More positive NCMA press

... and, no, I still have not been to the new wing. (I know: for shame!)


"Has flamboyance gone out of style for museum buildings?" asks Julie V. Iovine in the Wall Street Journal. "The latest expansion of the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, N.C., makes it seem so. To cars pulling into the parking lot right off the highway, about 10 minutes short of downtown, the museum is barely visible behind prairie grass browning in the summer sun. The aluminum-clad, one-story box bears little resemblance to the gleaming statement in precise geometry of the official photography. 'We got calls every day at the beginning from people asking why we had put the new museum in a warehouse,' said Melanie Davis-Jones, director of marketing.

"Those callers are right: Even with Roxy Paine's towering skeletal silver tree and Ursula von Rydingsvard's monumental stack of cedar blocks—two new artworks commissioned to enhance the exterior—the new building of the NCMA looks like a nondescript storage hangar sitting across a tarmac 'piazza' from the 1984 red-brick museum building by Edward Durell Stone. Or so it seems at first glance. For like any good work of architecture, the expansion designed by New York architect Thomas Phifer and Partners requires attention and time for the beholder to engage with its pleasures. But they are plenty and easy to savor. 'I didn't want a Gehry or a Calatrava,' said museum director Lawrence J. Wheeler. 'It needed to be not an overstated building, but an art experience; one that's personal and inviting, not intimidating.'

"The thrill on entry is being greeted by art instead of a cashier's desk and gift shop. They are there, of course (the management isn't suicidal), but tucked to the sides. Visitors are first likely to see another new commission, 'Doors of Jerusalem I, II & III' by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa: superhero-size, translucent-resin crouching figures tattooed with biblical verses and attached high on three walls. There's more art just steps away.

"The luxury of these first encounters is possible because entrance to the museum is free: The collection was initiated in 1947 with earmarked state funds, a first in the country, and it has continued to exist on government grants and citizen gifts ever since. Even the site, 164 acres of meadows and woodland, was officially granted by the state to the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources for the use of the museum and a sculpture park. The $72.3 million expansion was funded entirely by state, county and Raleigh city funds. ..."

"The encyclopedic collection has something for everyone. The European paintings include an important Giotto altarpiece along with an entire Dutch 17th-century kunstkamer complete with furnishings and a shell collection. There are Ancient Greek kraters, Egyptian mummy cases and pre-Columbian fertility figurines. The important European paintings collection can compete with any this side of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art or Chicago's Art Institute. Recent efforts have been made to beef up the modern and contemporary collection, whose holdings include multiple Motherwells, three Wyeths, a Picasso and, most notably, a bequest of 29 Auguste Rodin sculptures from Iris and B. Gerald Cantor (whose names also grace three gallery halls and the roof garden at the Met). Mingled directly into the mix are a handful of worthy North Carolina artists.

"With the entire museum on one level, it is easy to wander from one favorite to another. Physical—even intellectual— accessibility is the keynote: A free audio tour includes everything from excerpts of a Camille Pissarro letter to his son, Lucien, about one of his Rouen bridge paintings to Julia Child intoning recommendations on how best to hang game for a 17th-century Flemish market scene still-life. On second glance, one sees that the exterior is less simple than it first appeared—the walls are made of anodized aluminum panels canted two degrees back from a vertical position and lapped over each other with inner seams of steel buffed to a mirror finish. At certain angles, the entire facade appears to warp and shimmer like a mirage. And the box behaves dynamically inside, too. In fact, it is not really a solid box at all, but penetrated deeply on all sides by slices of garden and ponds. This makes for vistas within that simultaneously take in both art and nature. ..."

Rockin' Raleigh: A Tin Djinn's "Space Cadet"

Special thanks to Taylor for passing this along. I hadn't seen it. Here is A Tin Djinn's video for "Space Cadet" -- filmed in Raleigh. ("Hey, that's near my house"!)

See how many local landmarks you can pick out.

