Schmid willingly confessed that he does follow certain numbers pertaining to his career.
"Honestly, I didn't know [about 100 victories] until Dave [Stephany] mentioned it to me at the beginning of the week," he explained. "I'm a numbers guy, and I was more aware of my record at UCLA, and I knew when I was going to pass the guy ahead of me. The one MLS number I know is that I have 16 victories in the playoffs, and I want to add to that number. I know that's the most of any MLS coach, so I want to stretch that one out a bit. That's the number I am aware of and the one that I want to expand on."
Nerd Stuff, Part One: Is it still only April?
There is no need to adjust your calendars. Despite the fact that the Crew have earned 12 points, it is still indeed only April. For only the third time this decade, the Crew have met or exceeded the 12-point threshold before June. (And one of those teams sneaked in on May 31, 2003.)
Only the 1998 Crew earned 12 points at an earlier date on the calendar, but that is due to the vagaries of scheduling. The 2008 Crew have matched the 1998 squad by earning the 12 points in just five matches.
According to Schmid, the current players have been able to silence the back-in-OUR-day bragging of the assistant coaches. "The best part for the players tonight is that they don't have to listen to Robert [Warzycha] and [Mike] Lapper tell them about how they were members of the Crew team with the best start ever, because now we've matched them."
Here is a year-by-year look at when the Crew have reached or crossed the 12-point threshold:
1996: July 25 (20 games)
1997: May 11 (8 games)
1998: April 18 (5 games)
1999: May 15 (8 games)
2000: May 20 (11 games)
2001: June 16 (11 games)
2002: June 12 (11 games)
2003: May 31 (9 games)
2004: June 6 (9 games)
2005: June 11 (11 games)
2006: June 3 (10 games)
2007: June 20 (12 games)
2008: April 26 (5 games)
Houston down, but not out
Despite Houston's 0-2-3 start, Kinnear said neither he nor his team is down about it, especially after what they felt was a hard-luck result Saturday.
"We've had some good luck in the past," he explained. "You don't win two MLS Cups without a little bit of luck. But you can see that these guys are hungry for success. They don't sit back and say, 'Look at us. We're the two-time defending champs.' There are expectations from the media and expectations from fans, but sometimes we need a reality check. Two championships in two years is pretty special. I think Columbus would take two championships in two years. I'm not saying that to be sarcastic, but the reality is that it has been going good for us. Our expectations in the locker room are the most important to me and our players, and that expectation is that we are going to try to win every game. And we are trying that."
And if Houston can maintain that hunger after two titles, don't look for the Crew to lose its own appetite after merely climbing to the top of the table.
"We haven't been there, so we should be hungry," said Schmid. "Once you climb to first place, it's harder to stay there than get there."
Duncan Responds To Danny O's Fashion Spread
Earlier in the week, Crew defender Danny O'Rourke was the focus of a Columbus Dispatch feature about personal expression. The paper picks a local personality and discusses their style with them. When asked what piece of advice he had for readers, O'Rourke told the paper, "Look at Duncan [Oughton], and do the opposite."
As many longtime readers know, I am nothing if not a crusader for truth and justice and for the right of an aggrieved party to give their side of the story, so long as it makes me laugh. So before Saturday's game, I tracked down Oughton to get his reaction to O'Rourke's potentially libelous advice, as it relates to fashion.
"They say that those who are jealous often lash out at others instead of looking in the mirror," said Oughton. "But I think Mr. O'Rourke needs to take a long look in the mirror because his fashion is absolutely shocking."
I mentioned that O'Rourke had been doing the opposite of Oughton, so I was curious as to what those opposite things might be.
"That's the thing," said Oughton. "He's been doing the exact opposite of what I do. For example, I wash my hair, whereas he does not wash his hair ever. He's got a fauxhawk/mullet/I don't know what. He's trying to do so many things with his hair. When I had a mullet, I had a mullet. I was committed to it. Now I've tidied it up and it's more tidy than a mullet; it's your run-of-the-mill average haircut. He's trying to do six different things and, to be honest, not one of them is working at all."
