Come on You Reds by Joshua Kloke

Author:Joshua Kloke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2018-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

Corey Wray, then director of team operations for TFC, and Mike Masaro, the head of media relations, were preparing to leave the team hotel in Houston on the morning of Monday, June 18, to grab a coffee. They were abruptly stopped by a member of the hotel’s front desk staff, who needed their immediate attention. The hotel had been receiving calls all morning about the whereabouts of a TFC player. Nick Soolsma’s girlfriend had become furious that he had not returned her calls and, suspecting that he was out on the town and perhaps not remaining completely faithful, she had begun calling anyone and everyone associated with him.

When Soolsma did finally return his girlfriend’s call, he didn’t exactly reassure her that he had a wholesome evening. He told her that he, along with two other TFC players, had been arrested for public intoxication outside of Club Escobar, a Houston nightclub.

Already incensed, Soolsma’s girlfriend could not contain her anger. Instead of allowing the club to become aware of the arrests and handle the news themselves, Soolsma’s girlfriend decided to sully his name and call every newspaper in Toronto that would answer the phone.

With the Toronto Sun having already reported the arrests, Wray went nuclear and got to work on the kind of situation few team ops directors ever want to deal with. With very little information, Wray began calling every branch of the Houston Police, while Masaro began handling the multiple calls from media with questions of their own.

Wray found it difficult to get much concrete information from the Houston PD and was growing even more exasperated before a team member walked by and casually told him that Soolsma, Luis Silva, and Miguel Aceval, the three players in question, were currently in the hotel gym as part of a planned workout session, as if nothing had happened.

Wray burst into the gym and unloaded. “It was one of the scariest times for the players,” said Wray. “I was furious.”

Furious not at the players for blowing off some steam at a nightclub, but incensed at how they handled the situation. That teammate Julian de Guzman posted bail for each of the players ($267 US each) as a sign of solidarity mattered very little. All year long, TFC management had had a giant storm cloud hanging over their heads in what had become a historically bad season. Wray didn’t want to chastise the players for having a night out. There was even infrastructure in place to handle arrests within the team, but that the players had not followed protocol incensed Wray, and sent an already disconcerted season into the stratosphere. The players, and TFC, continued to be the butt of jokes on social media.

Paul Mariner’s new approach to the team had apparently planted a seed in the minds of the players. Now, whatever it was was bursting into bloom.

When Mariner had first entered the dressing room as head coach, it was before a training session and with very little fanfare. He informed the squad that he was going to establish a leadership group: Dunfield, Frings, Koevermans, and Frei.

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