According to their Myspace page, A Tin Djinn could be described as "dissenters of distilled pop and orphans of the hipster revolution. ... Rising from the ashes of former stalwart Nashville outfit, 'Milkshake?' comes this rather undefinable trio. Lead by formidable local archetype, majestic visionary, enforcer of paisley, ambassador of embroidered appliqués, and masterful moonlighter of the legendary 'Cup a Joe', Eliot Wilcox! but he's not alone folks, he has with him a couple of new faces. That young zulu warrior, with an echoing voice that can be heard for miles, the volatile, dazzling, omniscient, furious bass slapper with a grin that will cause you to cease in your wing-tips, Gary Collins! and the newest addition to the almighty trio, that stick shakin, Japan crazed boogie tambourine mad man injecting neoteric energy in to the noise making art of the drum, Clay Harris!....A tin djinn has set out to breathe new life into the local music scene of Raleigh. Lock up your children and hide the chiffon. A tin djinn is coming to a theatre near yooz!"

So there you go.

Raleigh Roundup: Wall goes No. 1 and Raleigh among fastest-growing cities

Apologies for not noting both of these earlier; I've been away.


Raleigh's John Wall goes No. 1 to Wizards

"John Wall was driven in an SUV-size limo to the Verizon Center, where he stepped onto a red carpet surrounded by scores of fans who cheered, craned their necks and did their best to snap photos of the Washington Wizards' No. 1 overall draft pick," said the AP.

"Once inside the arena, he learned that the mayor had proclaimed Friday as 'John Wall Day' - an honor Alex Ovechkin didn't get until winning a league MVP. Wall also watched a video that welcomed him to the nation's capital, with greetings from local sports stars Donovan McNabb, Stephen Strasburg, Ryan Zimmerman and Ovechkin, who spoke in Russian and did his own fist-rotating imitation of the John Wall Dance.

"There were also posters and a massive banner outside the arena proclaiming Wall as a 'game changer' - complete with information for ordering tickets. ..."

Raleigh among fastest-growing municipalities

"The Triangle had some of the country's fastest-growing municipalities in the past decade, and North Carolina gained three more towns and cities with a population over 100,000 in the same period," said WRAL.

"Statistics released Friday by the U.S. Census Bureau also show that Cary, Wilmington and High Point grew enough to join ranks with six other municipalities in North Carolina with at least 100,000 residents.

"Those numbers show that from 2000 to 2009, Raleigh, Cary and Durham were among the fastest-growing of America's 276 municipalities with a population of over 100,000.

"Raleigh's population grew by 40.7 percent, from 288,462 to 405,791. Cary's grew by 41.4 percent, from 96,598 to 136,600. Durham's grew 22 percent, 187,897 to 229,174. ..."

Check out Leo's DTR Walking Tour

Leo over at The Raleigh Connoisseur should be commended for putting together a Downtown Raleigh Walking Tour. You can see Leo's suggest route here.

The tour attempts to hit all the "high points" in DTR while combining history and new developments. The tour is self-guided and takes about an hour to complete the roughly two-mile jaunt.

Get to know your streets: Beatlemania

We haven't highlighted Raleigh transit arteries for some time now, but this new topic crossed mind only because I have a three-year-old who is now obsessed with the Beatles. It was while listening to a collection of the Fab Four's No. 1 songs that I was reminded that there is a very small collection (if a collection can be described as "two of something") of Beatle-inspired streets in south Raleigh.

More specifically, there are two Paul McCartney-themed streets off of Lineberry Road, south of the N.C. State University area. (I know this because we used to live in that part of town. Broad Oaks Place rules!)

Anyway, there are at least two blatantly Paul-themed streets in Raleigh: Pauls [no apostrophe] Penny Lane and Long and Winding Road (which is not very long and does wind ... some).


View Larger Map

Come to think of it, we could've included this post with our "England-inspired streets of Raleigh" post a while back. Oh well.

For what it's worth, there are "Long and Winding Roads" in Tallahassee; Kennebunkport; Garrison, N.Y.; and in a handful of other states. There also appears to be "Penny Lane" in Austin, Texas.