After a brief pause for further contemplation, Oughton continued, making this a head-to-toe affair. "Working our way down," he said , "I like to wear little kids' t-shirts. No wait, that's what he does because it's the opposite of the adult-sized t-shirts that I wear. I wear t-shirts that fit me in 2008, whereas Danny wears t-shirts that once fit him when he was just getting out of diapers, which was probably age 8 or 9 for him."
"As for pants," Oughton continued, "I'm happy with whatever he wears so long as he wears them. Then he wears these little slip-on shoes with squares of different colors painted on them. I think they wore them in the Karate Kid for that little dress-up party they had."
I did point out, in fairness, that in the article, O'Rourke said that his favorite TV show was Flight of the Conchords, starring fellow New Zealanders Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement.
"Really, I think Danny would like to do the things I do, but he's too immature so he can't quite yet," the Kiwi responded. "He'll get there someday. The fact that he said his favorite TV show is Flight of the Conchords just proves that he wishes he could learn to talk like me. He's told me, 'I wish I had an accent like yours', and now he's using those DVDs to teach himself. It's kind of weird. I've tried to tell him, 'You're cool in your own right, buddy, so there's no need to do every single thing I do.' He made a clumsy attempt at sharing that advice with the quote he gave the newspaper about doing the opposite of what I do."
So what advice would Duncs give to Danny O?
"My advice would be to get a new style. Danny thinks he has style, but it's obviously some sort of new underground style that nobody has heard of, like the Getting Dressed In The Dark Style. So if I could give one piece of fashion advice, from an older guy to a younger guy, it would be, 'When you wake up, open the curtains and turn on the lights before you get dressed, Danny. That way you can actually see what you are doing to yourself.'"
Duncan Oughton: Fashion Police
As we discussed O'Rourke's fashion, referee Terry Vaughn and his crew passed by and said "Hi" to Oughton. The officials were identically dressed in their gray game shorts and socks, plus black adidas shirts.
"What, do you fellas all shop at the same store?" asked Oughton.
After a brief exchange of jokes and pleasantries, the officials made their way toward the field. That's when Oughton noticed an unpardonable fashion faux pas. Three of the officials had the white adidas stripes running down the sleeves of their black shirts. The other official was wearing a solid black adidas shirt with no sleeve stripes.
"Hey! That man's not wearing stripes!" shouted Oughton as he pointed out the fashion offender. "Everyone else is wearing stripes, so why isn't he? Aren't you all on the same team? If so, dress like it, men! Be professional! Get that man some stripes for his shirt!"
Like O'Rourke, the officials found it hilarious to be on the receiving end of fashion advice from a Kiwi, so they all cracked up as they went on their way.
Crew Hometown In The News
San Diego native Frankie Hejduk was blown away by the news of the recent fatal shark attack near Solana Beach, Calif.
"I'm from Cardiff, and Solana Beach is the next city south," he said. "My friend texted me when the shark attack happened, and I couldn't believe it. I've surfed there a million times and I've never seen a shark. It's not like I ever went out there and worried 'is today the day it happens?' The only other shark attack I can remember near home was maybe 15-20 years ago when a woman was bitten, but she was already dead and had drifted way out into the ocean before the shark got her. But I know exactly where this guy was swimming. A great white just came straight up from underneath and chomped him once and he bled to death. It's crazy."
In all his years of surfing, Hejduk has only seen a shark once, but that was in Mexico.
Nerd Stuff, Part Two: MLS Cup Curse?
With Houston in town, it reminded me of a conversation that I had with my good buddy Flick about a month or so ago. We were discussing if Joseph Ngwenya had become the first ex-Crew player to win an MLS Cup. Ngwenya was traded to the Houston Dynamo on May 9, 2007, in exchange for current Crew scoring leader Alejandro Moreno. With Houston, Ngwenya went on to score the equalizing goal in the Dynamo's 2-1 MLS Cup victory over New England.
One thing that was apparent to us is that while the Crew haven't given away many championship pieces, they have been a massive importer of MLS Cup rings, hoping the luck would rub off.
