Long time readers may have their own ideas about what we do well. I imagine some people will still think we suck.
| Top Ten: Stories in 3rd Degree History |
| 1 |
Spring Road Trips |
Credit to Andy Swift who’s idea this first was. The first two years 3rd Degree went along on the team’s dime as a “service to their fans.” It was win/win for both the Burn and 3rd Degree. Administrations in the HSG era wanted to send their own employees instead, so we begun to fund these trips through the generous contributions of our readers. We’re like PBS really. We may be the only media in all of MLS to travel with a team during spring training tours, although I think Frank Dell’Apa may have done some. Chile first, then Spain three times with some England tossed in. Most recently T&T and hopefully Brazil this spring. |
| 2 |
Hoops Jerseys |
We break the jersey change of FC Dallas from red & black to red hoops jerseys with the first ever images of the new FCD kits. FCD FO accused of “wrecking” their jersey debut fashion show by “hacking” MLSnet even though the images were there for the entire world to find on the MLS public server. Two more times in the years to come 3rd Degree had the first images of new FCD jerseys. We’re also taking credit for hoops being our idea as we wrote a column suggesting it well before it was adopted. |
| 3 |
Practice Observations |
The bread and butter series of what we do. Once or twice a week since 1998 we’ve been going to FC Dallas training to get up close and personal reports on the goings on week to week. Player moves, training form, coach interviews, pictures, injury update, training regimen, player quotes. |
| 4 |
Bonseu trade |
Tenywa Bonseu was traded to Metro very shortly after General Manager Greg Elliott was hired and FCD had the story the night the deal went down. “When you broke that trade four people knew about it,” Elliott later told 3rd Degree. Not only a great breaking of a story, but a great way to make an impression on a new GM. |
| 5 |
Serioux Bad Knee |
In 2007 FCD traded Ronnie O’Brien for Adrian Serioux and it turned out Serioux had a bad knee. FCD only learned of the bad knee a month or so later. FCD was not real pleased the story got out when it did. “When you broke that story 6 people new about his knee being bad,” a FCD insider said in the week following. |
| 6 |
O’Brien Trade |
Starting with the midseason almost trade to NY for Guevara and the eventual trade to Toronto, we had early sources on the pending deal and eventual deal. Our information was good enough to get a denial out of the players agent when the NY story hit and again the day before the deal finally went down. We also broke some of the behind the scene reasons the O’Brien and FCD both wanted this deal. |
| 7 |
Draft Rankings |
3rd Degree publishes what we like to think are the most comprehensive MLS Draft Pool Rankings available. We believe our combine coverage, Generation adidas tracking, College Cup coverage, and quality scouting leading up to the draft makes our lists some of the best around in quality and accuracy. Our draft day chat room that began at the 2002 SuperDraft in KC has become a staple for FCD fans at work on draft day. |
| 8 |
Meet Toja |
The entire “Who is” series is quite nice, but the “Who is Juan Carlos Toja” was the best of the bunch. It helps that Toja is the team MVP and a fan favorite, but it was an excellent introduction to a player fans knew little about. Thanks JT. The “Who is Dario Sala” piece was a close second in this series as was the “Who is Marcelo Saragosa.” |
| 9 |
Johnson Trade |
We learned about a pending Johnson to KC trade at the SuperDraft in 06. Our sources at the time said it was for Josh Wolff, later the trade went down for allocation money instead. The Wolff deal was done enough for MLS to tell the ESPN TV guys about it so they could prepare for draft day news. Like many “done” deals thing change. |
| 10 |
Name Change |
3rd Degree readers find the registration of the “FC Dallas” word mark, give it to us to run, and thus the public learns the new name of the franchise well before it’s announced. It was the first step on the road to the end of the Dallas Burn and the birth of FC Dallas |
Links to the articles?
I can’t link to them because the database from MatchNight was not avaliable to me to place on the new server. This winter if all goes well I am going to try and put all the old articles on line… which may take a loooong time… cuase I have to relaod all of them.
I’ll try and upload some of these if I can.
Is the “Meet Dario Sala” piece available? I absolutely loved the “Meet Juan Toja” article . . . wonderful writing. I hope more of those on other players are to follow this year.
Also, thank you, to all of you, for the fantastic stuff on this site! As a first year fan, I have learned so much this year about all of the stuff involved with MLS and specifically the Hoops both on and off the field, and I think I owe a lot of that knowledge gained to you.
I found a bunch of them.
Still looking for the Dario Sala article.
I was certain that you were going to include Coach Jeffries’ admission to being guilty of reading your practice observations and lineup predictions when he was part of the Chicago Fire staff.
I guess I could have put it under the Practice Observations.