RON : NEWMAN : Some Call His Sport Boring, But No One Accuses Coach of That

Ron Newman kept a straight face when he said he used to be as big in Miami as Don Shula.

He was talking about eight years ago, long before Dan Marino, and a newspaper war was then in progress in South Florida. Soccer news was hot. Newman, who couldn’t visit a restaurant without receiving a complimentary bottle of wine, had several press conferences a week to fill the demand for stuff on the Fort Lauderdale Strikers.

This same Ron Newman, older and more cynical but no less hopeful, was outraged this winter when he visited Dallas and not a single reporter called him for a story. He didn’t claim he was bigger in Dallas than Tom Landry, but he did assert he had made soccer in that town in the early 1970s, and what thanks did he receive?

“I spent seven years there and won a championship,” Newman said recently as he sipped a glass of white wine and enjoyed a plate of fish. “Christ, I started soccer in Dallas. I orchestrated the whole, bloody show. And nobody remembers me.”

Newman is similarly upset that his current team, the Sockers, will not be visible on local TV as it seeks a fourth straight indoor championship, beginning tonight against the Kansas City Comets.

Displaying a keen understanding of the dynamics of television and television watchers, Newman delivered a little diatribe.

“It’s hard to imagine we won’t be on TV here (in the quarterfinals), but we don’t have sponsors,” he said. “I suppose the Padres have sucked up all the sponsors. That’s business.”

Newman has a dark view of television.

“Americans will watch anything,” he said. “They are manipulated so easily. There is so much hype.

“It’s like you can’t afford not to watch baseball or football or you will be branded. OK. But professional wrestling? Tractor pulls? Come on. It really isn’t individual sports in competition. It comes down to hype.”

Still, he can’t resist the lure of the tube, either. He’s no better than the rest of us, it turns out.

“People believe I’m a soccer nut, but I won’t watch a match if I don’t know the background of the players. I have to be titillated into watching teams I know. I mean, given the choice of watching two South American teams, I’d rather watch Dynasty , or some rubbish like it,” Newman said.

Playoffs, franchises and leagues come and go. The fortunes of soccer in America rise and fall. Guys with funny names and undervalued skills get scant attention. If there is a constant, it is the presence of Ron Newman. The wit and the brazen optimism of Ron Newman.

He is probably the most successful unknown coach in American professional sports. Mention Newman’s name outside San Diego and you are likely to receive a blank stare. Even transplanted Europeans with a love for old-world soccer are likely to scorn the Americanized version of the game, thus reducing the Newman recognition factor.

Newman’s achievements are impressive. He ranks as the winningest coach in American outdoor soccer with 208 victories, two championships and is a two-time coach of the year. Indoors, he has won three straight championships. His indoor playoff record is 19-2.

He would like to be named Coach of the Year for 1985, but doesn’t expect the honor. He is a victim of the Casey Stengel syndrome.

“I’m expected to win now,” Newman said. “With lads like Branko Segota and Steve Zungul, how can I fail?”

Newman said he would prefer to be an underdog for a change. Being on top, he has discovered, is difficult. “You’re always on the knife edge,” he said.

The Sockers are less on the knife edge than the sport in general.

For that, Newman blames the big-money interests in this country. In a catchall theory that smacks of a giant conspiracy to waste the sport, Newman said:

“Outdoor soccer was getting to be very big in the late 1970s. I can remember the need for police dogs down on the field at Fort Lauderdale. And they were drawing big crowds in New York.

“But outside forces knocked it down. Somewhere along the line the big money in this country decided they didn’t want this sport to be so popular. I may be talking a load of crap, but I just don’t see any other explanation of how the game could go backward so fast.

“It became popular to write negatively in the press about soccer. It got to be like a run on the bank. Like the run on the Ohio savings and loans not long ago. I don’t know all that happened, but the lights just went out on soccer when the rich got nervous. We just never got the big TV contract we needed.”

As the fortunes of soccer have ebbed, Newman has worked with the passion of an evangelist to hype the sport. It doesn’t seem to make a great deal of difference, but he isn’t dissuaded from his mission.

“If I gave up every time the stuff hits the post, I never would have lasted in soccer,” he said. “I believe the sport is going to grow in America. It’s going to evolve. But it can’t be force-fed.”

Newman believes the day isn’t too far off when the United States can be competitive in the World Cup, and he would like to be the coach of the national team. Perhaps in 1986.

He may make it. But not at the pace he maintained the past three years, coaching year-round, indoor and out. For the mental well-being of Newman and the financial well-being of owner Bob Bell, the Sockers will forego outdoor play in 1985.

“I did get jaded,” Newman admitted. “For a long time I was an advocate of playing indoor and outdoor. I was convinced you could manage it. I just couldn’t get enough.

“But later I realized you just could not be really successful at both. It was after we beat Baltimore for the MISL title in 1983. My players were fatigued, but it was time to start outdoor.

“I recall going to the airport and thinking to myself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ There wasn’t time to savor what we had done.”

This summer, win or lose, Newman will have a bit of time to himself. Time to reflect, if he is so inclined, on the changes in his team over the past year.

Newman’s desire to be named Coach of the Year is not altogether unreasonable when you consider the massive change in personnel over the past 12 months.

Newman orchestrated the restructuring of the team, dispatching Julie Veee and Alan Mayer, among others. “I felt we needed new, fresh blood,” the coach said. “We needed a new feeling of excitement.

“You can win too much, you know. Some of our players had. We wanted lads new to winning to pull the others along. That has revitalized the team. The things I say sound fresh now. The players haven’t heard it all before.”

Newman probably is capable of saying something even he hasn’t heard before. Something that combines insight and hype, like most of his pronouncements. Too bad it’s wasted on soccer.

Oops.

It seems a basketball coach, Cotton Fitzsimmons, said something in that vein recently.

“We’re all conceited (naughty word) in sports, me included,” Newman said. “But where does this Cotton Fitzsimmons come off saying he couldn’t understand how soccer could drive basketball out of Kansas City? He said soccer isn’t even a real sport.

“I’ve been tempted to say things like that about your games for a long time. Tell me, how can people go and watch basketball? They just do the same thing over and over. Boring.”

No one ever accused Newman of that sin.