A Half-Century Of Full-Force Fury - Sidebar
9/29/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
Sept. 29, 2006
EAST LANSING, Mich. -
By Jack Ebling, Online Columnist
Can it really be 50 years since Michigan State's first soccer match - a 3-1 win over arch-rival Michigan on Oct. 13, 1966, in East Lansing?
Can any program be that much better than the Spartans were from 1964-68, with two NCAA Co-Championships, two runner-up finishes and a five-year record of 53-4-9?
Can a team be more resilient than MSU was in 2004, when Joe Baum's guys won more conference games in three days than they had all season en route to a Big Ten title?
Can the future be anything but bright with Hall of Fame leadership, and a new facility in the works - part of a $9 million, three-stadium complex at Old College Field?
Those questions and more will be addressed this weekend when five decades of Spartan soccer are celebrated before and during a match with league mega-power Indiana at noon Sunday.
The fun all started when Biggie Munn, then MSU Director of Athletics, asked Gene Kenney, a wrestling guy, to be the school's first varsity soccer coach.
The wisdom of that choice was obvious to everyone when Kenney's first three squads went 5-0-1, 6-0-2 and 8-0 - a combined mark of 19-0-3.
His 14-year record as head coach? Try a sterling 120-13-13. Or to put it another way, the Spartans didn't lose a Big Ten match until a 1-0 setback at Indiana in 1974, their 19th season of competition.
After twice finishing second in the nation with 1-0 losses to Navy in 1964 and St. Louis in 1965, Kenney's players were ready to roll in 1967.
With high-scoring forwards Trevor Harris, Guy Busch and Tony Keyes and a stingy back line with Baum in goal, MSU finished No. 1 in the polls with a 12-0-2 mark, including a pair of ties with perennial power St. Louis.
"You have to understand the scholarship numbers were different," Baum remembered before practice began Tuesday. "We were one of only a few schools in the whole Midwest, along with St. Louis and Akron, the other powers in the region, to have those kinds of resources. And we made the most of them."
Busch scored a then-Spartan-record 54 goals from 1965-67. Keyes erased that mark with 56 from 1966-68. And Harris, who followed Keyes to campus from Kingston, Jamaica, had 48 from 1967-69, including a team-best 23 as a sophomore.
Placing those achievements in perspective, Busch, Keyes and Harris combined for 158 goals over a five-year span, though they only played together one season. It was like a baseball franchise having its top three home run hitters in history in the same lineup.
"We had a rare combination of speed and skill," said Keyes, now a pediatric oral surgeon in Washington, D.C. "And our coach was a very keen student of the game. We only lost once in three seasons (and went 33-1-7)."
That 4-1 loss came at Akron in 1968, when Keyes set an MSU season record with 28 goals in 15 matches - six more scores than the Spartans managed last year in 19 outings (8-6-5).
"I was just a little guy who could play - maybe 5-foot-7 1/2 and 140 pounds soaking wet," Keyes said. "I had track scholarships from USC and UCLA as a sprinter. But I liked soccer better. And after Gene and I started corresponding, he decided to take a chance on me without ever seeing me play."
When you talk about great hunches, that one would qualify. But the team's spot-on impersonations of a speed-talking leader, including classics by Busch and Baum, ended one year later when Kenney stepped down to become the school's assistant A.D. for facilities.
His successor was Jamaican trailblazer and MSU pipeline producer Payton Fuller, who turned Kenney on to Keyes, then went 20-8-9 as the program's second head coach from 1970-73.
Former Spartan assistant football coach Ed Rutherford was handed control of MSU soccer in 1974. He went 25-7-3 in three seasons before resigning and telling A.D. Joe Kearney, "It's time that Joe Baum coaches this team." Baum has done that for 30 seasons and was just inducted into the St. Louis Soccer Hall of Fame on Sept. 21. His Spartan teams are 292-212-47, recording 19-winning seasons, including the past six-straight.
"I have to credit George Perles and Ron Mason," Baum insisted. "We had zero scholarships in 1990. Then, George called me in and said, `Let's do it!' I almost fell out of my chair. But he'd been a coach and knew what it took to compete. He was interested in more than football, basketball and hockey. And being fully funded has made all the difference. It's like the old Johnny Carson line: `I've been rich, and I've been poor. And I like rich better.'"
MSU struck gold two years ago when it caught fire at just the right time. After a 1-4-1 skid near the end of the regular season, the Spartans closed with a 7-1 blowout of Valparaiso, then beat Wisconsin 1-0, shocked host Indiana 2-1 and topped Northwestern 1-0 in the Big Ten Tournament.
"That win at Indiana was the biggest moment of my career," said forward Ryan McMahen, who scored both MSU goals against a home-state dynasty that failed to recruit him, then became his program's first All-American in 37 years. "It's funny to think of what could've been if I'd gone to Indiana. But I had the best four years of my life up there (in East Lansing) with the academics and the ambience. The whole experience was phenomenal."
McMahen, like former teammate John Minagawa-Webster, plays professionally these days for the Kansas City Wizards in Major League Soccer. But he's anxious to see another stadium, the one Baum has been promised by Mason as part of much-needed upgrade for baseball, softball and soccer _ a project spearheaded by ex-Tigers and Dodgers World Series hero Kirk Gibson and current Cardinals pitcher Mark Mulder.
"That's the final piece of the puzzle," Baum said with a smile beaming through his mustache and bushy beard. "Where the sport is in 2006, all the super-successful Division I programs have stadiums. We have a well-maintained field. But if we want a shot at making the Final Four, we're kidding ourselves if we don't think that facility is important."
Nothing is more important in establishing tradition than winning with people who have savored the experience. Many of them will be back this week, when they will be introduced at the Illinois-MSU football game and honored guests for Indiana's soccer visit.
And no, McMahen won't be suiting up to try to beat the Hoosiers again. That doesn't mean he and the other returnees wouldn't want to.