Imported MLS Cup rings (21)
Tony Sanneh (D.C. '96, D.C. '97)
John Harkes (D.C. '96, D.C. '97)
Mario Gori (D.C. '96, D.C. '97)
Tom Presthus (D.C. '97, D.C. '99)
Ante Razov (CHI '98)
Manny Lagos (CHI '98, S.J. '01, S.J. '03)
Chris Henderson (K.C. '00)
Simon Elliott (L.A. '02)
Ezra Hendrickson (L.A. '02, D.C. '04)
Alejandro Moreno (L.A. '02, HOU '06)
Brian Carroll (D.C. '04)
Ned Grabavoy (L.A. '05)
Joseph Ngwenya (L.A. '05)
OK, so that's a total of 21 rings that have been earned prior to a stint in Columbus. But is Joseph Ngwenya seriously the first Crew export to go on to win a ring?
I immediately thought of two technicalities that probably shouldn't count. Frank Klopas was briefly Crew property during the 1997-98 offseason before being traded to Chicago for Jason Farrell. Klopas was a member of the Fire's 1998 MLS Cup championship squad. And Ramiro Corrales was also briefly Crew property. He was drafted by Columbus in 1996 but traded to San Jose for Mac Cozier before the season even started. Corrales won two MLS Cups ('01, '03) with the Earthquakes. Even though they never wore the Black & Gold, they have proven that legally belonging to the Crew in a name-on-a-spreadsheet sense is not in and of itself a barrier to championship success.
But it was time to do some digging. Surely there had to be at least one other ex-Crew who went on to collect a ring.
Sure enough, there were two more.
Exported MLS Cup rings (3)
• A.J. Wood played a combined 19 regular season and playoff games for the Crew in 1997. In 1999, he tallied 8 goals and 6 assists in 24 regular season games for D.C. United. He also logged 75 minutes in four playoff games that year. He did not see the field in United's 2-0 MLS Cup triumph over Los Angeles.
• Bo Oshoniyi played 13 games in goal for the Crew during their inaugural season, including a shutout in the Crew's first-ever game. In 2000, he had the best seat in the house for Tony Meola's career year with the Kansas City Wizards. With Meola starting 31 regular season games, Oshoniyi pitched a shutout in his lone appearance of the season-his first MLS action in four years. Meola gave a legendary MVP performance in Kansas City's 1-0 MLS Cup shocker over Chicago while Oshoniyi watched from the bench.
• Joseph Ngwenya tallied 5 goals and 4 assists in 25 games with the Crew in 2006 and 2007. After being traded to Houston on May 9, 2007, he notched 7 goals and 3 assists in 25 regular season matches, plus two assists in the first three playoff matches. Then he started MLS Cup 2007, played 80 minutes, and scored the equalizing goal in the 61st minute of Houston's 2-1 win over New England.
So now we know that Ngwenya became the third former Crew player to ever go on and win an MLS Cup. However, he earned the distinction of being the first former Crew player to actually see the field (much less score a goal) in a winning MLS Cup performance.
When's the Crew's birthday?
After the game, Crew fan Janet Handler was trying to make sense of the Crew's 4-1-0 start. She wanted me to get to the bottom of this unnatural occurrence and suggested maybe it had something to do with the team's Zodiac sign. This, of course, begged the question: When is the Crew's birthday?
It was suggested that it should be the date the team was granted. I nixed that because that was basically announcing, "Hey everyone! We're pregnant!"
Someone else suggested it should be when they officially became the Columbus Crew. I nixed that because that was basically looking at the ultrasound and saying, "It's going to be boy, so we will name him [insert-name-here.]"
I am going to have to stand by the notion that the team was born when it played its first ever game. Of course, that means that every club in the league is an Aries, which means that club-based astrology plays no role in the fortune of the league's teams. Hard to believe, I know. If only there were a more viable hypothesis to explain the Crew's hot start ...
"Hopefully the fans saw that this team will give you everything they have for every minute of the game." -- Sigi Schmid.
I suppose that explanation will suffice until more supernatural/paranormal research can be conducted.
Steve Sirk is a contributor to TheCrew.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs. Questions? Comments? Get three points from the Crew as wedding gift on Saturday and feel that it is a good omen for your marriage? Feel free to write at sirk65@yahoo.com.