Any other Beatle- or even musician-inspired street names in the area? I looked, but there appears to be no "Shakedown Street" in the Capital City.

Raleigh Curios-city: Wakestone and the world's smallest naval base

A BIG tip of the hat to John Morris and the folks at Goodnight, Raleigh! for this edition of Raleigh Curios-city. This is such a cool story that we couldn't wait to highlight the "world's smallest naval base" -- right smack-dab in the middle of landlocked Raleightown.

"I recently stumbled upon an interesting bit of trivia in an old Wake County Schools publication," wrote John. "It was noted that Raleigh is home to the world’s smallest naval base, located on the grounds of the Josephus Daniels House. Daniels is one of Raleigh’s most notable historical figures: Secretary of the Navy, ambassador to Mexico, and editor of the News & Observer (as well as several hometown newspapers).

"When Daniels moved in to his Hayes-Barton home at the end of his appointment as Secretary of the Navy, he wished to have a naval gun mounted on his front lawn. The article stated that the only way this could happen was for the small patch of earth around the gun to be declared an official Navy base."

Read on for more very interesting information and fantastic images from Goodnight, Raleigh!

(Image from Goodnight, Raleigh!)

Pop Goes Raleigh: redux

Well, we can add another Capital City name-drop-in-song to the list: "Do the John Wall."

"When Raleigh's John Wall made his first court appearance in a Kentucky Wildcats uniform, he did a flexed-fist power gesture that instantly became known on dance floors as 'The John Wall,'" writes the N&O.

"And because every dance move needs a soundtrack, the Raleigh rap trio Troop 41 saw an opening. Thus we have 'Do The John Wall,' which sings the praises of the 6-foot-4 point guard and his hometown, while urging listeners to 'flex on these haters!'

"We've known John Wall for a long time," says Tristian "T-Breezy" Brown, 18, of Troop 41. "We grew up playing sports with each other. Then he went to Kentucky and started this dance craze, but there was no song to go with it. So we sat down one day and decided we should do that, went into the studio and did it. We talked to John, and he's 100 percent down with it. Now everybody's catching on to it."

[cut]

Even before his freshman season began in earnest, videos of fans mimicking the arm-flexing move that Wall showed off at the Wildcats' season-opening "Big Blue Madness" were popping up online. A cast member on the ABC sitcom "Cougar Town" - Josh Hopkins, a Kentucky fan - flashed the move during one November episode.

While "Do The John Wall" has yet to appear on a physical product, the song is available on iTunes and it's all over YouTube. The initial version appeared in February just in time for the NCAA Tournament.

A video followed last month, picking up a total of more than 500,000 views.

The song's low-tech video features Troop 41 and friends attired in John Wall T-shirts, flexing and frolicking with basketball goals and Raleigh's skyline as backdrops. The home-made video has certainly raised the profile of Troop 41, although the group remains unsigned.

So, there ya go. Raleigh continues its pop culture ascent.

Pop Goes Raleigh: Name-dropping the Capital City in song

Welcome to (yet another) new feature where we will take a look at Raleigh in popular culture (be that as it may). In this first installment, we take a quick look at how the City of Oaks has been name-dropped in music at various times through the years.


Raleigh may be one of the capitals of the New South, a burgeoning new "place to be" and its rise to fame may be a recent phenomenon, but the city's name has been mentioned in songs for at least four decades -- although sporadically and, not surprisingly, not nearly as often as some bigger cities.



Nonetheless, the City of Oaks can lay claim to some name-dropping heritage. We discussed this almost exactly a year ago, noting that Elvis Presley's cover of Chuck Berry's "Promised Land" gives a tip of the hat to our fair city: "I left my home in Norfolk Virginia/California on my mind/I straddled that Greyhound/And rode into Raleigh/And on across Caroline."

James Brown's "Night Train" also mentions Raleigh -- along with Miami, Atlanta, D.C. Richmond, Philly and others.

