The Long Game

A locker room is the province of urgent language and do-or-die statements. Salty caveats. Unmistakable messages. And often, the words your mother would rather you never use.

Yet this is the pregame language that animates Richmond Kickers Coach David Bulow moments before his team takes the pitch in its June 1 face-off with the North Texas Soccer Club of Frisco, Texas.

Although he’s the Kickers’ lead motivator and sideline strategist, Bulow, a former Richmond Kickers player himself, cuts the figure of an athlete. Rangy and fit, almost 6 feet tall, he looks as if he should still be in the game, not just watching expectantly. He stays upright and alert and looks younger than his 39 years, with short, curly dark hair, a few freckles and intense, focused eyes.

Bulow calls his team to the front of the locker room before the game and quickly assesses the opposing North Texas club as formidable, given their possession of several top players in the Kickers’ league — the USL League One, two steps down from the premier stage of USL soccer. [The club this year stepped down from the league’s second-tier USL (USL2), citing financial realities — the franchise fees in higher levels of soccer run in the single millions of dollars, a tough nut to crack for a team in a mid level city.]

These moments before the game are Bulow’s last chance to infuse a game plan into his young team, a collection of five returning players and 22 new recruits. The players are all fresh-faced, if stubbly, many barely college-aged and all still gifted with the spring of adolescence.

Bulow challenges the team’s starting players to exploit the relative inexperience of their younger opponents, to communicate defensive switches quickly and to challenge the North Texas ball handlers by collapsing on them with a pocket of relentless pressure. Use positional smarts, he adds, to move their defenders and generate opportunities to attack.

“Those kids don’t know how to deal with you!” he says, adding, “We can create a chance every f---in’ time if we do it right.”

Bulow delivers his message with a litany of scenarios and cautions, like a parent about to send his kids off to school on a big day. He cites the performance of one Kickers practice squad as a final admonition: “Play with the intensity and passion the red team played with all week.”

Once his 11 starting players take the field, Bulow is relegated to the sidelines, where he sometimes jumps from the team’s stadium seats to exhort his players or to address a referee in protest.

 A New Approach

A coach’s job largely is an exercise of waiting and watching, with fury, frustration or pride.

“I don’t get to pass the ball,” Bulow says the day before the match with North Texas. Thus, he expresses acceptance of his patience-testing job. He says his vision is to indoctrinate his players into a style combining strategy and athleticism, hallmarks of his days as a player.

“The club that I played for 10 years ago was lots of attacking, entertaining, winning soccer,” he says. “It’s the most fun to watch on any level, so I wanted to make sure I had that blueprint.”

Bulow, originally from Denver, was an attacking midfielder during a pro career that took him to teams all over the United States and in Northern Ireland. As a Kickers player in 2007, Bulow scored 25 goals in 51 appearances and helped lead the team to a USL2 championship.

On the first night of June, however, the game will not go the Kickers’ way, which is the case more often than not this season. They lose 3-0 to a team that ranks high in their league and comes from a hotbed of American soccer. One of its top players is 16-year-old Ricardo Pepi, a forward whose size and prolific goal scoring presage his eventual path to bigger stadiums.

In fact, North Texas serves as the reserve team for FC Dallas of Major League Soccer (MLS).

The results of this one game, of course, do little to tell the deeper story of what is happening within the belly of the Richmond Kickers organization.

It’s possible that Richmond has never seen its pro soccer team, the sport’s longest continuously operating franchise in the United States, transform so dramatically. So much this year is new and different from almost everything that preceded it, including its most shining years of winning, just a memory for now.

Earlier this year, the Kickers took on new ownership, a group of six partners — 22 Holdings LLC — that is orchestrating a disciplined business overhaul and rebranding. The company bought the major interest from Richmond Kickers Youth Soccer, which previously ran the club and continues to operate as a minority owner. In April, Richmond BizSense reported that the new Kickers organization launched a capital campaign to raise more than $2 million in equity funding. Certainly, the money will help support the club’s 40-year lease agreement with the city of Richmond, signed in 2016, in which the Kickers agreed to $20 million in upgrades to their 90-year-old stadium.

