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October 04, 2007
More about the Doyle hiring, new unis
Stories are popping up everywhere on yesterday's hiring of John Doyle to head soccer operations for the new Quakes. Here's a summary, along with the original press releases from the team:
- Earthquakes name John Doyle General Manager of Soccer Operations, press release
- San Jose Earthquakes unveil 2008 jersey and team logo, press release
- Audio from the press conference (from the Earthquakes; streaming, for Windows Media Player — caution, the press conference does not actually start until the 10 minute mark)
- Quakes go for familiarity/Former captain hired as new G.M., San Jose Mercury News
- S.J. announce new GM in homecoming/Organization is excited to bring back an MLS club to San Jose, Jeff Carlisle for MLSnet.com
- Quakes name John Doyle GM and ponder venues, Ridge Mahoney for Soccer America
- Doyle introduced as San Jose's GM, The Sports Network
We got a chance to talk to the man formerly known as Air Doyle and he is genuinely thrilled that the team is back and that he's involved. He's genuinely missed the opportunity to be involved with soccer at the highest level and, as a couple of the stories above noted, his son Jay pegged the day the Quakes left as "the worst day of his life" for a school assignment. (The essay was written without his dad's knowledge or input, the senior Doyle added.)
We also got some insight on the change to the uniforms. Apparently, the shade of blue that Adidas used for the 2005 Quakes shirts is no longer available. Once that became clear, they took a broader look at the shirts and ended up switching to black as the primary color.
As for the rest of the kits, we like "San Jose" in big letters across the front, although it does make sense to us to have it on the away shirts rather than the home shirts. Of course, if the San Jose city council doesn't vote the right way on the proposed stadium deal, our guess is that those bold letters proclaiming "San Jose" would disappear very, very quickly. Let's hope they recognize the value of the city's name being associated with major league sports when they tally up the pluses and minuses of the deal.
When it comes to the colors, though, we personally liked the traditional blue, but have to admit that there are a ton of blue teams in MLS. Plus, having seen them in person, the new shirts really do look great, as you can see in the picture below. In any case, after two years of mourning the loss of our team, black does seem appropriate for now.
The current issue of The Wave magazine, which seems to be available on just about every street corner in downtown San Jose, has a story on the return of the Quakes, the proposed stadium, and David Beckham's impact on American soccer. So, at least two thirds of the story is about the Quakes, but does anyone care to guess whose picture they used with the story? Hit the link and scroll down to find out. (Hey, at least they make fun of him a bit at the end.)
Posted by Jay at October 4, 2007 06:41 AM
Comments
Needs more blue. :(
Posted by: Dan at October 5, 2007 03:14 PM
It came to my attention this evening that there has been no contact between our new Quakes organization and Johnny Moore. Many, I am sure, have held out some hope that Johnny Moore, an iconic figure in local soccer, would somehow be part of the new team. Obviously, it is not always possible for those kinds of things to happen, but it seems odd that there has been no contact at all. For a team that needs to re-establish ties to fans, this appears to be a bad move (or non-move).
Posted by: Warren Walther at October 5, 2007 11:56 PM
"but have to admit that there are a ton of blue teams in MLS."
Sorry to disagree, but if you meant blue as the primary (home) color, then that's not true at all.
Kansas City and New England are the only teams (neither of them in the Western Conference) that currently wear blue as their primary kit, with NE's a dark navy blue. The New York Red Bulls and the Los Angeles Galaxy wear dark blue on the road (the Galaxy only rarely) and the Colorado Rapids wears light blue on the road, but there are currently no more blue-clad MLS home teams then there are black-clad MLS home teams.
A sad consequence of all these changes is that when the Galaxy changed its logo and uniforms a few months ago, it finally brought its logo and uniform standards up to ours. But after all these recent Quakes changes, the Galaxy now has a better logo and uniform then we do (and they were still smartly keen enough to keep a graphical representation of the team-name in their logo - namely, the "quasar" to represent a galaxy - whereas we unnecessarily lost the seismographic line that represented an earthquake). :(
Posted by: Goodsport at October 6, 2007 07:15 AM