<\/p>\n
The four members of the mythical Mount\u00a0Rushmore of Dallas soccer (from left to right): Lamar Hunt, Kyle Rote\u00a0Jr, Tatu and Gordon Jago.<\/p>\n
Photos\/Getty Images, DMN files; Michael Hogue\/Staff Artist<\/p>\n
With the world in town for a peek at the beautiful game, it seems as good a time as any to dig out our soccer bona fides. No need to be shy. The game wasn\u2019t born in Dallas, but if it weren\u2019t for someone who grew up here<\/a> and a few of his pals, soccer might not be much more than a Saturday morning ritual this side of the pond.<\/p>\n Once you get right down to it, Lamar Hunt<\/a>, Kyle Rote Jr., Gordon Jago and Tatu probably did more for soccer in Texas and Dallas, in particular, than any quartet did for any sport, including the state religion. \u00a0<\/p>\n Look at it this way: Hunt founded a professional football league as well as one of the NFL\u2019s marquee franchises <\/a>and remains a giant in the game two decades after his death. But, even if he hadn\u2019t, we\u2019d still have football. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Not for nothing, on the other hand, do they call him \u201cthe Father of American Soccer.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Hunt would head a casting call for any Mount Rushmore of soccer icons in the U.S., where its national championship cup bears his name, so he was an easy pick for our Dallas foursome, which is strictly local. Mia Hamm, the greatest female player ever? Got her first kicks in Wichita Falls. No one has scored more goals for the U.S. Men\u2019s National Team than Clint Dempsey, but he\u2019s from Nacogdoches. \u00a0<\/p>\n Richardson is close enough. Carla Overbeck co-captained the 1999 USWNT and won an Olympic gold medal in \u201896. J.J. Pearce\u2019s Jeff Agoos played in two World Cups, won five MLS Cup titles and, like Hamm, Dempsey and Overbeck, is in the National Soccer Hall of Fame. \u00a0<\/p>\n Which is in Frisco, by the way.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n For that matter, Little Elm\u2019s Weston McKennie<\/a> is the engine for the latest USMNT baiting history. \u00a0<\/p>\n As deserving as all of the above may be, though, they stand on the shoulders of Hunt, Jago, Rote and Tatu, each of whom played an outsized role in birthing, popularizing or sustaining soccer in North Texas. Even the nation. They came first, then and now. \u00a0<\/p>\n The dreamer<\/p>\n Lamar Hunt didn\u2019t know much about soccer growing up in Highland Park or a Pennsylvania boarding school as an heir to one of the world\u2019s great fortunes, but he was a quick convert<\/a>. After watching England beat Germany for its first and only World Cup title in 1966, he was so enraptured by the scene he figured it was time to see if it would play over here. \u00a0<\/p>\n And when he decided to get into something, he didn\u2019t just dip a toe. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Within a year, Hunt and Bill McNutt of Corsicana founded the Dallas Tornado, and, before its second year, the Tornado embarked on a seven-month, worldwide tour that, as I wrote in 2014, \u201cconsumed 25,000 miles, 19 countries, five continents, 45 games and a serious bite from a family fortune.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel it not only will give our young players invaluable experience at the international soccer level,\u201d Hunt said before the adventure kicked off, \u201cbut also will serve as a great goodwill instrument for both Dallas and the United States.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n As a warm-up for their second go, it didn\u2019t do much. The Tornado won two games in their first NASL season. But, as a \u201cgoodwill instrument,\u201d it was gangbusters. \u00a0<\/p>\n Until the Tornado and Houston Stars came along in the late \u201860s, soccer in Texas was the province of immigrants who\u2019d entered the state by way of Galveston. Texas and Baylor attempted a college league and failed. Military bases kicked it around a little. In the \u201930s, the U.S. Soccer Football Federation sanctioned north-south zones in Texas as well as state tournaments. None of it lasted.<\/p>\n Hunt\u2019s determination and fortune \u2014 he and McNutt reportedly lost $20 million over the Tornado\u2019s 15-year existence \u2014 gave soccer the toehold it needed in Texas. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Because of the Tornado, which competed in the NASL until 1981, kids in North Texas grew up watching, then playing. Pros such as Bobby Moffat and Kenny Cooper Sr. put down roots, then put on clinics that built a farm system. Hunt handled the rest. \u00a0<\/p>\n Before his death at 74 in 2006, he would influence the creation of the MLS; own MLS teams in three cities; build the nation\u2019s first soccer-only stadium in Columbus, Ohio; and, in 1994, help bring the World Cup to the U.S. <\/a>For his tireless missionary efforts, he received countless accolades, including the U.S. Soccer Association\u2019s Lifetime Achievement Award.<\/p>\n Brad Sham, who earned his chops broadcasting Tornado games before moving on to the Rangers and Cowboys, made a succinct case for his old boss.