The financial and entrepreneurial muster of 22 Holdings comes with a winning sample of soccer DNA. Including Richmond’s Rob Ukrop, the company’s chair, the ownership group comprises five of his former Davidson College teammates who were part of a team that made an epic run to collegiate soccer’s Final Four in 1992.  None of the team’s players were on a scholarship, and in this new venture that can-do spirit seems to embolden the Kickers’ top brass as well.

Following his auspicious career at Davidson, Ukrop began playing professional soccer in 1993, returning to Richmond to play for the Kickers in their first season. His career took him to six other pro clubs, including a stint with MLS’ New England Revolution. But ultimately Ukrop sealed his reputation as RVA’s golden boy of soccer by returning to the Kickers in 1996 and playing for the team until his 2004 retirement. Along the way, he earned the club’s records for career goals and assists, among other accolades.

Ukrop’s playing career gave way to his role as a coach for the Kickers’ youth soccer program, the cash cow of the organization. Now he is a lead player in the Kickers’ attempt to flip the script from being a youth soccer program that owns a pro team to being a pro team that offers development programs for kids.

“It’s not a startup,” says Kickers President Matt Spear, “it’s a turnaround.” Spear was one of Ukrop’s Davidson teammates, and the former team captain eventually followed his on-field career by becoming their alma mater’s soccer coach for 18 years. Now he works in the Kickers’ front office, merging game-day knowledge and business acumen.

Starting From Scratch

Whether it means fresh paint around the stadium, resurfaced parking lots or amenities for soccer-fan families, the new ownership’s efforts have been steady and calculated. It’s as much about philosophy and process as it is about appearance and bean counting, Spear notes.

The Kickers now fly a flag that encapsulates what they are hoping to be within and without: “Joyful. Authentic. United.”

For the soccer fans who see only as far as the action on the stadium’s field, they may miss the major reshuffle that will — by way of process and goal-setting — transform the Kickers beyond their biggest days yet.

And it’s early days still.

In the 25-year timeline of the Richmond Kickers, Bulow has been the team’s head coach, by comparison, just long enough for a cup of coffee. And yet he has been an agent of its biggest change, perhaps in the team’s existence. Midway through the 2018 season, just before the Kickers underwent their top-to-bottom overhaul, Bulow took over from longtime head coach Leigh Colishaw, who led the team for 19 seasons. And then he began a major transfusion of fresh talent to the roster.

“It’s a completely new group from last year,” Bulow says of his 2019 team. “I knew that with releasing everybody from their contracts at the end of the year, there’s always going to be — you have to start from scratch. I predated the ownership change as well, so all the responsibilities were on me. That was going to be daunting just because I’d never done it before.”

Kickers Assistant Coach Mika Elovaara says their recruitment of 22 new players zeroed in on a principle: Put the person before the performer.

In the scouting and recruitment process, beginning last year, Elovaara and Bulow conducted multiple interviews with candidates, doing their best to understand players for their lives on and off the field.

The result is a roster that combines a mosaic of players coming to Richmond from all over the United States — Ohio, California, Pennsylvania — and other points abroad. Goalkeeper Akira Fitzgerald’s hometown is Chiba, Japan. Three of the team’s players — Amass Amankona, Wahab Ackwei and Charles Boateng — come from Ghana. Dennis Chin, a captain and fan favorite — Bulow calls him Chinny — hails from Kingston, Jamaica.

A handful are local products as well. Sam Moore and Justin Grove are Richmond natives, while Eli Locakaby and Greg Boehme played for Virginia Commonwealth University.

Boosting Professionalism

Elovaara notes that one critical change to the mindset of the Kickers franchise was a top-down decision to boost the professionalism of the roster by enabling players to have the financial and career support to live more squarely in their roles as footballers.

At the USL League One level, players may juggle second jobs, including fitness training or coaching gigs, to afford their dream of playing on a pro team.

This fact is not lost on Conor Shanosky, a Virginia native and five-year Kickers veteran. The defender and 10-year pro athlete says he’s encouraged by the front office’s organizational changes and emphasis on professionalism, which has had a galvanizing effect on the team.

Shanosky is among the Kickers players who coach young athletes in private sessions, and he’s also pursuing his real estate license, a nod to the need for a Plan B beyond soccer.

