches or doing podcasts. So it was just sort of a natural evolution of love of the game and nice, or so I don't want to use, healthy applications of life to install in kids, and particularly girls, because girls, certainly at that point, Now they do have some playing American football. And of course, you have track and field.

My children were not runners, and they could swim, and they did swim competitively. But soccer was their love. You know, it was a strategy. It was a game that if you wanted to muscle somebody up, you could. And there were some of those days, too. So that was the point. Now, I know that you gave that quote to Jerry Longman a long time ago, but I do wonder what you meant by, what you meant by, if you can remember, I was seeing it as a marketer's dream. Oh, that was an easy one.

It, to me, every opportunity, I don't say every opportunity, almost every situation I translate to a, big picture. And I was thinking, gosh, you know, you have all these kids playing, and that means you could sell soccer balls and you could sell kits of various types, and you could eventually have them teach other, it would be a pyramid of development that had sidebars of travel and of, as I said, merchandise purchasing. And I don't know that I thought too much, even though Colorado Springs is known it's the city of the Olympics, the home of the Olympics.

I wasn't really thinking that. It was more of, if I'm right on the numbers, and I knew a little bit about Texas's registrations, and I knew what color I had and I knew a little bit about California, I just multiplied that out in my head, and I thought this is going to be, it should be going to be a huge market along the way. For youth soccer.

Yes. That had not been, as best I knew, tapped and marketed specifically into one funnel of opportunity. It just hadn't been. Did you get the sense that anybody else at that convention was thinking along those lines? No. If they weren't talking to me,

because this was a man's group, and that's okay. Along the way, someone said, were there people there who were just there I have fun, and that might have been one of the lead-ins for Jerry, I have forgotten now. But, you know, I was there to learn, and I was there to think about what possibilities might be out there. And, of course, I had just come away from the Olympic area of the 1970s, where Colorado had been awarded the Winter Olympics. And the state decided they didn't want to risk the expense and declined it. But that real estate project at bail was based on Winter Olympics.

So I had that sort of on the side driving me and understanding what the possibilities might be for this sport because of the numbers. And the numbers were really what I thought were important. And, you know, if you could find, not somebody's theory, if you could find one person, or probably you could find 100 people with a dollar, it's just as good as finding one person with $100. And it's that kind of a mindset that I kept looking at and thinking, there's a big opportunity here.

And most of those people were not, by my judgment, and they weren't sitting down and chatting it up, but we're not from a higher level of business. And Werner Fricker was, you have to give him credit. And that is part of the story as well on that convention. He was running against Gene Edwards. Gene Edwards was the president. Warner was running to be president.

And people, and I have a name to share with you who helped me with some of the dates because I didn't keep a diary. But at any rate, when Werner's opponents or dissidents or whomever you might or how you might want to qualify them, said we want somebody else to run against Werner, and I still don't know who said it, but they said, oh, there's that lady named Marty, and she talks to the people well, and let's see if she'll run.

It's like that cereal. you know, give it to Mikey. Mikey will lead anything. So at that convention, I will never forget. My name is so unusual, and they didn't have electronic voting, and they would come by and stop at our table where we were seated by design and copy my name. And I kind of just fluffed it off. You know, I didn't really think anybody was going to do anything.

I had no idea. In all honesty, I didn't. And I was just taking it all in. And the name I am hopeful to share with you is Howard Rubenstein. Howard Rubenstein. Yeah. And I have his contact information somewhere along the line. But he said that the vote was excruciatingly close. Are you talking about the vote in 1980? 82, yeah. 82, okay. And so I didn't win. That would have been a nightmare. And a fellow, I think his name was Alex Evin Hinkle,

thought about running. He was from New Jersey. But once again, there was a polarization or at least a regionalization of the East Coast soccer. And when Werner had come, that was men and it was, they may have had in that German American League, a hybrid boys, young man's kind of team development. I don't know, I wasn't there.