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no professional soccer presence in Dallas,\u201d he said, \u201cwithout Lamar Hunt. His vision results in everything that\u2019s happened, from two World Cups to all of the pros to the National Soccer Hall of Fame in\u00a0Frisco.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n The shooting star\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n When Kyle Rote Jr., broke a leg in an Oklahoma State football practice the summer before his freshman year in 1968, he told one of college football\u2019s all-time greats that he was thinking about changing sports. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t feel like you have to follow in my footsteps,\u201d Kyle Rote Sr., replied. \u201cYou make your own footsteps. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cJust because you carry my name, you don\u2019t have to do the same thing I did.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Given his old man\u2019s blessing, Rote transferred to the University of the South, having never seen its Sewanee, Tenn., campus. He went because his best friend back in Highland Park played soccer there, and he figured he\u2019d have fun. He did more than that.<\/p>\n Before retiring from the sport in 1980, he\u2019d lead the NASL in scoring his rookie year with the Tornado and become America\u2019s first native-born soccer star at a time when the sport was trying to elbow its way into pro sports\u2019 big four. \u00a0<\/p>\n Rote\u2019s celebrity, as well as the family name, earned him an invitation to compete on ABC-TV’s Superstars. Think America\u2019s Got Talent, only with pro athletes. He won three of the first four years over a field of competitors far more famous. By the time he retired his crown, he was a household name. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cAll of a sudden he had a name as a Superstar,\u201d his old Tornado teammate Kenny Cooper told The Guardian in 2015. \u201cIt helped catapult the game to a different level. It helped the league. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt helped everybody.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Club officials would send him ahead of the team to drum up interest on road trips. None of his teammates objected. Rote, who went on to a long career as a sports agent, told The Guardian he was lucky that way. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey were kind enough to let an American kid score goals,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the team had not accepted me at a certain level and rejoiced in any success that I had in the team\u2019s success, had they not seen it that way, it could have been a bad situation.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Rote made a good call switching sports. American soccer was better for it. \u00a0<\/p>\n The connector\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The lanky kid from London\u2019s East End with the sideways grin and clever game would enjoy several lives in the game he loved. First as a center back for Charlton Athletic, then coach of teams at home and in the U.S., including a short stint in charge of the USMNT, before returning to England for the job of Gordon Jago\u2019s dreams: the Queens Park Rangers. \u00a0<\/p>\n He presided over the club\u2019s promotion to the First Division, ultimately calling his 1970-74 tenure the most enjoyable of a seven-decade career. \u00a0<\/p>\n But it was far from the most significant. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe most disappointing day of my life,\u201d he once said, \u201cwas when I had to resign from the QPR. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut every ending led to a new beginning, and I found my greatest purpose in growing the game.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Jago eventually returned to the U.S., where he coached two indoor teams, the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Dallas Sidekicks, to league titles. Once the Tornado blew out, he kept a soccer flame lit in North Texas, building an indoor fan base at Reunion Arena. \u00a0<\/p>\n But even those accomplishments pale next to his work with the Dallas Cup, one of the world\u2019s finest youth soccer tournaments. When he took over as executive director in 2002, he later said, it was $100,000 in debt and had lost most of the European clubs that once frequented it. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n First thing he did as executive director was make a few calls to old friends back home. In short order he had commitments from Newcastle\u2019s U18s and Manchester United\u2019s U12s. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo everybody wants to be in the U12 group because they want to play Manchester United,\u201d he once said. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo, all of a sudden, it took off.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Landon Donovan were among the stars who passed through. Jago didn\u2019t just attract stars. He brought together nations. \u00a0<\/p>\n In 2005, he employed his considerable political connections to engineer a U-12 game between Israel and Palestine, a diplomatic feat that drew international attention. For his efforts there and his lifelong contributions to soccer, Queen Elizabeth made him a member of the Order of the British Empire in 2006. \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n