Newman Is the Constant in Sockers’ Stay Near Top

From A to Z, they are gone. From Ade Coker to Steve Zungul, they are gone. Jean Willrich, Lorenz Hilkes, Gert Wieczorkowski, Kaz Deyna, Volkmar Gross, Alan Mayer, Martin Donnelly, Eric Geyer and Vidal Fernandez . . . all gone.

These were the guys who took indoor soccer, a gimmicky off-season exercise for the real game, and turned it into an event hereabouts. They took it from small type to frenzied hype.

Most were a part of the team when the Sockers won their first indoor title in 1981-82 and played to their first sellout crowds. Their ranks gradually thinned, but the club rolled on to a stretch of five consecutive championships.

It had to end, of course. And it did, last season in Tacoma, where the Sockers lost the Western Division championship series.

And it seemed a safe presumption that this was it for this indoor dynasty.

Color the Sockers old or gray or gone . . . or all of them.

This was a team in trouble. Even Bob Bell, the owner who brought it here, was on his way out, buried under an avalanche of debt.

The 1987-88 season started with only one player who was a throwback to those early years. That was Juli Veee, who did more than anyone else to bring this game and team to the front of the bus. This season was not too far along before Veee had the audacity to slap an assistant coach, bringing about a banishment from which he has yet to return.

One other “original� almost started the season with the Sockers, but Capt. Willrich was traded to Wichita on the eve of the opener.

Obviously, this franchise was in disarray. This team was about to go into a slalom to oblivion.

The door to the penthouse in the Major Indoor Soccer League was wide open.

And guess who walked in?

The Sockers.

Darned if they didn’t walk right in as if they owned the place, which they usually have. It was as if they figured they’d be back so soon they didn’t need to leave a forwarding address.

Once again, they occupy first place in the MISL’s Western Division. In fact, they will take the best record in the MISL into tonight’s game with the Los Angeles Lazers in the Sports Arena.

On the most basic level, two things have not changed about the Sockers throughout the decade:

1. They win.

2. The coach is Ron Newman.

Given all the other changes in personnel, front office and ownership, it would seem safe to conclude that 1 equals 2 . . . or vice versa.

MISL coaches have for years lamented that Newman has always been blessed with superior talent, but I suspect that this has not been the case. Given time, I think he could win with their players as consistently as he does with his.

His own players, in fact, have grumbled that they win in spite of him. The truth might be that Newman wins in spite of them.

Ron Newman has won championships outdoors and indoors in four leagues. He has won with youngsters and with veterans. He has won with healthy teams and with ailing ones. He has won during periods of stability and during periods of transition, which would seem to be the case now.

There is certainly a nucleus in players such as Jim Gorsek, Zoltan Toth, Branko Segota, Fernando Clavijo, Kevin Crow and Brian Quinn, but indoor soccer--perhaps more so than most other sports--is not won with strong starting lineups alone.

Indoor soccer is played in depth. It is played with a constant flow of players on and off the field. It is the coach who shuffles these players and works in the new faces with the old.

It is Newman who takes players such as Keder, Zoran Karic, Paul Dougherty, Gus Mokalis, Raffaele Ruotolo, Jacques Ladouceur and Ralf Wilhelms and blends them into the brew. Some are youngsters and some are veterans, but collectively they represent a challenge to a coach trying to maintain winning chemistry.

And Newman has always managed to take disparate ingredients and produce a masterpiece.

In high-profile sports such as football, basketball or baseball, Newman would have had his face on so many magazine covers he could paper his living room with them. He would be a Lombardi or a Wooden or a Stengel or an Auerbach, because those are his peers in terms of consistency of success.

If you were playing this guy in chess, you’d look across the board and see he was down to his pawns . . . and then you’d look down and see he had you in check.

With the Sockers in first place once again, the message should be clear by now. What has changed with this team is not as important as who hasn’t.