But there was no mention of women, of course. And the West, by that point, had a chairman by the name of Don Greer from Northern California. And he, apparently, was part of the inner group of the Warner Fricker-led leadership. And so I wound up being the chairman of USYSA after Don Greer. And his, once again, what I saw from him, who he was a former player and interested in kids,

his joy appeared to be taking a team or teams on a European tour. This would be now in the 80s to Europe to play some games. So for me again, I was not seeing anything for women. And I was just at that election, I was going, okay, fine, and let them write my name down. And there was, I never saw any, what I'd say, anybody saying anything or doing anything different other than when we got to the very end and I had apparently shown extremely well in the vote count. Just to be clear, you showed well in the vote count for president of the U.S.

soccer federation that's that is correct against warner even though you kind of liked Werner a bigger pardon did you but yes you kind of liked Werner at the time right I don't know that I thought much about like or dislike I thought that the it was could have been a bigger packet which leads to where did the woman's program come from from whence did it come yeah he never mentioned it that I remember and not that that was a big negative it was just it was not mentioned was it was kind of par for the course at the time yeah it was that was you know his background he was a product of uh hungarian I guess it was born in Hungary I'm not sure and when he came to the US and he formed the company and he did the what he did best and he his great love was

soccer, but certainly women were women players were never in that mix. So after this meeting, where I surprisingly had a number of votes, I don't know what the number was, but I, and Howard and I visited about this a couple of weeks ago, we, I had a call from a fellow who was in the Federation headquarters in New York City. And he said, and I'm paraphrasing this, but he said, you know, Warner has considered your capabilities, and we have an Olympic development program that is headed by a gentleman from Washington,

by the name of Ozzy Genco's. and he does both boys and girls and we thought maybe you, because of your interest in the women's and girls program, would like to head up the girl's side. Ozzy would still be the chair sitting on the board, would do that, but you would get the opportunity to develop a program.

And of course, by then I knew, I haven't read Jerry's book for a long time, but I knew of May of Sturfinger and Betty Janchalo. So they had been working on a girls program, but of course on the East Coast, and I was way out here. But that's where it started,

was that close election. I think they just... In 82. In 82. 82. I think they just thought, we'll keep her busy and keep her out of our hair. I don't know. Maybe it was completely altruistic. Maybe it was just a point in time.

But at least it was, it would give them some opportunity to see what I was doing, and maybe I'd have a good idea now and again, and that was a strategy in my mind. Interesting. So you, between 82 and 84, is when you linked up with Betty and Mavis. Let me just repeat those names for people, Betty. And I knew of them, because we had gone to youth meetings. That's when USYSA was a very strong force, and the East Coast had longer to, develop programs than the West had or the Mid- the Mountain Group had. Far West was doing fine with what they were doing. FIFA wanted to change. And a friend whom I'd met through my real estate business and I knew from Vail

came to me and said, I think he said FIFA wants to change. He said, he may have said, there are people that want to make a change and leadership because of the World Cup. And could we elect a different president? And I said, well, two things. First of all, who are you talking about? And the second thing was, how do you, I said, it'll take some money. You know, you don't just suddenly, it was in my case in Dallas, write somebody's name down

because the organization had grown and gotten quite a bit more sophisticated. And his name was Chuck Kale. I do not know if he's still with us all or not. He had property and bail, which I had met him. And I think he sought me out to begin with. And he said, well, it would either be, to run against Werner, it would either be me or Alan Rothenberg. And I said, Chuck, I can't get you elected.

He was most offended. And he said, why not? And I said, because you have strongly supported an arch enemy of USYSA, which was AYSO. And I said, I can do lots of things, but I can't change what the past has been. And so I said, tell me about Rothenberg. And he told me about his, they were both. lawyers. And I said, well, I think that Rothenberg would have a chance. I'm not seeing anything that would make me to sell this. I mean, once again, I'm in the product. I'm selling product.

At this point, I'm selling a leadership of an organization, which was important. And he said, okay. He said that's fine. And I had never met Alan Rothenberg till we arrived at the convention in Florida. I had talked with him. Which is what year is this? Eighty-four? That must have been could have been 86. We'll have to look that up. I'm sorry, I don't. That's okay. But when, as I said, they were saying they, they, Chuck Hale and Rothenburg were saying that they had been approached because of World Cup coming and FIFA wanted to make a change. People wanted to make what kind of change?