There are other examples of Raleigh popping up in songs. (And for all I know, Petey Pablo, who lives in Wake Forest and was once arrested in Raleigh, probably has as well, but it doesn't look like it happens in "Raise Up." Warning: NSFW.)

Raleigh's The Connells have, not surprisingly, paid homage to their hometown in several ways. Of course, their second album is called, Boylan Heights, after the neighborhood. And in the mid-1990s album, Weird Food and Devastation is a song called "Hang On," with a line about being "here in Rally, really." (The band's 1993 album Ring also contains art by bassist David Connell of the iconic Roast Grill. Hot weiners, indeed.)



More recently, Old Crow Medicine Show has found some success, notably with the song, "Wagon Wheel," which contains these verses:

Heading down south to the land of the pines
I'm thumbing my way in the North Caroline
Staring up the road pray to God I see headlights
I made it down the coast in seventeen hours,
Picking me a bouquet of dogwood flowers
And I'm a hopin' for Raleigh,
So I can see my baby tonight

[cut]

Walkin' to the south out of Roanoke,
I caught a trucker out of Philly had a nice long toke.
But he's a heading west to the Cumberland gap,
From Johnson City, Tennessee.
Now I gotta get a move on before the sun,
I hear my baby calling my name and I know that she's the only one.
And If I die in Raleigh at least I will die free.

"Wagon Wheel" has been played consistently over the past couple of seasons at halftime of N.C. State football games, by the way.

When we discussed this last year, commenter ChaseClef mentioned two references that I was unaware of.

James Taylor makes a direct reference in "Raised Up Family" off the October Road record.

"You got to ride it on back
Take me back
Back in Raleigh, North Carolina
Yeah, do you wanna go
Way back in Raleigh, North Carolina"

And also Chatham County Line: "The Carolinian"

"Well you know that moment still weighs on my mind ‘Cause I took my body to Raleigh, and left my heart behind"

The Avett Brothers have a song called, "Pretty Girl from Raleigh" (one of many titled, "Pretty Girl from ... ." But, aside from the title, there's no direct reference to Raleigh (not that I'm complaining).

And, I'll say it again like I said last year, I'm pretty sure that "back in the day" there was a version of Huey Lewis and News' "Heart of Rock and Roll" that included the line, "Charlotte! And Raleigh too" toward the end. And if that doesn't prove you've "made it" as a city, I don't know what else does. (Take this quiz to see if you can remember all the cities in that song!)

What other ones have I missed/forgotten?

One of the best-kept secrets in DTR: the mobile DMV

One of the best-kept secrets in Downtown Raleigh is the NCDMV’s Mobile Unit. Need to get your license renewed? Don't wait in line for hours at a traditional storefront, just head down to 100 Lane Street (the site of the Crime Victims’ Memorial Gardens) around the first Tuesday and Wednesday of each month and get in, get out and get on with your life.

My wife and I have both taken advantage of this convenient location on multiple occasions; I went just yesterday to renew my license. There is NEVER a line to get a license renewed or even retake a sign test. Just today I walked from my office downtown and was back in 30 minutes. (Last time I was there, a gentleman had driven from Garner because he knew it would be quicker than going to a traditional DMV office.)

The on-duty officer I talked with yesterday said that so far they have not seen the mobile unit’s budget cut, but that you never know. This is a great service for the thousands of people who work in Downtown Raleigh every day. Obviously it’s not a service people need on a daily or even weekly basis, but if you need to renew your license, please make use of the mobile unit.

Here are the dates that it is scheduled to be at 100 Lane Street for the rest of the 2010:

July 6-7 Aug. 3-4 Sept. 7-8 Oct. 5-6 Nov. 2-3 Dec. 7-8 Hours: 9:30 am to 3:30 pm

Raleigh Curios-city: Dorton Arena

Yesterday, in the post about the new Raleigh Amphitheater, we raved about how good the sound actually, uh, sounded.

The same cannot be said (and, as far as I can tell, has NEVER been said) about one of Raleigh's most iconic and venerable facilities: J.S. Dorton Arena, on the State Fairgrounds.

