Football in America was fringe culture, and its recent growth has meant a loss of eccentricity. Thankfully the Tacoma Stars keep the weird traditions alive.
I often forget how obscure football used to be in America. There was not a professional league for much of the 90s. It was an environment where current Bundesliga striker Bobby Wood was not even aware of the existence of the World Cup. Now I see kids walking around with Totti shirts, and my father occasionally asks me how Middlesbrough is doing.
This would have been absurd 20 years ago and even disappointing. The beauty of the soccer scene then was that it was so countercultural. It was an environment that attracted the contrarians, outsiders, and misfits. Growing up, the game was so far on the fringes of the sporting landscape, that there was only one club within a 150 mile radius of my home, the Chico Rooks.
The Rooks were a placeholder for amateur university players still pursuing the dream of turning professional. Like most clubs from that era, it has since folded and only exists as a memory, augmented by a few match day programmes and ticket stubs I had saved as a boy. The Tacoma Stars, an arena soccer team, could easily have followed the same fate. Its current existence is an exercise in chasing nostalgia.