Leadership, leadership. In the U.S. Soccer Federation? Correct. Okay. And after reading the most recent exposés of the long-going allegations of corruption in FIFA, that's a little bit of a stretch. But having said that, I don't know why I would think anything different because we had had along the way some U.S. soccer, not U.S. soccer, but U.S. soccer, people, the most notable

one was a fellow by the name of Chuck Blazer. Oh, yeah. and he was interested in the adult group and somehow over those years, although our paths did not particularly cross, got involved in the countries, in the island countries, Trinidad and Tobago and down through there. And I think he wound up, you could book that up, he wound up either serving but serving but certainly being prosecuted and for and convicted of income tax evasion. So that was, all of that is a matter of record. It's easily found. Let me, let me ask something. So I don't understand how you went from being like somebody who's just like, okay, I'll go. And you go and you show up and you get picked up with a convertible with antlers on the front of it. And you're kind of

annoyed with the lack of professionalism. And then I don't know if you were nearly elected president, you were, you were, some people wanted to vote for you for president of the entire federation. How did you, what happened? I don't know. I will honestly say as a person and particularly in this I, the girls and I have gone back and looked at it, the people who were casting votes by and large were men. and whether it was they could rely on or think that I would do the work, which that was true, or I was believable and well-educated, and that was true, I don't know. But each time, both on the Soccer Federation and on the Olympic Committee,

the vast majority of votecasters were men. It's, you know, we've looked at it and we don't know. I'm not, I think I'm, I think I'm very feminine. So I wasn't, you know, it wasn't anything that was suggestive over the years after Title IX being anything other than an extremely analytical, carefully planning kind of a person. and I seldom would go anywhere without being tremendously well-versed in the subjects on which I knew I was going to be asked from Futsal and I wound up later being on the board of directors of Taekwondo. Don't ask me. I know I'm a leader and I know that I'm believable and that I can talk on. any level, well, I don't, I'm not bilingual, but I can talk to people who have not had the

opportunities I've had and I know that I come across as a kind and caring and really true person. There's no, what I say, there's no subterfuge at all in me. What you see is what you get. I guess I'm just, I don't want to belabor the point, but I'm just, curious how your profile had raised, had increased so much. But we don't have to beat that to death. By 1984, you were elected chair of the United States Youth Soccer Association. Can you explain how you got into that role? Because I'm trying to set the stage for 1985 when things are, you know, when things start really moving on with the women's national team. I'm not sure. I suspect that if you were,

thinking about soccer as a whole in the United States, in its complete entity, the sheer numbers began to sway towards the youth division. It was set up at that point that the professional division had one-third of the vote, the youth division had one-third, and the senior division had one-third, and there's some stray votes of life members, et cetera, one by one-by-one. So whether it was people thinking about where we could all be better or in the senior division, which had had the control over the years, do we really want to work this hard or do we want to get the benefits of having another entity help grow us? I can't tell you.

I don't know. I never was involved in any of those conversations. So it's a guess. Okay. Well, despite their concerns that you had supported somebody from AYSO, you did become the chairwoman of the United States Youth Soccer Association. And then I suppose it was from that platform and the platform that you had developed in other sort of more subtle ways that you began to push for a women's national team. Can you explain how you pushed in a. and how Betty Dangelel and Mavis Durflinger pushed decision makers to take women's soccer seriously?

I think they were sort of, I would say, drawn along. The first thing I said we were going to do was have a camp. And that because the men, the boys, had a camp. And let's see, when did we get Title IX? I've forgotten now. Early 70s, I believe. So even though it doesn't truly apply, it was sitting there. And I'm sure that I probably quietly mentioned that there were other avenues to plead equitable attention.

