[Frank Cunha]

90:00 Minutes With Greg Andrulis 24/11/03

Greg Andrulis is an affable, straight-shooter type who has spent a lifetime working in a sport that he admits he fell into “by default.”

The 45-year old Waterbury, Connecticut native graduated from Eastern Connecticut in 1980, headed to big-time Division I college athletics at Clemson University (where he earned a NCAA Championship ring in 1984 as an assistant coach) and assumed the helm of the Wright State Raiders in 1985.

When then Columbus head coach Tom Fitzgerald offered him a job over lunch late in 1996, Andrulis chose the challenge of a new situation, and with the blessing of his wife, Lorrie, he joined the Crew as right hand of the head gaffer.

Andrulis took over as interim coach of the Crew in May of 2001 and the side was in disarray, having only won one match of its last eleven stretching back to the prior season. But under Andrulis, foundering Columbus became MLS’ hottest club, finishing out the campaign 12-4-4. Andrulis saw more success in the 2002 season as the Crew made the semi-finals of the MLS Cup and took home the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, Columbus’ first major silverware.

The 2003 season was one of frustration for Andrulis and his men. National team call-ups and injuries hurt the Crew’s quest for consistency, and the club that was talking up a championship run in May missed out on the play-offs to the shock of all.

Russell Richey caught up with the Crew head coach via cell phone on a Friday night as Andrulis was driving to his home in Miamisburg, Ohio. The MLS boss offered the drive time as an opportunity for a captive audience, giving us the perfect chance to spend 90 Minutes with Greg Andrulis.


90 Minutes: Tell us about how you got involved in soccer. Did your father play?

Andrulis: No. In fact, I was the first one to play soccer in our family. We moved from Waterbury, Connecticut, which is a very industrial, inner city environment where we lived and all played football, basketball and baseball. Then we moved to Litchfield, which is out in the country and they didn’t have football. And so to be perfectly honest with you, it was by default that I started playing because we all wanted to be involved in sports – my whole family was involved in sports. But soccer was almost by default.

90 Minutes: Connecticut is pretty strong in soccer, though.

Andrulis: Obviously at UConn and the job that Joe Maroney did for years and how he built it. And his college program as a model that many tried to follow. He got an awful lot going and had a tremendous impact on soccer.

90 Minutes: What were some of the things that you learned from Maroney?

Andrulis: I did study his program quite a bit and we tried to mimic a lot of the things off the field - his organizational thing behind the scenes and his leadership. One of the things that Joe Maroney did is he was able to go out and get scholarships done through endowments. He was able to go out and get his own booster group – ‘The Friends of Connecticut Soccer’. We had ‘The Friends of Raider Soccer’ at Wright State. I attended all the conventions where he gave those talks about how to develop your program. Those things were always very well attended. When you are a college coach and you are in a sport that doesn’t get a tremendous amount of support, because it is a non-revenue sport, then you had to find ways to produce revenue and find scholarships and get media attention, and Joe certainly paved the way.

90 Minutes: If you could, would you change the college season?

Andrulis: I think it is too short, especially compared to the other sports that even play in the same season, like volleyball. I don’t think it’s a gender equity issue at all. I think the college soccer season is so encumbered and boxed in that it’s going to be a sport that’s going to struggle to continue to develop. I don’t think it’s fair to the great coaches out there that have forged the way in college soccer. They need to have some of their restraints taken off. It’s a fall sport and I don’t know if you could add that many more weeks to the season because of the geography, but the off-season stuff is just mind-boggling – the restrictions out there.

90 Minutes: How have you grown as a coach?

Andrulis: I was at Wright State when I was twenty-five or twenty-six. I’m twenty years older now and naturally you learn every step of the way from a lot of different situations and environments. I’ve worked with a lot of very good soccer people and I think they help formulate your philosophies and the direction you are going. But I also believe every situation is different. The team that I inherited from Coach Fitzgerald two and a half years ago is an entirely different team that the one we are working with now. I think it’s important to be flexible and adaptable – there aren’t a lot of autocratic coaches out there any more that are successful. It’s a different time.

90 Minutes: You’re talking specifically about autocratic soccer coaches?

Andrulis: Yeah, I think the mentality of the players now and there’s no question that the psychology of the players and the psychology of the coaches are different now than they were twenty-five years ago.

90 Minutes: What are some of the things you admire about Bruce Arena and how he approaches coaching?

Andrulis: Obviously, at the end of the day, [Arena’s] success goes without saying. He’s been extremely successful at every level. I was the assistant coach at Clemson when Virginia got going. I was actually the assistant the first ever time when Virginia beat Clemson. It was earth shattering for all of us involved at Clemson, to be honest. But you saw what Coach Arena did at Virginia, then at D.C. United and now with the National Team.

90 Minutes: Tell us more.

Andrulis: I’ve been very fortunate, when they come to Columbus, to watch him and listen to him and he has tremendous respect from and command of the players. He’s an incredibly smart person and his motivating is at a different level, I think. But I think we would all love to be as successful as he is at some stage – that’s what every coach is looking for. And there’s no question he’s the guy who gets the most out of all the players he is dealing with.”

90 Minutes: Would you ever want to coach the U.S. Men, say ten years down the road?

Andrulis: I’m very happy with the Crew and I know Arena is very happy with the National Team and I think we all aspire to be the best that we can be and we all have goals for ourselves. You have to set your sights higher, but until we win a championship with the Columbus Crew I’m not going anywhere.