“The reality is, there’s a lot of other stuff that goes hand in hand with playing,” he says, “and balancing a professional career in terms of supplemental income … and figuring out plans for the off-season.”

Elovaara says the team’s front office has made a concerted effort to scale the salaries of players to match experience and critical roles on the field, but the assistant coach says sometimes the lower-paid players are some of the most selfless, ambitious and humble because they are dedicated to the dream of playing.

“For us as coaches, our role is to ensure that everybody feels that they have a role on the team,” he says.

As the rebranding of the club targets a deeper engagement in the Richmond community — building relationships well beyond the stadium — there is an extensive internal culture change being led by Ukrop, Spear and the coaches to cultivate openness and a positive working chemistry.

Shanosky says he has inherited something of a liaison role on the team because, as a player, he has known Bulow the longest and once shared the field with him. He uses this familiarity to help convey the meanings and methods of Bulow’s coaching to his newer teammates.

On their practice days, and even before pregame huddles, a vibe of team cohesion brims from the Kickers’ locker room. A visitor gets the impression that it is clearly the team’s safe zone, where all the players’ personalities are on display and relaxed.

There is always noise — blaring music or Major League Soccer games running on flat screens — but the sounds are often, as the Kickers’ tagline says, joyful. This is a happy team.

During a break in interviews moments earlier, the team’s communications director, Patrick Wood, remarks, “I’ve been with the Kickers since 2009, so I’ve seen a lot of teams. This is the best chemistry I’ve seen within a team.”

As Bulow steps away to take another interview, down the hall the locker room erupts with cheering and laughter from the team as they conduct one of their weekly rituals, Fine Court.

This is where players face financial penalties for team infractions: being late to training, leaving equipment out, failure to file a daily wellness report due by 9 a.m. and more.

In administrative terms, Fine Court is a system of accountability. But Bulow cites its bigger value, which is camaraderie and cohesion.

All the charged players, their offenses and their fines are listed by Elovaara on a whiteboard. Then the docket is followed by “the Supreme Court,” comprising all of the team captains. The charged player has an opportunity to wheedle his way out of the crime if he pleads “not guilty.” But then he has to face Bulow, the “lead prosecutor,” as well as other coaches. If found guilty, then he spins the wheel, a miniature Wheel of Fortune (or misfortune) that has consequences written on the pie slices. The spinning of the wheel elicits the most outcry or laughter when a $45 fine is doubled by the wheel’s verdict, or when a player has to bring breakfast for the team and staff, or is directed to pay their fine to Ray, a Kickers staffer.

Yes, it can help curb bad behavior, Wood says, but really, “It’s good fun.”

After Fine Court concludes, the locker room doors open, and the mood lightens even more. The day is done; tomorrow is game time. Bulow’s two small children, his constant tagalongs, begin running in and out of the players’ space. The athletes laugh and taunt the boys, Aaron, 2, and Cameron, 4, who kick a soccer ball down the hall, perhaps reenacting what they see on the field. Bulow chases them and joins in the playful shouting. The family aura pervades the room.

The sense of community within its team and beyond is something the Kickers organization takes seriously, with attempts to refresh the venue — adding colorful murals to the stadium, a moon bounce for kids, a beer garden and tailgating spaces for fans — and the encouragement of as much player-fan interaction as possible, especially since games may leave attendees feeling jilted by yet another loss or draw.

The Raucous Red

In the goal-end curve of City Stadium’s Section O, the drums never stop, along with the chanting and cheering of several dozen or more red-shirted Kickers fans known as the Red Army.

Here you smell beer and sweat and the occasional smoke bomb, which plumes above the stands when both teams take to the pitch.

This is the where the noise happens, with a bit of wit and a few pinches of salt thrown in over the continual pounding of multiple drums. Flags wave like it’s a small revolution.

This is the home base of the raucous Red Army, and if you are confused about where you are, don’t worry — they will tell you.

“We are the Red Army!

“This is Section O!

“We stand!

“We sing!

“We shout!

 “It’s what we’re about!”

In the recent history of the club, particularly the last six years, the Red Army has transformed the stands into a scene of community and ritual that attends its team dutifully with gritty passion and a helping of forgiving love.

