MSL NOTEBOOK : Coaches Wired for All-Star Game

For Socker Coach Ron Newman’s next trick, he will head the West team in the Major Soccer League All-Star Game Thursday in Baltimore and simultaneously lecture a quasi-national television audience on the game’s finer points.

Along with East assistant Billy Phillips of Dallas, Newman will wear a microphone and headset. In effect, the two coaches will join play-by-play guys John Paul Dellacamera and Ty Keough as commentators.

The game will be cablecast by SportsChannel America, which is not carried by any local cable companies. But it can be pirated off the satellite by anyone with a dish.

Jim Marooney, who will produce the game, said wiring the coaches is a first.

“It will give one coach a chance to explain why he is making a certain substitution, and the other coach can say: ‘Oh, yeah, well that’s good, because I’m going to send this guy out,’ ” Marooney said. “We’re going to have a four-way conversation between JP, Ty and the coaches. If JP asks Ron a question, the opposing coach is going to hear his answer.”

The coaches also will have a cut-off switch in case they don’t want to be heard.

“You could only do this in an all-star game,” Marooney said. “It’s a gimmick. I wouldn’t deny it’s a gimmick. We wouldn’t use this in a competitive situation. It’s fun. We’re trying to make the game more familiar to the fan, to personalize it.”

East Coach Trevor Dawkins of Cleveland won’t wear a mike because he’s uncomfortable with the arrangement.

Two days before the All-Star Game, the roster for the East team still is not set. Dallas Coach Gordon Jago on Monday informed the league that defenders Troy Snyder (shin injury) and Wes McLeod (pulled right calf muscle) will be unavailable.

Dawkins will decide on replacements today.

Also, Tacoma goalie Mike Dowler will replace Wichita’s Kris Peat (ligament damage in arm) on the West roster.

It was feared Wichita’s Dale Ervine (knee strain) also would miss the game, but doctors pronounced him fit on Monday.

With Ervine able to go, Newman can do something no other MSL All-Star coach could: Assemble a line of proven American goal scorers. Ervine leads the MSL with 34 goals, and West teammate Paul Wright of the Sockers is fourth with 31.

For the second consecutive year, the MSL will conduct its College Showcase game and draft during the All-Star break. The draft will be at 7 a.m. (PST) Friday, by which time Newman will be on his way back to San Diego for a game that night against Wichita.

The draft chores will go to the guy who up to this year was in charge of running youth camps and purchasing soccer balls from Ethiopia, Randy Bernstein, now executive vice president/general manager.

“We’ll just give him a list of players,” Newman said. “It’s not so important because we only have second- and fourth-round picks.”

Newman isn’t expecting much out of the draft, anyway, and said there is more talent on his Auto Trader reserve team than there will be in the Showcase game.

The draft and league salary structure actually hinders Newman in developing talent, the coach said. Rather than taking college players present for the Showcase game, Newman would prefer picking high school seniors, setting them up with scholarships to a local college, putting them on the Auto Trader reserve team and training them alongside current Sockers.

Paul Wright, drafted from Grossmont High, followed that path to the Sockers. But when the league started paring the salary cap, the union insisted all money go to rostered players. That effectively nixed Newman’s developmental squad.