I have no idea. But at any way, we decided, I said, we're going to have a camp and we'll do it in Colorado Springs. and there is a school here called the Deaf and Blind School, which state-sponsored. And it was summertime, so a lot of the students were gone, and it was across the, it is, across the street from a soccer field park. And so they allowed me to put together a plan for this camp. And one of my daughters reminded me,

and I told her I was going to do this podcast with you, that Anson Dorrance said that because Region 1, which is where both Betty and Mavis were from, said they didn't have the money, which is probably true, to come and it wasn't going to be that worthwhile. So Anson had us put together a team from Colorado, whom he referred to, you swear as he didn't, but he really did, the Colorado rejects.

And my oldest one who was, was the collegiate freshman soccer player of the NC2A, original one soccer player of the year, said, you be sure to remind everybody that Hanson said that. And I said, well, he did. It's okay. You know, it was all new.

And they had a good time. I don't remember who the instructors were. It was probably a three-day weekend. I don't know how they funded it. and we probably funded bringing in. We had referees probably locally. But that was the beginning. And Region 1 did not participate,

which, you know, I understood. They at this point didn't even have a budget for their program. They were kind of just hand to mouth. I'm not even sure how they uniformed themselves. But that first year, we had a camp. And then we began reaching out to all of the state's youth associations and saying this is our goal and give us your input. What was the goal? The goal to get the women in the Olympics.

Okay. This would have been 85, roughly? Somewhere in that mid-air area, you know, we knew where the Olympics, we knew the 90s, Olympics are going to be in Atlanta for sure. And so I can remember Anita de France. I think she is still with us. She's ahead of a nonprofit in L.A. And she said, you know, there's just not enough time.

This was back in 92. So somewhere between 88 and 92, I was moving through this planning process. And I said, no, that's not a good. enough to answer. We have to do it in the U.S. And this is where the Harvey Schiller story folded into getting it, getting the right buttons pushed. And when it was announced, everybody was surprised except me. And I just figured, you know, we were going to make it happen. So your focus was more on the Olympics than creating a women's World Cup and all that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, because, you know, I'm living in the Olympic City. I could see it as being the launch pad for a whole era, a whole generation or generations of women to play. But I, once again, my current belief is that as they struggle with identity or identification of identities, that if it were I, planning a campaign, I would start at the top with the international committee work down. I'm not convinced to this day that even with all of the countries who are now, who now have women's teams in Women's World Cup, that the right, I don't say the right, the most effective way to persuade people to do things is from the top down rather than the bottom up. And I'm a direct antithesis of that because I didn't do it that way, but I didn't see it that way at

that time either. I saw numbers and I saw marketing potential as the driving force. Now I see politics and you can supply the word but the thing I see now is more of a people's rights and the whole attitude has changed in this many years. So I might have thought about it differently then, but I surely did not. And the Women's World Cup once again made sense. and I was fully able with Alan Rothenberg as president and California and Chuck Kale, those were all people that could make things happen at a pretty high level. So it was easy to follow right along and say, let's make the bid and let's make it happen.

And clearly, even to this day, the Bid East being somewhat of an anomaly. the U.S. had money and significant money to invest if properly approached. And the people they put together on that committee, the World Cup committee, were big hitters. And so, you know, it was just a natural evolution. 1985, we'll get to the 90s real quick here, but 1985 was the year when the U.S. sent a women's team to a tournament in Italy. and I think, at least according to Caitlin's book, that was the first time that a team was a national team,

I'm using air quotes, was put together for the women. Did you play much of a role in that? I know there was like a camp, maybe a camp in Dallas or something. I did not. I was aware that that trip was being considered, but it somehow didn't seem to fit in. in my purview of responsibility. And it was sort of a one-off, if you want to say that.

It was not a big chunk of a master plan. Right. Is that a fair statement? It kind of sounds like that, yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, just reading about it, it didn't sound like it was, you know, I was like, well, we'll just do this tournament and sort of see what it happens, you know. And I think that is kind of the way I remorse.

remember it being marketed to or proposed to the leadership group. It was an opportunity, but it didn't seem to have a substantial ladder of going somewhere. I never saw that. Okay. But the 1991 World Cup happened. I mean, so six years later, they had the Women's World Cup in China. Yes. Did you go to that?