But, to be fair, the "Paraboleum" (as it was originally called by its architect) or "State Fair Arena" was always intended as a multi-purpose facility primarily to host agricultural and state fair events, not concerts. (When it began to host musical events, concertgoers apparently referred to it as the "Cow Palace.")

Dorton is known, these days, as much for the echoes that are produced during a concert than anything else. This isn't new.

Go back to April 8, 1970, when British rock band Led Zeppelin played at Dorton.

"After waiting more than 45 minutes for the show to begin, the patient audience was rewarded with five minutes of ear-splitting feed back," said the News & Observer's Gerry Ligon.

"In order to avoid the echo within the arena, which Jimi Hendrix encountered recently, the performers had to present their music at their maximum volume. Because of this, the audience had to adjust to the powerful beat of sound." [Emphasis mine.]

It is unfortunate that the horrid acoustics have overshadowed the rest of Dorton's charm. It is, quite honestly, an architectural marvel. It was completed in 1952, with renovations in 1979, 1996 and 2002. (Most recently, a thin, red light was added to the elliptical roof.) 1972, Dorton Arena was placed on the National Historic Registry. Not too shabby.

Dorton "has earned an international reputation since its construction in 1952. The late Matthew Nowicki, while head of the Department of Architecture at North Carolina State University, created the innovative design," according to the arena's official history.

Nowicki was killed in an airplane crash before the construction phase, and local architect William Henley Dietrick supervised the completion of the arena using Nowicki's innovative design [according to Wikipedia].

Its design features a steel cable supported saddle-shaped roof in tension, held up by parabolic concrete arches in compression. The arches cross about 20 feet above ground level and continue underground, where the ends of the arches are held together by more steel cables in tension. The outer walls of the arena support next to no weight at all.

Dorton Arena boasts the world's first cable supported roof system.

Dorton's history is also tied to the many sports teams that have called it home -- if only for a short time: the American Basketball Association's Carolina Cougars, the East Coast Hockey League's Raleigh IceCaps, and today the Carolina Rollergirls.

Dorton is also most busy during the weeks of the annual State Fair, when it hosts a variety of daily concerts.

New Raleigh Amphitheater pleasantly surprises

The family headed out (via the R Line) Friday night to the new Raleigh Amphitheater, not really sure what to expect. By and large, we were pleasantly surprised.

I went into the show fully expecting that the major complaint would be the acoustics. After all, we're talking about a downtown, outdoor facility that is "shooting" noise toward the larger buildings in town.

The sound, actually, was terrific. Yes, it could have stood to have been louder, but it was perhaps the clearest outdoor music I've ever heard.

The one criticism (aside from the constantly-blinking "PARKING" sign just across the street from the venue, giving everyone on the teeny-tiny lawn a headache) of the new amphitheater is the sight lines. I didn't make it out to the first ticketed show the next night, so I'll give the management the benefit of the doubt and hope they got it worked out. (And Dana has already done a thorough job of deconstructing any issues, which you can read here.) The best views -- as have been mentioned in several places -- are reserved for the performers, who get a nice shot of the Shimmer Wall (pictured -- admittedly, not very good -- via my camera phone, from the lawn).

As for the show, we got there just in time for Mosadi Music (which sounded like a tame Rage Against the Machine), but were blown away by I Was Totally Destroying It (which ended the set with a great version of "In A Big Country"). The Connells were the perfect "headliner" for the first show. It felt like an uber-Raleigh concert: young men in polos, Croakies and Rainbows doing the shag to "Get A Gun" with their sundressed lovelies;, even Doug MacMillan congratulating keyboardist Steve Potak's daughter on making a dance squad ... at Ligon.

A Capital Conversation ... with W. Jarrett Campbell of Triangle Soccer Fanatics

The World Cup is just 10 days away, so we're honored with this edition of 'A Capital Conversation' [see past editions here, here, here and here] to chat with W. Jarrett Campbell, the founder of Triangle Soccer Fanatics (see bottom) and arguably the Raleigh area's most enthusiastic promoter of the "Beautiful Game."

