![]() I didn’t grow up playing, but I picked it up a few years ago after we started that club team in NYC (Alphabet City SC). I like soccer and wanted to watch matches upstate And I want to be a part of all it! I want to add to everything that’s happening and contribute to everything that’s being built and reinvented. In the three years since Chelsa and I got hooked on the Hudson Valley, it’s been impossible not to notice all the creative & entrepreneurial energy happening in and around the area. This is the reason we created Foursquare when Dodgeball went away. This is why we built Dodgeball back in the day. More specifically, I like building things that bring people together. (Chelsa is due with our first child any day now!) I like to build things And while we’re currently splitting our time between NYC and Kingston, the master plan is to raise our kids here. We bought a house just outside of Kingston a few years ago. My wife Chelsa and I got married up here. So, next the “why.” Why a soccer team? And why in the Hudson Valley? I love the Hudson Valley We would get a crew together to try to build a soccer club from scratch, and put it in the Hudson Valley. Not 10 minutes after I got off that stage, I decided to make the idea a reality. It’s something I want to do and build and see, and I’m just sitting here doing nothing about it.”Īnd so it began. As I’m talking, I’m thinking, “Here I am telling these kids to build the things they want to see in the world, and meanwhile I’ve got this soccer club idea stuck in my head. It was this point that sucker-punched me as I said it aloud. “If there’s something you want to see in the world and it doesn’t yet exist, go out and make that thing.” ![]() Near the end of my presentation, I put up a few slides that summarize some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way. I walk them through the story of Dodgeball and Foursquare and my days being unemployed vs. I do this quite often, but this is probably one of the biggest crowds I’ve ever spoken in front of. I’m back in Boston to give a talk to some 8,000 high-school students about tech startups and entrepreneurship in general. Naturally, we adopted the Cosmos as our team - gotta root for the D2 underdog! - and they won in a shootout, knocking NYCFC out of the US Open Cup.Īmidst all the supporters singing and chanting - and the smoke bombs - I had this moment of, “so you’re telling me someone resurrected this club from the dead, re-started it from scratch, and now there’s 10,000 people here cheering them on? Why don’t we try to do this too?” ![]() ![]() In 2010 (25 years later!), an investment group resurrects the Cosmos from the dead and re-joins NASL (2nd division/D2 soccer, just below MLS).Īnyway, we trek out to the Cosmos’ home stadium on Long Island to find 10,000 fans fired up to see their D2 team take on the $100 million D1/MLS empire that is NYCFC. Team falls apart in the 1980s as the league (NASL) falls apart. I’m not sure if you know the history of the NY Cosmos, but the Cliff Notes version is: Powerhouse team in the 1970s (pre-MLS) led by Pele. ![]() NY Cosmos match (fourth round of the US Open Cup). We trek out to Hofstra University to catch an NYCFC vs. I fell pretty deep into the “lower level soccer” rabbit hole. We mid-to-late-30 years olds are also growing tired of getting crushed by 20-something year old recent college grads every week, so the conversation turns to, “What would have to happen in the universe for Alphabet City SC to play, say, the New York Red Bulls?” We knew some answers (lower level soccer in the US, qualifying for the US Open Cup) but not all of them. Our crew is getting beers at a bar called Angry Wade’s in Brooklyn, and we’re debating the future of our team as our friends are starting to move out of the city. We’re five years into Alphabet City SC (the men’s league team our buddies play for in NYC). So first, the “how.” How did the idea to start a soccer club from scratch come about? There were three distinct moments that got this thing off this ground: June 3, 2015 ![]()
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