The Life Before This One, Hall of Fame

Inside the Tropicana there was an area set up for the three of us to receive our award and give a little speech. When the other two spoke I was referred to as The Godfather of indoor soccer. I was a little ruthless to competitors. I don't think a competitor in any city we went into survived. Gary Archer who I handpicked to replace me when I retired after 20 something years gave a little speech about me before it was my turn. Was emotional. He spoke a little of my life before even this one. He said I was a table tennis champion and I was. I rode competitive trials and helped put on the world championship. Before MMA I fought in karate tournaments. I got kicked out of the US Intermountain in Salt Lake at the Salt Palace for being out of control. My mom was there. Was embarrassing. I fought in the World Championships in Long Beach and while Gary said I kicked Chuck Norris ass, actually I was eliminated in the round before I would have fought Chuck. I wasn't too disappointed as the guy that beat me got sent into the sixth row of metal chairs by Mr. Norris. Seems like there were a couple other things but I'm old and don't remember. Gary said his family had an indoor soccer facility in Tucson and the family had met about closing down. I showed up, wanted to be their partner, we'd share equity, I'd inject money, and show them how to run the place. His fauther retired four years later. He was emotional about it. Gary worked 100 hour weeks like I did, sometimes closer to 120 hour weeks. Lived in the buildings. Total commitment. He was good.

When you pick somebody to replace you usually they are all humble when you hand over the keys but it's not long before they start bad mouthing you because the job they inherited is way more difficult than they thought and blaming you who can't fight back is the best option that it's your fault. Probably 15 years after I handed the job over I met someone inside the company I hadn't seen inside the company in all that time. I ask how Gary was doing and he says Gary tells people to this day he's doing his best to fill some big shoes. I picked the right guy. I spoke briefly and mostly spoke of the hard work it takes and the family of people and Let's Play. This company is almost 40 years old. Companies don't make it to 40 years. This one did because these are the people that are the Haydukers of the indoor soccer world. The ones that have hearts so big they don't fit in their chests.

I got lucky meeting them one at a time and they all made contributions above and beyond. Gary runs the company now and is the best steward it could have and as good a friend as their is.

It's time to go home. My friend is waiting for me to go hiking.

The Life Before this One, Tampa

We stayed at the Hilton and ask people where the mixer of sorts was Tuesday evening. They said at Tropicana Field where the Rays play six or eight blocks away. As we'd run across soccer people on the way over I noticed a few things. I was about the only one with a hat on, only one with boots, and the only one with a canteen.

We got to the Rays stadium and they said the mixer was at the Hilton. Somebody calls somebody and a Uber guy shows up and takes us to the Hilton who says the mixer is across the street at the Tampa Bay Rowdies soccer stadium so we walk over there and run into Chuck the guy who's running the whole show and use to work for us at Let's Play. We walk into the stadium and I start looking for people I know not really expecting to find anyone. It's been 18 years since I worked inside Let's Play. I find several.

The Life Before This One Called Me

Earlier this year I got a call from the life before this one. They ssaid I had been inducted into the Indoor Soccer Hall of Fame. I didn't know there was one. Would I come to the convention in Tampa and attend the ceremony? I emailed Heather and said look what I got. I don't really want to leave here. She said "Dad we're going to have so much fun." The flight from Moab, four hours late was on Contour Airlines, to Phoenix, where Heather would meet me for the rest of the journey. Contour said we'd me leaving at 7pm but we were still on the ground at 7pm. At some point we lifted off. As I was getting on the plane I saw this sign.

In the past when I parked at the airport but not for quite a few years, it always had said short term parking on one side of the sign and long term on the other side. This had me a little nervous. Scan, what the hell is that. A text will take me the whole flight. Heather knew I wouldn't do well in the real world so she had the whole trip planned out and she tried to speak my language. When I got off the flight in Phoenix, Heather called me and she didn't say go this gate or that one she said "Hike toward the sun." Then when we found each other she said "Follow me we got to catch our flight to Dallas."Then on the hike to the next gate she was calling people saying "I found him."In time we got to Tampa.

Heather rented a truck so I'd feel a little closer to home. Ir wasn't a Ford but once I spray painted Ford on it I felt better. Heather wanted to buy some food for our time here so we went to Trader Joe's which had a bunch of young employees running around appearing not to do anything. I couldn't find a single thing I recognized as food.

The Cactus are Blooming

The Life Before This One

I had a large hotel I bought at foreclosure in San Diego from Mitsui Bank. One day at Villas Chapultepec I interviewed a woman to be the marketing director. I had previously gone around to the pro teams, Padres, Chargers, and San Diego Sockers and told them I knew it would take me two or three years to fill the place up so in the meantime if they wanted to impress someone they could put them up at Villas Chapultepec. The Padres used me, the Chargers used me, the Sockers abused me. I hired Shari and she said she saw a lot of the Socker's players on the property. She asked if I knew her dad who workd with the Sockers and I did not. One day Russ came to pick her up after work. We talked, found out we both grew up in Salt Lake City, not too far from each other, and about the same age. We became friends and one day we went around and he showed me some skating rinks he had in San Diego and on weekends he would roll turf out and run indoor soccer leagues.

In time, since we both had daughters we spoke of girls in some states like Utah weren't getting college scholarships. They could only play when weather permitted while girls in Florida, Texas, and California were getting all the scholorships and the talent gap was obvious since they played year round. We found a piece of dirt in El Cajon by the airport and speedway, rented it, built a field and started running indoor soccer. We put up a second location in San Diego and another at an abandoned ice skating rink in Salt Lake City. After a year or two Russ said he had cancer so I bought him out and brought a few more people in as partners. Then it became my life.

I went on the road for years looking for locations for new facilities bur we weren't going to rent anymore. We own the location or we don't do the deal. Tucson, Midland, Five in Salt Lake, three in Denver, Colorado Springs, Boise, Wichita, OKC......I slept in the buildings, in the bleachers, on the desk. whatever worked. I was working 100 hour weeks for years and years. It would take a couple years to get profitable but by year five at the latest we had gotten all our money back and were making $100,000 plus a year, sometimes up to $1,000,000 a year. Plus, our real estate was going up. At first I would drive into a town like Houston, map it out, make my route all right hand turns so I didn't have to wait for stop lights. I spent 13 days and drove every street, every block. The owner of the pro team had ask me to find a facility so they could practice as they were currently in the garage of the Astro Dome and that garage had poles. Imagine playing soccer or hockey with poles in the middle of the arena. After 13 days I couldn't find a single building I liked.

I called the owner of the team and told him the bad news. He ask me to come visit. I went up to the top maybe 14th floor and we talked. He ask why we don't just build one. I told him I didn't have the experience. He said he did. He had built the building we were in. I would find the dirt and design it. He would contact his vendors and ask them to build it for cost and he would sell it to me for cost but he got to practice for free. Now I was dangerious. I could buy used buildings, build new buildings, and take over existing ones owned by others. Plus I now knew what everything cost. When I went to Austin next the builder there said concrete was five bucks a foot, but I new it was three bucks. I built locations for hundreds of thousands of dollars less then the appraisal would come in. I would pull into town and if I was going to have a competitor I'd spend a few days in their bleachers watching games trying to decide how much work it was going to be to run them out of business. Sometimes I'd offer to merge but it was really a purchase. Sometimes I would just build and outwork them until they were gone.

Haydukers

Three more Haydukers came through and I was so busy I've lost their trail names. Probably be the last three until fall. Part of the Hayduke goes through the Grand Canyon and it gets unbearably hot if you're not through there by start of summer. For hear we move into the 90's next week.