Raleigh Philosophical Society: What is your personal background? Where did you grow up?

W. Jarrett Campbell: I grew up in South Carolina in a small town called Clinton (between Columbia and Greenville-Spartanburg). I got a Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Tech and then went on to get a Ph.D. in the same subject from the University of Texas at Austin. After working in the semiconductor industry in Austin for about 7 years, my wife & I moved to the Triangle area to be closer to family. We have 3 children -- Max 9, Molly 6, and Zoe 7 months. I have worked for Schneider Electric in Knightdale since 2003.

RPS: Where did you interest in soccer begin? Were you a player?

WJC: I played soccer as a child at our local Y.M.C.A. but in a small town like Clinton, the playing options were very limited. Once a child made it to middle school, there were no "city league" sports options, only those sports offered by the schools. As soccer wasn't a sport offered by either my middle school or high school, I focused on playing basketball in my teenage years.

I didn't really become a fan of soccer as a spectator sport until 1994 when the USA hosted the World Cup. At the time, I was in a student exchange program at University College in London. The international students only wanted to run down to the pub after class to catch the World Cup matches. Being a sport fan and social, I joined them, knowing very little about the professional game. I absolutely fell in love with their passion for the sport and the way soccer blended cultures together among a common language. At that point I was hooked.

RPS: How did you begin to get involved with supporting soccer in the Triangle? What was the genesis of TSF?

WJC: When I moved here in the Fall of 2002, I didn't know anyone in the Triangle who loved soccer as much as I did. At the time, it was quite difficult for soccer fans to watch the game on TV (before the days of Fox Soccer Channel and GolTV) and the typical chance to watch a USA or English Premier League match would be on Pay-Per-View.

I organized TSF initially as a YahooGroups Mailing List to try and solicit others from the area to come out and share in the fun of watching matches together (and also help share the cost of the PPV). We had our first get together for a USA versus Canada match in January of 2003 at SoccerDome America (now XL Soccer World).

RPS: How has TSF grown in comparison with the sport in the Triangle?

WJC: Whether you're talking about amateur clubs like CASL or Triangle Futbol Club or your thing is college soccer with the ACC schools, soccer has always been a big deal. But one of the challenges has always been that fan's loyalties were divided among all the schools and amateur clubs so it was hard to see the critical mass of soccer fans in the Triangle. At first with the Carolina Courage, and then later with the Carolina RailHawks, soccer fans found a common team they could all agree on and it has really helped the sport grow in the area I believe.

For the first few years of Triangle Soccer Fanatics, we were a pretty small, tight-knit group of friends that enjoyed the game. When the RailHawks came to town, we decided to transform our little mailing list (which at that point had evolved into a blog), into a full-fledged supporters group for the RailHawks in the model of similar clubs you'll find in Europe or with Major League Soccer teams in the USA.

Our membership really took off at that point as we found a new way to connect with fans in the Triangle. As the 2010 World Cup approaches, we've really seen our membership blossom. What started out as five people in the concessions area of SoccerDome seven years ago, is now a club with well over 200 people involved in the RDU area as well as international members on four continents.


RPS: TSF is now a "free" club. What does that say about interest in the sport and in the RailHawks?

WJC: I think it says more about how we have evolved as a supporters club than anything.

There are some basic support costs associated with running a social club like TSF (websites, advertising, members benefits like t-shirts, etc.) and in the early years, it was pretty much a one-man show run by myself. As we have grown, we not only have reached a critical mass in membership numbers where I can count on a large group of "regulars" to show up for all of our events but I've also found a wonderful group of volunteers who have stepped up to help with some of the administrative tasks of the club.

Now that we've reached this stage in our maturity, we feel that through our own fundraising efforts (like being a ticket agent for the RailHawks or t-shirt sales) we can raise enough funds to cover the operational costs of the club. TSF was never about making money but rather the membership dues were simply a means to an end to make sure we could pay our bills. Fortunately, we're able to do that now while making membership free to everyone -- and we've seen our membership skyrocket as a result!

