In less than a month’s time, the New York area will have not one, but two Major League Soccer clubs, as New York City Football Club will make its MLS debut and join the Red Bulls for their debut season. Adding in the Cosmos in the NASL and Sky Blue in NWSL it makes for a great deal of crowding on the pro soccer side this spring and summer, but NYCFC has a little different cache from the others. Owned by the Yankees and Manchester City Football Club, they will play their first few seasons (or more if they don’t get a stadium built) at Yankee Stadium, creating one of the more unique home venues for any soccer club in MLS. They will also have another unique differentiator, with their games not only being carried locally on the YES Network, but on WFAN Radio as well, the first time in at least 30 years that professional soccer will have a radio home in the area.
One of those making audio history will be a New Jersey broadcasting and soccer fixture, Glenn Crooks. The longtime women’s soccer coach at Rutgers, St. Peter’s and elsewhere has also had a pretty vibrant broadcasting career over the years, one that continues on in men’s basketball calling the St. Peter’s University Peacocks on their digital network this year. Crooks has a growing career analyzing soccer for the Big Ten Network, but it will really come full circle when he enters the booth with Tom Kolker, to call the first MLS games in the history of what may be the last expansion franchise in any sport in New York (Veteran Roberto Abramowitz will call the games in Spanish as well on WADO.)
Before heading to meet up with the club this week, we caught up with Crooks to talk soccer, hoops and working in The Bronx. (His bio follows)
You will make a bit of history in the area since no one has called live English-language soccer on the radio in the area in a long time; will it be different from how you have approached other assignments?
Calling soccer for me isn’t that new, as I have had the great fortune of doing a few WUSA games for Comcast and several for the Big Ten Network on TV, and I actually did one game for the old New Jersey Eagles of the American Soccer League from Hinchcliffe Stadium in Paterson once. The big difference will be making sure we are talking to a radio audience and accurately describing what we are seeing for them. Since many who listen to WFAN may not be not huge soccer fans and may be listening for the first time we have to make the broadcast appealing for all.
How did the opportunity come about?
Tom Kolker and I had worked together on a few games and I randomly had reached out to Marc Chernoff at WFAN, who I had worked with back in the day at WMTR and WDHA in New Jersey, just to find out what they would be doing, and he said they were looking for talent. I did a demo off of an ESPN 3 game between the Red Bulls and Sporting Kansas City and combined that with some other work for both play by play and color, and he reviewed the tape, shared with the Yankees and NYCFC, and we got the job. It was pretty unexpected, but goes to show you how important keeping relationships are over the years.
What does it mean to be calling games not only on WFAN but from Yankee Stadium as well?
As my family will tell you this is a double bonus for me, being a lifelong Yankees fan, in addition to all the time I have put in through a career in soccer coaching, and in broadcasting. People will tell you that when I was growing up I said I had two dreams, one was to play second base for the Yankees and the other was to broadcast in The Stadium. Now I get to do at least one of them.
NYCFC is trying to carve a pretty unique niche in the sports landscape, how do you see your spot as a way to reach a wider audience?
I think that the audience for soccer om the radio really expanded last summer when so many people listened to the World Cup on the radio for the first time, and the opportunities to engage people with audio on whatever device, is really growing beyond what people had originally thought a few years ago, We have huge opportunity to tell the story of MLS and NYCFC through the spoken word and all the drama that will come with it. Also the cachet of being on the radio home of the Yankees and the original home of sports talk radio, WFAN, means that we will be an easy find and a default for casual sports fans who may or may not be soccer fans, so that also gives NYCFC a big opportunity that no one has ever had in this market before.
In addition to your play-by-play duties what else will you be doing for the club?
That is still to be determined but as someone well ingrained in the soccer community I am here to help and assist in any way possible. If the players and coaches times are short and I’m needed as a community ambassador I’d be more than willing to be involved, but for right now it’s all about learning about the team, the staff and our opponents so we can deliver a great product for our fans.
There have been numerous professional teams in the area, from the Cosmos to the Red Bulls, why do you think no one has tried English language radio before?
Actually think the Cosmos may have tried in the old NASL days for a while, but part of the reason has been that no one was sure there would be an audience for it, especially in New York. However the industry saw last summer that the World Cup drew an audience, and both the quality and the ways to engage on radio have increased exponentially, so the time seems right, and I do think you will see more clubs taking a look at it. Today’s technology makes it very inexpensive and the quality is first rate. Now we just have to do a good job and I think the listening audience will find us.
You have had a pretty interesting broadcast career, what have been your biggest highlights?
One for sure was when I was calling Seton Hall basketball in the early years of PJ Carlesimo’s tenure. He had such a young team that was trying to find ways to win at a time when The Big East was second to none. We won a game at McDonough Fieldhouse at Pitt that broke a record Big East road losing streak for Seton Hall; it was when John Morton and Gerald Greene I think were sophomores, and I remember getting on the bus after the game and PJ had tears in his eyes he was so proud of those kids. I never forgot that moment, as it was such a big step for a team whose core eventually made it to the Final Four a few years later. The other unique memory for me was calling the finals of the United States Basketball League in Miami for what was then the FNN/Score Network. It was a league of guys like Manute Bol at that time, a real renegade startup, and World B. Free ended up being the MVP. Those games at that time were so amazing to be a part of, it was a great deal of fun.
How difficult is it to call soccer on the radio vs. a sport like basketball or football?
We have been working on our calls and I have spent a lot of time listening to the nuances of soccer on radio from around the world, and we will be doing some other matches as tests before the season so I don’t think there are that many differences. It’s all about the content and the conversation and I think we will have a great deal of both.
Given soccer’s growth on all levels in this area and the country, what kind of impact do you think NYCFC as a property can have going forward?
I think that given their ownership groups, their media partnerships and the almost insatiable interest in soccer in the area now, there is a very big upside for NYCFC especially as you look to New York City and east. The cachet of starting in Yankee Stadium will make it even more special and it should make for a great start for the second MLS franchise in the area.
Glenn Crooks is the former 14-year head women’s soccer coach at Rutgers University where he trained two Olympians, Carli Lloyd (Gold Medal, USA) and Jonelle Filigno (Bronze Medal, Canada). Lloyd scored the game winning goals in the Olympic finals in both 2008 and 2012. In all, a head coach on the D-1 collegiate level for 22 years where he started programs at St. Peter’s University and Long Island University-Brooklyn. In addition, he coached 10 years at his alma mater, Ridge High School, NJ, where he is a member of the Athletic Hall of Fame. Currently, he is a Head Coach at the Players Development Academy and the New Jersey Olympic Development Program. A US Soccer “B” license coach, he has been a play-by-play and color commentator for the Big Ten Network, FIOS1 Sports, Comcast and Sky Blue FC. He is a contributing writer for Soccer News Net and Our Game Magazine and is also the Coach Advisor for Polar Electro based in Lake Success, NY. After graduating from the University of Georgia, he was the eight-year Sports Director for WMTR/WDHA Radio in NJ. He resides in East Brunswick, NJ with his wife, Dr. Mary Chayko, a professor at Rutgers University and his two children Ryan (22) and Morgan (16).