I did not. Okay. If you don't remember, I mean, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the listeners. If you don't remember the US won that World Cup, the first ever, what was the, what do you remember about how that World Cup came to happen, came to be? And us putting a team together for it. I, my memory is that this was the beginning goal of a whole,

generation or generations of participation. So the emphasis was on selecting the right players and the right coaches and giving them the right training and all the way down to a very, I thought, comprehensive study of culture so that we didn't have any unwanted publicity. and, you know, that team did exactly what they were supposed to do. It was clearly a start, and it was deemed to be a very important and meaningful start. Rothenberg, you were saying Rothenberg and Kale where people could get stuff done. And Rothenberg was elected president in 1990, right?

Yes. What was your role in that? that. By this time you're like, you know, you're one of the big power brokers in the Federation at this point. When Kail said it would be he, and I wanted to say, I didn't support Kail. I told him that I couldn't get him elected because he had been such a strong supporter of what then, and I think it still is, a strong organization in Southern California, AYFSO. But I use the word. I probably knew and I had and still have quite a retentive memory of incidences where people would be disappointed in results, whether it be in an election or in selection of coaches or all kinds of things.

But when I told them, I said it will cost some money because I wasn't going to fund it. And I do remember a quick sidebar. I got a check. And I think it was that those days, I think $5,000 are now forgotten. But the point was I was to spend it as I saw fit not to buy votes ever. That would not be my style. But to do what needed to be done. And among those things was I learned there at that hotel was to make sure.

sure that no conversations were listened to long before the modern electronics. And they chose, the Rothenberg and K.O. group chose some of their trusted friends to come and be observers. and actually the night before the votes were cast, one of the observers had been quietly sitting in a bar where Werner Fricker and some of, I suppose, his staff, that part, I wasn't there. And the word was that the group said, Warner, we've lost. And they knew it the night before.

And so my plans were, I always, things that were that important, make backup plans. And I had decided that the person to make the nomination speech should be Ricky Dave. Ricky Dave. Is that right? Yeah. And so I had the right to vote. The outgoing chair of the youth division has the right until that position is taken by someone else.

So I still had a vote, and I could have done it myself. And I was prepared if some way the nomination didn't happen the way I expected it to. So I'm sitting on the front row, and I'm sitting next to the delegate from Oregon, whom I knew, and who was supporting Rothenburg. And I said, just in case, I said, just in case something goes wrong, I want you to be prepared to make this nominating speech. I said, why? I said, that's just the way I plan things. And I said, so here's a little bio, and just as I say. So when he came through the door, some of Warner's people stopped him.

And the athletes all sat with the current board up in front of everybody. And I can see somebody's talking to him. And I'm thinking, I wonder what they're saying. I wonder what they're saying. I hope it's nothing threatening. Talking to who? Alan? No, to Rick, to Ricky Davis. And I didn't know. You know, I can't read lips. Okay. And later I asked him about it and he said, you know, they said, are you sure you want to risk your career on this? And he said, yes, I believe in where this group is going. But, you know, I didn't know. I knew what I had was the ace to make sure he got nominated. And I was a third. person, but I had been so active in his campaign down to, you know, ordering for his cocktail

party, which is a tradition it was in those days. The decorations were an ice net and an ice soccer ball. It was gorgeous. That's my style. An ice net? Wow. Oh, yeah. It says, you know, it was just a showstopper.

It was lovely. This was the cocktail part. I mean, so all of this is like new to me, you know? I mean, so I'm just sort of playing. And I'm sure they do it differently now. You know, those were, that was then. And you asked me how it came along. And when they counted the votes, you know, Rothenberg had won.

But he already knew. The people the night before had to canvas. their people and bless their hearts when they had said yes we're voting for them um they'd ever changed i feel like there's a gap here between you know what you were doing in 84 and 85 and the and the you know the u.s actually sending a team to the women's world cup in 91 is there anything you can fill in there um only supposition because uh once again My goal was to work on the Olympics for 96, so I was sort of splitting my attentions, and I don't have any kind of a conscious recollection of a game plan for that.