RPS: You were instrumental in coming up with the RailHawks' nickname. Talk a little about how that happened.

WJC: The ownership of the new professional team decided to have a name the team contest. A buddy and I were bound and determined to come up with a good name for the team. We deliberated over it for days and weeks on end as we sat around watching soccer on TV and finally settled on RailHawks.

We were surprised when it was chosen by the team because we thought it was a bit "out of the ordinary" (which is why we liked it). The decision was met with a lot of skepticism from the local soccer community -- even members of our own supporters club -- but I think it has grown into a pretty cool moniker. I wrote an essay on the background of how we came up with the name and you can find it on our blog here: http://trisoccerfan.com/?p=1910

RPS: What's your favorite song/chant that the fans in the Depot do?

WJC: We've borrowed many chants from other supporters groups and customized them to make them our own. Probably the fan favorite is our "Coming Down the Rails" chant (video here: http://www.youtube.com/trisoccerfan#p/a/u/2/BzkLyWfQdXE) which we co-opted from the Tartan Army -- Scotland's national team supporters club.

I'm particularly fond of the "I've Been Cheering for the RailHawks" sung to the tune of "I've been working on the railroad" not only because it is an original supporters song I wrote, but because it ties so nicely to the railroad/train theme behind the RailHawks name.

But my true favorite chants are the ones that materialize spontaneously based on what's happening on the pitch. One such chant evolved from a situation when our then-coach Scott Schweitzer was having a bit of a shouting match with some of the Charleston Battery coaches and players. Going all the way back to his playing days in the league, Schweitzer had a fierce rivalry with the Battery and from that situation sprung up a chant of "Scotty Schweitzer hates the Battery and so do we!" to the tune of "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain." The 204 Depot proceeded to sing the chant in verses substituting the name of just about every member of the supporters club there that night for the rest of the match.

RPS: Personnel and management aside, what would you like to see happen with the RailHawks as a franchise from a supporter's standpoint?

WJC: I think the RailHawks have done a great job of building an on-the-field product for fans to enjoy but I feel like they still struggle to find their audience here in the Triangle. Two noticeable absences from most RailHawks games are the Latino community as well as the 20-30-something urban, young adult crowd. If you look at teams in Portland and Seattle, for instance, that have had great success, much of it has been on the back of reaching out to these demographics in particular. These are also the groups that would add significantly to the supporters sections in the stadium and bring a lot more atmosphere to the games. If the RailHawks can figure out a way to market themselves beyond the youth soccer crowd, I think they'll have a recipe for success here in the Triangle.

RPS: In your personal opinion, do you think the Triangle will ever be considered an expansion market for MLS? Or would you even want that to happen?

WJC: To be honest, I'm torn about this. Obviously, the ultimate high-water mark for soccer in this country is Major League Soccer. It would be wonderful for the Raleigh-Durham area to have a second top-level professional team here to complement the Carolina Hurricanes. I would love it if the RailHawks eventually followed the pathway of Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, and Montreal in moving up to Major League Soccer. However, I think we must acknowledge that there are many more areas in the US that are both bigger television markets than RDU and have an investment group actively seeking to move into MLS. I just don't seen Raleigh-Durham being on an MLS expansion short list anytime soon.

On the other hand, I don't need the RailHawks to be a "major league" team to continue to have a lot of fun going to the games and supporting the team. In fact, my support would not be diminished even if they chose to move down a level to the USL-2 division. While the payrolls wouldn't be as high and the quality of play might be slightly degraded, it would put us into the same league as Charleston, Charlotte, and Richmond giving us a number of rivals in the local area. One of the hardest things about supporting the RailHawks today is trying to make it to an away match as our opponents are spread out all over three countries. Traveling to support your soccer team is one of the most fun aspects of being a soccer fan and we could travel a lot more of that if Carolina played in a league with more regional rivals.

RPS: Any thoughts on MLS/Division 2 running a relegation table?