90 Minutes: If you could pluck any three players from MLS sides, which three would they be?

Andrulis: I can’t do that. That’s called tampering and we’re too close to the end of the season. No, I love our team. I absolutely love our team and I love our guys. Obviously the grass may be always greener on the other side, but who in the league, or in the world, wouldn’t want a Landon Donovan on their team? Hypotheticals are neither here nor there – hey, we’d love to have Brad Friedel come back and play for us too, but you know, Jon Busch is doing a great job.

90 Minutes: Tell us about the sides you face in MLS play.

Andrulis: I don’t know about off the field so much, but on the field, certain teams bring certain things on a regular basis. Part of that is the philosophy of the coach and what their team brings. You talk about San Jose – it’s a very disciplined, organized and well-coached team and they are in every single game. They’ve been good for three straight years and for three straight years Frank Yallop has been the coach. They have some talented players but also their organization and their discipline are at the highest level.

90 Minutes: Tell us about the Crew’s season.

Andrulis: We’re still a bit of a team in transition this year. With so many injuries, it hasn’t been the dream season for us. But in the past, we’ve always been a hardworking team, very disciplined defensively and we’ve always had great forwards so we’ve had a good mix. This year there’s no question that its been an uphill battle for us pretty much from the beginning of the season up until the last few weeks, but we have great team chemistry and I think it carried us through some very tough times this year. Everybody kept fighting and nobody gave up. I think when teams line up against the Columbus Crew, they are going to get one heck of a 90-minute battle.”

90 Minutes: What was your take on Mike Jeffries being let go down in Dallas?

Andrulis: I like Mike. He’s a good friend and he’s a good coach. I’ve been around long enough to see these things and sometimes things happen. It’s professional sports. We are all ultimately judged on results. That’s just the way it goes. I know the Hunt family and John Wagoner, the president of Hunt Sports – these are very caring, compassionate people but at the end of the day it’s still a business and its all about results.

90 Minutes: Do you think Jeffries had enough time?

Andrulis: Those decisions aren’t mine to be made. Who wants to see someone you know and respect have to go through that, but you know what? At the end of the day it’s part of our business and I think we get into it knowing that it’s part of the business.

90 Minutes: Overall, what do you think is right with the MLS? Sorry if that sounds like an expansive question.

Andrulis: As we’ve said, I’ve been fortunate enough to have started with the league from the beginning and I don’t think the future has ever been as bright as it is now. I think everybody in soccer is excited about that. Our ownership groups are committed. We have new investments coming in. We have expansion, we have stadiums. Soccer in the United States is on the forefront of bursting at the seams. Anybody involved with it has seen the growth and is extremely excited about that. I think we’re excited about what has been done over the last eight years in this league but the future is just looking incredibly bright.

90 Minutes: What do you think about the WUSA folding? You talked about role models and it’s obviously unfortunate for the sport, but what’s your opinion?

Andrulis: The WFL folded too. The USFL folded. Professional sports are a business, but I think that we would all love to see the WUSA continue on, but people are apparently losing millions and millions of dollars. But the hope is, looking forward, it sounds like people are willing to give it another chance and the league can get resurrected quite quickly. Again I think it’s important to keep those women role models out there in front of everybody. It’s good for the sport and it’s good for the culture in the broad piece of the framework, but at the end of the day, more people have to go watch the games. We have the women’s basketball league which I think is at a critical juncture. I think sports in general – I’m getting too philosophical but you read about how much money the hockey teams lost last year. Sports and money – there are a lot of things going on. It’s very unfortunate that WUSA had to fold, but again it’s a business.”

90 Minutes: It’s funny, it seems like Nomar Garciaparra could go ahead and fund the league for the next few years if he felt like it.

Andrulis: He certainly could help. But I’m encouraged by what we hear and read about potential investors and help coming to that league. The ladies that have gone out and paved the way for that league are just incredible.

90 Minutes: The situation with the WUSA seems like that of city where the symphony goes under suddenly and the local corporate interests realize the value to the community and they go out and save it.

Andrulis: That’s right.

90 Minutes: What do you think is wrong about the game today in the USA and don’t see ‘wrong’ as being a negative term necessarily – rather, what could be improved about the game?

Andrulis: I think we still need to do a better job supporting based on the amount of people that play. Getting their commitment to spend their entertainment dollar on supporting the sport we love. On any given Saturday in any given community, there will be hundreds of thousands of people playing the game and then that night two MLS teams are playing in front of 20,000 people. It’s important for us to continue to sell the sport and continue to attract fans and continue to people to come and watch. It’s a growth thing. In my lifetime we’ve seen the growth of the NBA and the growth of the NHL. I don’t think there’s any question soccer has made it, the next step is to make it even bigger, and that’s what it’s all about now.”

90 Minutes: A lot of hard core soccer fans get pissed off at the American sports media ignoring soccer – Sports Center, say – how do you feel about all of that? Do you care?

Andrulis: I think we have to understand that you are not going to change everybody’s brain, but slowly but surely we’re going to have more converts in the media and people that are going to watch the games on TV and fans are going to go to the games. It’s an evolution, but I don’t think we can get overly discouraged by some mainstream media people who don’t care about the sport. Their minds aren’t the ones we have to change.”

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