Richard Hayes is one of six de facto ringleaders of the Army, and he explains that it originated when one fan, R.P. Kirkland, sought to engage the Kickers to create an experience for die-hard fans like himself.

“He basically talked to [the Kickers] and said, ‘We could bring in more of these hard-core soccer fans into the fold, and to do that, just give us a little more free rein to tailgate and things like that.’

“We kind of formed the Red Army after that, and it’s been going strong ever since.”

Hayes and his wife, Page, who usually plays one of the drums, are regulars at Kickers home games, along with a roster of other fan friends they’ve made over the years.

“A good majority of us just love the sport of soccer,” he says, “and this is our local team, so it’s our chance to grow the sport and become a part of the team in our backyard. … We see these players in town, and we know them from the neighborhoods they live in. … We really feel that we’re part of the success — and failure — of the team.”

The coaches, he says, “are very welcoming to the idea of a fan culture, and they know what we bring to the game is valuable to the team.”

It’s not uncommon for Kickers players, he adds, to approach the stands after games to chat with the fans.

That intimate connection between fans and their team does not always prevent frustration, of course. Hayes admits that the Kickers’ goal drought this year has strained the Red Army’s sense of optimism.

As of mid July, the Kickers were last in USL League One standings. The disappointment is visceral for Kickers fans, Hayes says, given the fact of the team’s move to USL League One this year. “There’s some grumbling,” Hayes says, “but OK, at the end of the day, we’re still with the team.”

A Community Asset

Spear notes that the Kickers have several mantras to guide the club’s outreach to fans and the Richmond community at large, while keeping the business focused. They commit to “being a great community asset, being a good civic partner and being very externally motivated.

“What I think is we’ll have a better business model as a result,” he says. It’s a high-touch strategy about interacting with fan groups, institutions and partners.

He adds, “Gradually, over the next few months, over the next year or two, we’ll earn a little bit more trust in the city community. … You know, we’re kind of like a hidden asset, even though we’ve been around 27 years. It hasn’t been marketed that hard. Or people, when they think of [the] Kickers, they think of youth soccer.”

To reintroduce the pro organization to Richmonders, Ukrop and Spear leaned on — and hired — their former Davidson College coach, Charlie Slagle, who moved from Florida to take the job as the team’s director of community engagement. He was a storied soccer coach at Davidson and was inducted into its athletics hall of fame.

Sadly, Slagle’s involvement in Richmond was short-lived: He died suddenly in early July, leaving a bruise on the heart of the club.

Despite the loss of Slagle, the club remains committed to engaging specific demographics identified by 22 Holdings’ market research. They note Richmond’s 2017 ranking by Time magazine as the second most popular destination for millennials, who make up 65 percent of the nation’s soccer fans. The region’s growing Latino population signals another community attracted to soccer.

Ukrop says outreach to these local groups through marketing promotions and civic events are key ways the Kickers are looking to spread their message of being “an others-oriented community,” a place that is welcoming to all.

Gaze into the crystal ball of the not-so-distant future, and it’s possible to see professional soccer in Richmond — if the research of 22 Holdings holds true — as the ascendant fan favorite in town.

If the Kickers eventually rehab the now-unused east side of City Stadium, as they have announced plans to do, and find their path to the goal with regularity, the rowdy Red Army could be the go-to fan experience in town.

Ukrop demurs, of course. Richmond’s dominant sport is basketball, with Virginia Commonwealth University commanding the largest and most fervent fanbase in the region, he notes. And the Richmond Flying Squirrels, with their strong presence and community engagement, he says, offer more of a lead to follow than a category to kill. “Our goal is to be recognized like those two entities yet be respected for what we do on the field,” he says.

On the field, of course, is the most conspicuous measure of any club’s success. The early June game against North Texas left the team looking worn and dejected. Afterward, Bulow and Elovaara joined their players on the  field and crossed shoulders in a huddle. It was hard to hear Bulow’s points of consolation to the team, but his tone sounded supportive, enthusiastic.

Bulow was barely audible, because — nearly five minutes after the score was settled — the raucous Red Army was still at it, banging and chanting.

The game was over, but the drums didn’t stop.