I think there were enough people, and Rothenberg clearly, with his L.A. connection, he owned then It's not a basketball team. Clippers. Is that a basketball team? I can't remember. It was. He owned the Clippers? I didn't know that. Clarification. Rothenberg was president of the Clippers, not the owner. So, you know, he had a big stable of things that he could call on away from soccer. I was the soccer specialist.

I knew where, if you want to say, where the bones were buried were, where the angst, occurred and knew how to play it. And that's where my ability was when he would have in Florida, before the election, he made himself available because no one else had ever seen him to talk to people. And before he went or he sat down with each of those people, I had already given him a crib sheet of what was important to them, what was on their mind, if you will, what to avoid, what to press. And I had those on probably at least a third of the votes that I wasn't sure of. Just, and he's a great salesperson. He really is. This is a guy that's smooth as silk. Mm-hmm. I see. So you were giving him the, you were giving him the tools to use his salesmanship.

Oh, yeah. To maximum effect. Is that bad? No, I don't. I'm in no position to judge that. Okay, so you helped Rothenberg defeat Fricker, and then the 91 World Cup happened, the men's World Cup happened in 94. Maybe let's just step back a second

and do a couple of sort of fun questions. Who's your favorite women's national team player of all time? Michelle Akers. Why? she's a great animal lover but i had watched her as a youth player when long before there was any national team for her to play on and i had never heard or seen anything but complete honesty and love of the game i you know clearly the girls brandy has always been on my list I watched the girls who broadcast, but Michelle Acres represents, as far as I am concerned,

the epitome of development and a tremendously talented athlete using all of her skills and at the same time portraying what America's about. She's a true American. I understand that whenever she hears your name, she thinks, of peanut butter. I'm sorry? I understand that whenever she hears your name, she thinks of peanut butter. Do you know that?

Have you heard this? I had not, no. Okay. Well, I don't know the backstory either, so I'm just going to strike it from the record because I don't know what I'm talking about. Well, as often as I talked to people and as many people as I met over the years, it's It undoubtedly made some impression on her. Maybe I got peanut butter for her when her coach or trainer said she couldn't have it.

I hadn't pointed that. That would not be my style normally. But who knows, that's many years ago. Why was Mia Hamm so important? And what was it about her that made her sort of, you know, she was sort of the face of the national team marketing-wise for a while? She, true, I mean, you know, if you look at, and I can't remember in that book there are pictures, but I think that she represented, one, she wasn't huge. Michelle is one big woman.

And Mia is more, I think, what, five, five, five, six, I can't remember now. And, yeah, pretty average height. Yeah, average. And actually. one of the things that we always sort of guard, I don't say, guarded against, but we tried very hard not to put Mia in spots where she needed to speak particularly extemporaneously. That wasn't her forte. And so she's a beautiful face.

When they named that building after her in Nike, named the building after her, I believe, up in Portland. Is that right? I think so. And, you know, she is, you know, athletic, trim. But as a speaker then, and she was young. Christine Nulli was young. I can remember having to sign a paper for her parents

because I believe she was just 15 when I signed that. paper for her to travel with the team. She might have been 16. I've now forgotten, but they were young, and they were, American girls could relate to them. Not that they couldn't relate to Michelle, but they were just sort of a typical American girl. Of course, Mia was from Texas, and so the Western feel was very easy for me to say this, you know, She clearly is the face of the sport. But we also knew what her strengths and weaknesses were, and her strength was not being able to face a big crowd.

She was shy then. I'm not sure how she is now. I think she has twins of some age and married to professional baseball player. But in those years, the face of soccer was. Couldn't have been better for her as long as we kept or tried to keep the parameters to her strengths and not to any weaknesses. I see. Okay. So we're still, you know, we're still a few years out in 91 from the Atlanta Olympics. And can you tell us anything about, you know, what were the key turning points in it becoming an Olympic sport and the role that you played in that?

Well, without me, they wouldn't have had it because I was the one carrying the banner. I was the only person that I know of individually. There were other people, like, that's not a fair statement. There is a lady, and I occasionally do get posting on Facebook. Her name escapes me right now. But they had a strong support group in Atlanta. and she helped, but she had no national presence at all. It was very limited.

