Go Bradley?

By Robert Gerard Dawson

So I know my way around but I could probably use a GPS. The credentials of the other announcers on the crew that all of you will be listening to this season are astounding. Varsity high school soccer players, D-1 backups, intramural soccer champions this crew rocked in their playing days and will rock in the broadcast booth because they know their stuff. As for me, my credentials show that fifth grade house league was the most competitive level I played. My team won the house league championship that year because we were rescued by an immigrant from Bulgaria who scored two goals a game. So basically I had nothing to do with that. My blogs for the most part will probably be about outside tidbits about the happenings of this season that could be interesting to you as well.

Going along with outside tidbits, I worked in the clothing department at the University Book Center this summer. Folding, tagging, hanging, folding, stickering, folding, marking up, and marking down clothes. And because it’s a University store, 99.9% of the material on the floor has some sort of Maryland identification.

But not 100%

On a late July day, the store showed it was not perfect in Maryland apparel. I was folding away until I saw something amazing. I looked toward it, then turned around, and then turned back again. Could it have been? Could it really be? Is it?

The shirt HAD BRADLEY PRINTED ON IT!

Flashes of that infamous December 1st night entered my mind. Flashes of the final goal scored by Bradley which had up to three things wrong with it and Coach Sasho Cirovski running after the official and Assistant Russell Payne yelling in vain for some sort of video to be played to show that it was a handball, that it was offside, that it was something other than a goal.

I turned to my co-worker and asked “Is this some cruel joke?” Why is there a Bradley shirt in here? The co-worker said, “Oh it must have been a printing error. Sometimes they make a mistake. That’s why we have the shirt on clearance. It’s funny there was a kid named Bradley who walked in and almost bought the shirt.”

Unreal. How does a company screw that up? And how does Bradley-boy think that it is mildly acceptable to buy that shirt and wear it around on campus when Maryland lost in heartbreaking fashion to Bradley last season. But, you realize that we are human. You realize that the shirt company is run by humans and they make mistakes. And humans play soccer too. Maryland made miscues down the stretch, the officials made miscues down the stretch, everything came to a head at the same time, and Maryland lost the game. And it could easily happen again this season as well.

But I’ll say this. To have a ton of effort go to waste because of a fluke I feel has propelled this team to an intensity not seen since the 2005 team. Because they know they have to be that much more perfect, that much more disciplined so to make sure that flukey things never even come close to happening again. With nine starters returning who each had roles last year, with the addition of Jason Herrick coming back from injury, not to mention the number one recruiting class in the country, and an even more deadly focused team than last year, man that’s a lot going for them. The chance of mistake will still be there because were human, but I think the chance-of-fluke meter took a dive in the off-season. As Sasho said at Media Day, “the players realize that the margin for error is thin.” And he couldn’t be more right. I got a funny feeling about this team this year and I hope you do as well. You hope as a Terrapin fan that they will have a magic mix this season to score the go-ahead goal, to make the key stop, and to get a little luck here and there to make it all the way. You hope that the Book Center eliminates that Bradley shirt, and you hope Bradley-boy doesn’t wear that Bradley shirt on campus unless he wants to be socked by someone.

And you hope all these things happen because there are no immigrants from Bulgaria to come help out on this one.