Building the Pyramid – Part 3
By Murph at January 25, 2012 | 6:30 am | Print
Building the Pyramid – American Soccer is a multipart series looking at the current situation of the Beautiful Game in this country. Its impossible to see where we are without looking at how we got here and who was responsible for getting us there. Parts 1 and 2 of the series focused on the WHAT and WHY. In the next two parts of the series we will look st the WHO.
Why?
When I first began to look into lower division soccer in the United States, the part of the story that interested me the most is the “Who”.
It’s hard to do any research into American soccer without being at least a little surprised by some of the names involved. This part of the Series will break down some of the key players in lower division soccer and provide a bit of background. This is the “cast list” per se, to the grand tale that is American Soccer.
Lets begin with the USL. We looked briefly at the history of the USL in part one.
Francisco Marcos
The USL began in 1986 as the recently jobless former Tampa Bay Rowdies Public Relations Director Francisco Marcos, started an indoor league in the southwest with just five teams. Today the USL has more than 115 affiliate teams from Division 3 (USL PRO) through youth leagues. The Portugese born Marcos started in the business shortly after his college playing carreer ended. He founded the American International Sports Exchange, which arranged tours for US based teams in South America and Europe. The connections he made with these playing tours allowed him to help scout players for the 1973 NASL title winning Philadelphia Atoms and land him the PR job at the Rowdies. Marcos has become the elder statesman for lower division soccer in America and many interviews with this him can be readily fouind on the internet. He still holds a role in the USL, as President Emeritus and Senior Director of International Development.
Tim Holt
The current President of the USL, he joined USL as Director, USL First Division Operations in April 1999. He added the responsibilities of overseeing the operations of all USL senior leagues in November of 2002 and was named Vice President in 2004. He was promoted to United Soccer Leagues Board of Directors in 2007 and was named President of USL following the acquisition of USL by NuRock Soccer Holdings in August of 2009.
Holt served on the US Soccer Federation (USSF) Board of Directors from 2003-06, is currently the Men’s Professional Representative on the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) Board of Directors and has been co-chair of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup Committee the past two years after previously serving on the USSF Disciplinary Committee.
A product of the respected FC DELCO youth club in suburban Philadelphia, Holt also served as its Director of Tournaments in 1995 & 1996 organizing and operating a 200+ team national youth soccer tournament.
Holt attended Radnor High School and graduated from Penn State University and went on to earn his Masters Degree in Sport Administration at Florida State University.
NuRock Soccer Holdings
NuRock are the current majority owners of the USL which they purchased from Nike in 2009. NuRock is a real estate development company based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Nick Papadakis
Current CEO of the USL thru NuRock Soccer Holdings. Papadakis is a former Rowdie and franchise attorney.
As a player in the North American Soccer League for the Atlanta Chiefs and the Boston Minutemen where he finished his career in 1974.
His legal focus has been U.S. and European franchise transactions. In addition, Papadakis has practiced in the area of commercial real estate, acquisitions, development, financing, and leasing of real estate in the U.S. and in Europe.
Rob Hoskins
Chairman of NuRock holdings is a residential real estate developer. Little can be found about him personally other than his real estate career and holding company info
USL Owners
The USL also boasts some flamboyant and colorful owners. There would not be room in a thousand part series to do justice to them all. Suffice to say that just a little internet research with be rewarded with some enough entertaining reading to fill all your cold winter nights.
NASL
The NASL isn’t short of names or personality either. In fact it may have been the clash between personalities as much as the ideals that caused the USL/NASL split.
The next part of the Building the Pyramid series will focus on the “Who” in the NASL.