And the rest of U.S. soccer was far more interested in soccer. So if somebody was going to carry the banner, it was going to be I. And by this point and being, oh, I forgot sort of an important point, When Gene Edwards was no longer the president of U.S. Soccer Federation, I asked for, and I sure it was Rothenburg, who made the decision, to be the soccer delegate to the U.S. Olympic Committee. So I was already in that loop. And once again, when I appeared, and I think hopefully even still today, in front of people, I am believable, I am articulate, and I strategized to the nth degree of making that happen.

And it was just, I wish I could say it was going to happen. It probably would have happened because of Title IX, but there were easier ways to do it. Pardon me, that's my phone making noise. Does it go good. I just, it was a strategy. that was easy for me to do. And nobody wants to be on a committee and say,

no, we don't want women doing this. That, you know, I never played that card, but I knew instinctively that certainly in America, that's not going to be a banner that somebody's going to hang up there. So as long as the money was taken care of, as I mentioned with Harvey and the accommodations at the University of Georgia and all of that,

Most people were not going to say no. It wasn't taking anything from their sport. And it was just adding something that America was beginning to fall in love with. So it was just kind of a win-win and I was there at the right time. Okay. What about 1999? You were there when the U.S. won the final, weren't you? Yes.

what do you remember about that day? Do you know, I don't have a, I'm going to back away and say, it was anticlimactic because the hard work had happened all those years before. So it was just sort of a blissful, it was worth it. That's what I can say. This was worth it. Let me ask about some current, some more current things going on. The whole equal pay, the struggle for equal pay from the women's national team,

and then the way that was resolved. What's your analysis of all that? Like, what's your... Very strong. Let me give you one piece of information that seldom gets mentioned, but I knew well, that when the women's national team traveled, and at that point there were mothers among that group, the U.S. Soccer Federation paid for the nannies and the kids to travel.

They went with them. And while that's not a huge, it's not a multimillion-dollar deal, it should have been mentioned because the men never took their kids with them, and I would have structured the legal defenses, and I'm not a lawyer. In Colorado, you're not allowed to practice law if you practice real estate. So I definitely don't want to be called a lawyer. But I track back to what I talked about with FIFA and starting at the top. if the proper, not proper, if an opportunity were there to change the FIFA allocations of large S,

then it would have been automatic. And because the U.S. Soccer Federation has, I think, yet, no control over the awards that are made to the, finishers down, I don't know how many levels. Equal pay is not something that I felt should be imposed upon USSF. I clearly think that things should be generally equal, but to everything I saw in the print was that the men got this much per player and the women get the this much and it was not as strongly put forth where the money came from. That was not, I don't know, I don't know because I agree with you on that. It was never really fully explained

that this is a FIFA. And so, you know, it presented a skewed picture of where the funds came from and what was equal. So I did not support that. I support. I support. I support. pay for work done. And I would not have any problem with the U.S. putting together a winner's pool as an extra incentive. Those parts make sense to me. But just to say equal, does not. Is it, are you, are you, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Are you disappointed with the way it was resolved? Because, I mean, it seems like what happened is basically the men's, the men's team said, okay, to make this happen, we're going to share our prize money. Yes, I was disappointed. I thought it was incorrect.

Once again, I am all for level playing field, even rules. I have no idea what the final contract looked like. So it's hard for me to opine on something that may have some pieces that would have made it more equal. And so I sort of am shy away from it simply because if I could look at the contract and say, well, here, here and here, and you've heard what I've said about the FIFA distribution, I think a better representative, legal representative, might have structured it differently. And it's only a guess because I've never seen the document. So it's, as I say, just a guess.

