Organized Chaos

The Chicago Fire's remarkable success on and off the field in its inaugural season was due to the work of an incredible group of people who came together to form the League's best team and front office. i am proud to have surrounded myself with such a remarkable group that included the current Head Coaches of the USMNT (Bob Bradley) and USMOT (Piotr Nowak), the Assistant Coach to the USOT (Lubos Kubik) and the Fire's Head Coach (Denis Hamlett), Technical Director (Frank Klopas) and Assistant Coaches (Mike Jeffries and Chris Armas).

On the front office side, we had a tremendous team that included a future MLS GM (Steve Pastorino), pro basketball GM (Kevin Spudic), Toyota Park GM (Dan Garnett) and Columbus Crew Stadium VP (Scott DeBolt). That special group came to mind yesterday when i received this incredible video of Scott's office at Crew Stadium.

It is important to note a few things. Like many of us, Scott has a place for everything and everything is in its place. If someone would come in and "straighten things up a bit", he'd be lost until he got things back "in their place." Secondly, Scott is deservedly recognized as one of the League's very best Operations Executives and finally, the video was made for the "Messiest Office Contest" which has a prize of $10,000. When Scott becomes a weekly winner, we will ask all of you to vote for him when the public voting begins for the $10K.

i sent the video link around to the '98ers yesterday with a note telling them i missed them. It was a special group and we are all excited about the Fire's planned reunion this summer - hard to believe it's been ten years.

Assembling the Chicago WPS organization brings back many of the same feelings as 1997/98. i am getting the sense that we are putting the right pieces in place to make 2009 another special year for Chicago soccer. i keep reminding myself to enjoy the journey. The work we do over the next 14 months will determine the success we have next year. If we do it well, we'll have something very special to look back upon in 2019!