A Top Woman Player Makes Hall of Fame
One month after the United States’ silver-medal victory in the Sydney Olympic Games, women’s soccer again holds center stage.
On Saturday afternoon, one of the greatest female players of all time, Carin Jennings Gabarra of Palos Verdes Estates, became only the second woman, after April Heinrichs, to be inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, N.Y.
The honor came at an appropriate time, only a few days after FIFA had announced the next Women’s World Cup will be played in China in 2003.
It was in China in 1991 that Gabarra, then Carin Jennings, a superbly gifted winger with dribbling moves that even the great Pele admired, was selected as the most valuable player at the first women’s world championship.
The “triple-edged sword” of Gabarra, Heinrichs and Michelle Akers, powered the U.S. to victory that year. Gabarra retired as a player after winning a gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and now is the women’s coach at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Md.
The former AYSO and UC Santa Barbara standout was nicknamed “Gumby” by her U.S. teammates, because she seemed able to bend and twist her legs in every direction while baffling opposing defenders.
She ended her career with 53 goals in 117 games for the U.S. and deservedly has reached the Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility.
Inducted alongside her Saturday was former North American Soccer League star Giorgio Chinaglia of the New York Cosmos.
WUSA TAKES SHAPE
On Thursday, the Women’s United Soccer Assn. (WUSA) will unveil the names and logos of the eight teams that will launch the professional league in April, as well identifying the stadiums where those teams will play.
The initial eight cities are Atlanta, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington D.C.
Before it commits itself to San Diego, however, WUSA might want to reconsider its Southern California location. Surely Orange County--and specifically Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Stadium--would be a far better venue.
For one thing, the 10,000-seat stadium is the perfect size. For another, the U.S. women’s national team has always drawn good crowds there. Finally, when the Galaxy completes its new stadium in Carson in 2002 and Los Angeles gains a WUSA team, a lively local rivalry could significantly boost the new league.
Two of the three U.S. players allocated to San Diego--Julie Foudy of Mission Viejo and Joy Fawcett of Rancho Santa Margarita--would rather play closer to home. For the third, Shannon MacMillan of Escondido, San Diego is just fine, of course.
Another choice: leave San Diego alone but move, say, the Orlando team to Orange County, thereby giving the league a better East-West balance. As it is, it’s unbalanced.
THE RIGHT STAFF
WUSA has not set a foot wrong so far in its quest to build a competitive league that will showcase the best of women’s soccer. Already, the league has attracted the attention of top foreign players.
One of WUSA’s wisest decisions was in luring Thom Meredith away from U.S. Soccer and making him one of the new league’s key administrators.
Meredith, who spent the last nine years with the federation, will serve as WUSA’s vice president of operations, a post that leaves him with the unenviable tasks of developing the league’s playing schedule, setting 20 game-day operational standards and organizing the player draft.
That draft will be conducted at the end of a player combine to be held in Boca Raton, Fla., Dec. 4-11.
By then, the eight WUSA teams will have their allocation of U.S. national team and foreign players and will be filling their rosters with top players from the college ranks or, more likely, from the W-League, which will act as a feeder league for WUSA.
Invitations to the combine have been sent to about 200 players by Lauren Gregg, former assistant coach on the women’s national team and now WUSA’s vice president of player relations.
THE FOREIGN LEGION
On Monday, WUSA will hold its first foreign player allocation draft, with the eight teams selecting in the following order: Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Boston, Washington D.C. and San Diego.
Among the players available are three from Norway’s gold-medal winning team at Sydney: playmaker Hege Riise, goalkeeper Bente Nordby and defender Gro Espeseth, as well as Ann Kristin Aarones, a standout forward on Norway’s 1995 world championship team.
Also in line to be drafted are goalkeeper Ulrika Karlsson and left-side defender Kristin Bengttson, both of Sweden, as well midfielder-forward Charmaine Hooper of Canada and forward Kelly Smith of England.
DiCICCO’S ROLE
Tony DiCicco has a record unsurpassed among U.S. coaches in any sport. As coach of the U.S. women’s national team, he compiled a 103-8-8 mark and won both a world championship and an Olympic gold medal.
Now, he is serving as acting commissioner of WUSA, but the tug of coach is still strong.
“I’d love to do both [run the league and coach],” DiCicco told Soccer America magazine, “but if they offer me the commissioner’s position, I’ll take it.”
WUSA should ignore DiCicco’s coaching wishes and offer him the post. Anything less would be a huge error. So far, only three WUSA coaches have been named, all of them men. They are:
* Tom Stone, most recently the director of coaching for the Colorado Rush soccer club and a color analyst for Major League Soccer’s Colorado Rapids. Stone will coach Atlanta.
* Jay Hoffman, an assistant under DiCicco on the 1999 U.S. Women’s World Cup team and coach of the U.S. under-18 team that won the gold medal at the 1999 Pan American Games in Canada. Hoffman will coach Boston.
* Jim Gabarra, who coached the U.S. women during their national indoor tour last fall. The husband of new Hall of Fame member Carin Jennings Gabarra, he will coach Washington.