Okay. Going back to something you said earlier about, you know, you saw the numbers for women, for girls' soccer, and you saw the sort of market opportunity. It wasn't so much. I just want to go back to this so I make sure I understand. It sounds like what you're saying is you weren't like a, you weren't necessarily like crusading for equality. back in the 80s. You just saw that there was an opportunity and there was a need. That's absolutely

a fair statement. I came from a background that said you earned what you got and so as I said I was not thinking about being a crusader for women's rights at all. It was more as you said. And I'm opportunity for the organization as a whole, all of them, all of us, to make money that hadn't been touched before. Okay. Interesting. It seems like other nations women's soccer programs are catching up with the U.S. now.

How do we make sure we can continue to be dominant? I would agree with that. And I don't have an answer. I am sure that we have enough talent. Are we identifying and developing that talent? That's for a judgment for a person with far more skills on the field than I have. I'm more of a watcher. So once again, the foreign countries can see, and it's not a mystery,

that if you can market a product, whatever it is, toothpaste, anything, and it has some benefit to your country or your, in this case, soccer federation. The bright, and once again with the media available with so much information, only the completely uneducated groups, would ever turn that down. They're going to be looking, and whether it's Nike or whether it's Coca-Cola or whatever it is, saying we'd like a part of that.

Could we be considered as a trial program? And I'm not going into that kind of consulting, but those opportunities are there. And they're so much more available now that the Internet and podcasts and other things are there to help or at least to illuminate the opportunities that might be there. Maybe it's not right for your country. Maybe it's not right for the religious pieces of your country.

I don't know those answers, but until you explore it, you don't know either. So that's a state of development. And I think it will continue to develop. Okay. I mean, there's a lot in your personal background that it would be interesting to get into. You raised stock cars at the one point, right? Raised on a quarter mile track north of Denver. Never owned my own car.

Couldn't afford it then. But once again, it's being fearless. It's by taking chances by saying, I can do this. No, I could. and I went a few races and it was actually I didn't like getting kind of dirty because you have

oil and gasoline stuff to get on you and that's not necessarily my style but yes of course I rode to stock cars at least for a while you had a flying license too a pilot's license do you still? I do not

and that has a completely and reasonable explanation I started in New Mexico where it's generally flat or there are some buttes, and I had a friend who was very generous with his own private plane and said, you're welcome to take lessons from a licensed instructor. This was a single-engine Mooney, and I just wanted to see what the freedom of that would be like. along the way my husband decided we should move to Aspen and the friend with the airplane

said you do what you want to do and I'll continue to make this happen is not a big deal but if you decide you're going to continue taking fine lessons in Aspen you only get one mistake

the down drafts and the narrow valleys and it has more horror tales than you ever want and it might be a good time for you to stop and I can't remember how many hours I had but I took his advice I thought he was smart and over the years they've had more than their share of fatalities down that canyon it is scary as heck that's why I stopped last question Cindy Parlo Cone is now the president of the federation do you feel any specific pride about a woman and a U.S. Women's National Team alum being the head honcho now

I in all honesty have not done any kind of an in-depth analysis of her leadership abilities. I do not know who is writing the press releases, but I am far more, or would be far more, I don't want to use the word outspoken, but I would be inclined to know, I would be interested to know and inclined to react a little differently if there were, and you've gone through how many years, 50 years, 40 years of my life,

that I'm not seen, at least in the press releases, the strength of conviction and offering up solutions. I see it more of what I see. Once again, I haven't been to those meetings. I am allowed, by the way, and I was not able to attend the last board meeting I could have attended via computer. Seeing the strong and forceful leadership,

it's more of a I'm trying to think of the word more of a babysitting and that sounds demeaning I don't mean it that way more of a caretaking role and we did have back in the 80s

reorganization the Lippant Committee asked to have that done and they by the way have their own problems to think about I would not be surprised to see, you know, some changes made via the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Olympic Committee for a whole host of reasons. But back to Cindy, I, you can tell by talking to me.

I am firm, resolute, and certainly I listen to things. I can have my man changed, but as leader, leaders lead. And I can't blame that all in her because I don't know who. writing the press releases, I just don't get that same feeling. I have the feeling it's more of a caretaker role and perhaps someone will come up with a better mousetrap. And that's just an impression. Does that answer your question? It does.

It's a good answer. Thank you, Marty, for your time and your service to the game in this country. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.