of American College Game

By Ian Thomson

It speaks volumes about former Aberdeen goalkeeper Bobby Clark’s 27-year college coaching career in America that the final rounds of this year’s national College Cup championship each threatened to provide an enthralling off-field storyline.

There was the potential quarter-final meeting between Clark’s Notre Dame and Georgetown, the defeated finalists from 2012. Georgetown head coach Brian Wiese earned an Ivy League degree in mechanical engineering while playing for Clark at Dartmouth College in the early 1990s. The man jokingly referred to by Clark as his “third son” was reunited with his mentor during a spell as Notre Dame’s assistant coach before branching out on his own.

Then there was the potential semi-final meeting with a University of Washington side coached by Clark’s actual second son Jamie. Aberdeen-born Jamie, who had an unsuccessful three-month stint at Pittodrie during Ebbe Skovdahl’s reign, played for his father’s Stanford team that reached the 1998 College Cup Final and replaced Wiese as Notre Dame’s assistant before going his own way.

The fierce competitiveness of the knockout tournament ensured that those match-ups failed to materialise despite Clark’s No. 3 seed upholding its side of the bargain. Forty-eight teams from over 200 universities earn the right to battle for the national crown by winning their respective regionalised conferences or by accumulating an overall record that impresses the governing body’s selection committee.

Notre Dame finished jointly atop the Atlantic Coast Conference, considered the toughest division in the country, with a Maryland team seeking its third national title in nine years. It was fitting that those two sides progressed to this month’s College Cup Final at the Philadelphia Union’s PPL Park. It also threw up a bizarre storyline rooted on the lawns of Aberdeen’s Seaton Park.

Maryland head coach Sasho Cirovski was a talented 17-year-old midfielder from Windsor, Ontario when Alex Ferguson offered him a trial with Scotland’s champions in July 1980. Clark, as it would later transpire, had played his last game for The Dons during the title-winning season and the then 34-year-old Glaswegian was taking an increasingly influential role in coaching Aberdeen’s promising youngsters.

“My first memory was that he didn’t play me in our first game,” recalled Cirovski of his brief spell playing for Clark’s youth team. “But he played me the next couple of games and I was much happier.”

Not happy enough to pursue Ferguson’s contract offer, it turned out. Cirovski opted to study for an undergraduate degree and a Masters in Business Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee while fellows called Cooper, Simpson and Hewitt became renowned for their exploits across Europe.

Cirovski scratched around North America’s minor leagues in the barren years between the North American Soccer League and Major League Soccer before making his mark in the college game. He became Maryland’s head coach in 1993 and has turned the school into a production line of top talent over the past two decades. Current American internationals Maurice Edu, Omar Gonzalez and Graham Zusi all graduated from Cirovski’s program.

Prolificacy in preparing young players for the professional game is a trait that has long been synonymous with Clark. Notre Dame has seen more of its players selected in the annual MLS SuperDraft since 2008 than any other university (14 in total). Sporting Kansas City defender Matt Besler has recently forced his way into contention for a place in Jurgen Klinsmann’s U.S. World Cup squad, and Nigerian striker Bright Dike scored his first international goal during last month’s 2-2 friendly draw with Italy.

Former Blackburn Rovers captain Ryan Nelsen remains Clark’s biggest playing success. Clark discovered the young Kiwi defender while managing the All-Whites in the mid-1990s before taking him to Stanford in 1999.

Clark had lost out in his two previous appearances in U.S. championship deciders – the 1998 College Cup and the 1967 United Soccer Association final when Aberdeen, playing under the guise of the Washington Whips, lost 6-5 in sudden-death overtime to a Wolverhampton Wanderers team representing the Los Angeles Wolves.

A third defeat looked likely when Maryland’s star striker Patrick Mullins blasted the Terrapins ahead on 35 minutes. Leon Brown drew the Fighting Irish level five minutes later, and defender Andrew O’Malley nodded the winner on the hour mark.

Notre Dame had qualified for the season-ending tournament in 12 of Clark’s 13 seasons in charge, but this was the first time that the school had been crowned as national champions.

It marks a fitting addition to the 68-year-old Clark’s already extraordinary coaching resume.

Ian Thomson is a journalist, exiled Dons fan and author of “Summer Of ’67 Flower Power, Race Riots, Vietnam and the Greatest Soccer Final Played on American Soil.” which recounts Aberdeen’s stint as the Washington Whips. It is available in Kindle and paperback formats via Amazon.co.uk.

Ian was also be appearing at Aberdeen’s Prince of Wales on St. Nicholas Lane on Monday 23^rd December between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. with limited signed copies of “Summer Of ’67”.