Seattle Sportsnet

The Seattle Sounders FC needed a coach so they went out and signed the best coach money could buy. That would be Sigi Schmid, who is essentially the Mike Holmgren of MLS. After winning two MLS championships and being named 2008 Coach of the Year, Schmid may very well be the best coach in American soccer. But what does that mean, really?

Often viewed as the minor leagues of the world’s football, MLS is the league where lesser players dominate and good players go to die. Veterans of European soccer make their way to MLS when they know their time is up. At the same time, American players who could never cut it across the pond find their way into MLS starting lineups. All of this leads me to wonder what the MLS will mean here in Seattle.

Part of the reason Americans can get behind the NFL, NBA, and MLB so strongly is because we are witnessing a sport played at its very highest level. The NFL has the best football players, the NBA the best basketball players, and MLB the best baseball players. MLS is the exception to the rule. Sure, it may technically be a major professional sport, but the game’s highest level is played in Europe, not America. Fans don’t attend MLS games for the same reasons they don’t attend Minor League Baseball games or NBDL games; the game played at a lower level just isn’t as much fun to watch.

This presents an interesting quagmire for MLS. Hardcore soccer fans are more apt to shun MLS in favor of the English Premier League, while the casual soccer fan (or non-fan) is likely to stay away just because soccer isn’t that appealing to them. Personally, I don’t consider myself much of a soccer fan, and chances are I’m part of the majority. I’ll watch the World Cup, but that’s about it. Even in a 0-0 World Cup game, chances are you’ll see some things done with a soccer ball that you’ve never seen before, and that’s intriguing. With MLS, the intrigue just isn’t there. In an exciting MLS contest, there’s a good chance you probably won’t see anything you haven’t seen before. We know this going in, which is why we simply don’t go. It’s the same reason why cliched chick flicks don’t register at the box office, or overused jokes don’t make a star out of an aspiring comedian. America needs new, exciting, fresh, and original. The MLS doesn’t provide that.

So I ask, how do we really feel about the Sounders? Right now we feel great. The team is brand new, we have celebrity ownership, we’re making big-name signings left and right, and we’ve sold more 2009 season tickets than any of our league’s counterparts. But what happens after that initial sheen wears off? What happens after the first season is complete? What happens if we don’t win? Seattle fans have made it clear across all sports that they cannot support a loser (save for the Mariners post-2001). It’s what caused us to lose the Sonics, what forced NFL blackouts through the ’90′s, and what plagued the pre-1995 Mariners. In a sport that is already struggling to establish a fan base, how will we truly, ultimately embrace Major League Soccer in Seattle?

If you haven’t heard of prep basketball player Tony Wroten, Jr. yet, you will soon. The sophomore guard has a future in the NBA and is already viewed as the prototype at his position because of his combination of size, speed, and talent. Two weeks ago, the 6’5″ Wroten (pictured left) attended Seattle’s Garfield High School and was preparing for the start of basketball season. This week he has no school and won’t be suiting up for Garfield or any other school anytime in the coming days. How the heck did we get to this point?

The Seattle School District doesn’t like it when out-of-district kids attend their schools. If you’re a superstar basketball player, the District will go to great lengths to determine your eligibility for attending their schools. In Wroten’s case, SSD officials had a hunch that the sophomore was spending more time living at his dad’s house in Renton, than his mom’s house in Seattle, making him ineligible to attend Seattle schools. The cash-strapped SSD, which has talked of closing up to nine schools in the coming months, sent an investigator out to tail Wroten and determine his living situation and whereabouts on certain mornings.

The District’s investigator revealed that on consecutive Fridays, Wroten had been dropped off at his mom’s Seattle residence from elsewhere and commenced his walk to school from that point. On another occasion, the investigator compared dew marks on parked cars to determine that the car which had brought Wroten to his Seattle home had arrived only recently in comparison with cars that had likely been parked all night. Citing both these findings as concrete evidence, the District booted Wroten from Garfield and ruled that he was ineligible to attend Seattle schools.

Since then, Wroten’s parents have filed a lawsuit against the Seattle School District and former classmates at Garfield have staged a classroom walkout and three-mile march on the SSD building in protest. Wroten himself hasn’t said much, though he has attended his former team’s games as a spectator. Really, there isn’t much for him to say. The sophomore has been made a martyr for all that is wrong with our local school systems simply by being a public figure at a young age.

If Wroten wasn’t a stud hoopster, do you really think there would be any investigator following him around, comparing dew marks on cars, trying to get him kicked out of school? What about all those kids that go to Garfield from out of district to join the band, or be a part of certain classes that Garfield offers at a higher level than other schools? Are we using tax dollars to hire investigators to go after them too? Can we request that our tax dollars not help pay to screw high school kids? I thought we were a nation against pedophilia, but the Seattle School District seems to have proven us wrong.

Personally, I’m against athletes transferring schools just because one school has a better [fill-in-the-blank] team than their previous school. I don’t like that. Kids shouldn’t be free agents, essentially. If you’re a basketball player stuck going to Cleveland High School, I’m sorry, but you’re going to Cleveland High School. No Rainier Beach for you. Tough luck. Which is why part of me questions the Wroten family motives for sending young Tony off to Garfield. But despite that lingering doubt, the fact of the matter is there is no blatant evidence against Wroten being allowed to attend Garfield. There are few individuals who would cite dew or two Friday morning stakeouts as grounds for expulsion, and even fewer sick-minded individuals who would consider acting against a 15-year-old in this manner in the first place.

Tony Wroten, Jr. may be bigger than you, a better athlete than you, and have a brighter future than you, but when all is said and done he’s still a kid. He’s 15. He’s not getting into trouble, he’s not going out and doing stupid things, he’s simply going to school and playing basketball. Let the kid be a kid and welcome him back to school. The Seattle School District needs to calm down and stop persecuting the kids that put them on the map. Wroten has done nothing but good things for his school, the district, and the city and this is how the system repays him. This is a situation that needs to be rectified and rectified quickly. It’s not right making Wroten miss out on education because of dew. The District needs to make amends for their public-relations nightmare by backing down and letting Wroten return to his rightful home, Garfield High School.