WJC: Promotion and Relegation is one of the finest traditions of international soccer and I would love to see it implemented in the United States, but in many ways it seems impractical. Given the disparity in investment by owners of Major League Soccer teams and those at the Second Division level in NASL and USL, I just can't see the MLS board of directors implementing a system that could make their investment value drop as precipitously as it would with relegation.

However, I have a bit of a crazy theory about how this might happen one day. There is a big trend with Mexican first division teams playing games in the United States due to the ticket sales available to them here from the Hispanic population. MLS also seriously needs to tap into the southwestern markets in places like Phoenix, San Antonio,and El Paso. I have a vision that 10 years from now, the Mexican Futbol League and Major League Soccer form some kind of merger into a 40-team league with two divisions that practice promotion and relegation between the tiers. Think of it as an NFC-AFC or an ABA-NBA-type merger. I think this is absolutely the best thing that could happen for professional soccer in this country.

RPS: TSF supports not just the RailHawks but also the U.S. National Team and even holds meetups for European games and friendlies. Do you see this as an opportunity to "pull in" perhaps fans of English teams and national teams into supporting the RailHawks? Do you find transplants who want to support Carolina along with their "home" teams?

WJC: Yes. We have many members who joined the club having never been to a RailHawks game but joined us for their interest in English or USA soccer. One thing about soccer around the world is that it really is a "local" game. Supporting the team in the town you live in is as great tradition. Many of the transplants to the area have grown up in this culture and are looking for a way to connect to their new local team in some way and I would like to think that TSF provides that connection for many new RailHawks fans.

RPS: What would you like to see happen with TSF in the coming years?

WJC: To be honest, my goal of starting TSF was to connect with a few other fans in the area so I had a few buddies to sit around in the pub and watch matches with or someone to head out on a roadtrip with me to see a game or two. With close to 200 members in the fold now, TSF has already exceeded my wildest expectations.

Seven years into this great journey with TSF, I hope we continue to grow by reaching out to more soccer fans in the area and anything we can do to help grow passion in the area around the Beautiful Game is wonderful. I would like to see even more folks step forward in leadership roles and I'd also like to see us perhaps a bit more active with the local collegiate soccer scene. But truthfully, I'm very happy with where the club is today versus that first meetup we had at SoccerDome back in 2003.

RPS: Obviously the World Cup is coming up very soon. What are your thoughts on the U.S. team's draw and their chances?

WJC: There could not have been a better draw for the USA, in my opinion. First of all, we drew our colonial forefathers and the inventors of the game itself for the first match. England soccer

fans have always looked down their nose at the United States as a footballing nation and there would be nothing sweeter than a victory on June 12th. There are very few American soccer fans still alive that can remember that last time we played the English in a meaningful match and it would be one of my dreams come true for us to repeat the upset we pulled off in the 1950 World Cup.

Coupled with this dream match, we drew a couple of the weaker teams from Europe and Africa. We must be careful as there are no easy games at the World Cup. No team qualifies for this tournament that isn't world class. But I have to say I like the Yanks' chances of getting at least six points (two wins) from the three games and advancing through either in the first or second place in our group.

I've got two weeks of vacation from my job scheduled starting June 11th. I can't wait!

About Triangle Soccer Fanatics

Triangle Soccer Fanatics is a group of soccer fans in the Raleigh-Cary-Durham-Chapel Hill area who love the Beautiful Game and love to get together and share our passion with other soccer fans.

We are the independent supporters club of the Carolina RailHawks professional soccer team and we are also a local RDU-based chapter of the American Outlaws, a US National Team supporters club.

In addition, we often get together for international club and country match watching parties, in particular English Premier League matches and World Cup matches.

Our mission is to the fill the stands when our teams play at home, and fill the bars when they play on television, with passionate, vocal, spirited soccer fans who revel in the excitement of every kick and cheer every tackle. Furthermore, we look to harness that passion and redirect it back into the local community through various outreach programs and in cooperation with the RailHawks’ Spread Your Wings Foundation.

(Photos from flickr)