Sporting Kansas City: Then and now after 20 years

The rainbow jerseys are returning Wednesday night. But little else is the same.

As Sporting Kansas City celebrates the 20th anniversary of its first match when it faces Colorado at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Children’s Mercy Park, the players will wear black warmup jerseys with rainbow stripes to pay homage to the Kansas City Wiz kits in 1996.

The similarities pretty much end there.

On April 13, 1996, the Kansas City Wiz, one of 10 charter clubs in Major League Soccer, defeated Colorado 3-0 at Arrowhead Stadium. The league and its clubs were quite different 20 years ago.

How different? The Star talked to former and current players to find out.

THE NAME

▪ THEN: The Wiz ran a community-wide contest to submit suggestions for the first team name. Sporting KC captain Matt Besler, then only 8 years old, submitted one, along with his two younger brothers: The KC Kickers.

After only one season, the club switched its name. But it opted for the Wizards rather than the Kickers.

▪ NOW: Four years after OnGoal purchased the team in 2006, the club enacted a rebrand directed toward millennials. That included another name change — Sporting Kansas City.

“This is all about a new start,” Sporting Club CEO Robb Heineman said. “It’s a new name, new stadium, a new time.”

TRAINING GROUNDS

▪ THEN: Let’s allow former Wiz defender Jake Dancy to explain: “We would drive around Overland Park, and (Coach) Ron (Newman) would say: ‘Boys, I found a field today. Let’s train there.’ We tried Swope Park at one point, but it wasn’t what it is nowadays. We only had one or two showers working, so we would have to wait in line to shower after practice. It was pretty rough living, to be honest with you, but we didn’t know any better. We were just happy to be in the league.”

▪ NOW: More than $20 million has been poured into Swope Soccer Village, building a state-of-the-art complex, locker room, weight room and exercise facility. It plays host to home games for the Swope Park Rangers, Sporting Kansas City’s USL team, as well as for FC Kansas City, the two-time defending National Women’s Soccer League champions. Neither franchise existed in 1996.

TEAM MEALS

▪ THEN: In the first preseason, the Kansas City Wiz struck a deal with an Olive Garden in Florida, stationed near its training camp facility. The team ate every lunch and dinner there for six weeks straight. They were offered a choice of three meals for the six weeks.

“Ah, the Olive Garden, “ former Wiz forward Digital Takawira said. “Don’t remind me.”

▪ NOW: Sporting Kansas City has a full-time nutritionist on staff, and the club provides meals for the players after every practice. There’s even a smoothie bar in the training facility.

CHEAT DAY?

▪ THEN: The players had pretty loose restrictions on their consumption habits. In fact, in 1996 a few Wiz players got away with drinking a couple of alcoholic beverages on the bench during a match in San Jose.

▪ NOW: How much stricter have things become? After Sporting Kansas City’s latest victory, a 2-0 win against the New York Red Bulls on Saturday, the team’s trainer offered the players a reward: one cookie.

FITNESS TECHNOLOGY

▪ THEN: Dancy recalls having a light day once during preseason, and since the players were all young and single, they went out and had a good time.

Newman “probably figured out we had a long night, so he made us run two miles on soft sand,” Dancy said. “I was close to (public relations director) Rob Thomson, and he was timing the run, so I asked him to start the watch a little late.

“The whole thing worked out in my favor, because Ron thought I had finished the run so quickly. The next thing you know, he’s starting me the next night at striker, because I was suddenly so fast — or so he thought. I scored a goal in the preseason game. The guys started calling me ‘Striker.’ It stuck.”

▪ NOW: The shenanigans would never fly these days. The players are strapped with vests that head fitness coach Mateus Manoel uses to track the distances they cover in games and practice. Sporting KC defensive midfielder Soni Mustivar often finishes atop the list in matches.

STADIUM

▪ THEN: The Wiz played home games in Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Chiefs.

Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes, who played the MLS inaugural season with the New Jersey MetroStars, recalled entering the venue as a visitor: “It was way too big. It just didn’t have that intimate environment. The grounds crew did an incredible job (with the field). But the stadium was just way too big.”

▪ NOW: As part of its rebrand, Sporting Kansas City constructed Children’s Mercy Park, a soccer-specific stadium on the other side of the state line. The stadium has sold out 73 consecutive MLS matches.

“It doesn’t take a genius to know our stadium is pretty special,” Heineman said. “The fans have filled it up. It’s one of the best environments across sports.”

RULES OF THE GAME

▪ THEN: The league adopted less-than-traditional soccer regulations in its opening season. For starters, the clock actually counted down, and there were buzzers that signaled the end of each half. And rather than ties, shootouts decided a winner. But they weren’t the penalty-kick shootouts as you know them today. Instead, players started 35 yards from goal and had five seconds to dribble and shoot.

▪ NOW: The clock ticks up toward 90 minutes, with the time kept by the center referee. The shootouts are reserved for the postseason only, and they are traditional penalty kicks — which has worked out just fine for Sporting KC, which won its 2013 MLS Cup and 2015 U.S. Open Cup in a penalty-kick shootout.

CELEBRATIONS

▪ THEN: Who could forget the Digital Crawl? After scoring goals, Takawira would drop to his hands and knees, and literally crawl across the ground.

“It started when I was in Zimbabwe playing for the junior teams,” Takawira said in a phone interview this week. “That was just how I wanted to celebrate goals, and people loved it.

“I told my teammates to join. They started joining in. It became a trend.”

Besler on the Digital Crawl: “I remember my dad told me to watch out for Digital, because if he scores, he has a famous dance. After seeing it, one of the kids on my team, he picked it up and started doing it.”

▪ NOW: The most famous celebration of the Sporting KC era is more high-tech. As part of a goal celebration in 2014, forward Dom Dwyer swiped a phone from a cameraman, put his arm around teammate Soony Saad and snapped a picture with fans from the south stands draped behind him. According to TV Eyes, a national TV and radio monitoring service, news of the Dwyer selfie was broadcast to more than 10 million people across the country.

Asked whether Sporting KC might pay homage to Digital in Wednesday’s anniversary match, winger Brad Davis said, “Stay tuned.”

GAMING WORLD

▪ THEN: Nintendo released its newest gaming system — the N64 — in 1996.

“You should compare our video game images,” Dancy said. “We looked like Minecraft.”

▪ NOW: A computer game called “Football Manager” allows the gamer to get a feel for everything that goes into running a soccer club — from player acquisition and development to budgeting and kit design. And you can watch a three-dimensional simulation of the matches.

ATOP THE MUSIC CHARTS

▪ THEN: “Macarena” was the No. 1 hit song of 1996, and it was regularly played during Wiz matches.

“I remember that used to be huge,” said Besler, then 8 years old. “That was one of my favorite parts of the game — that and the Magic Minutes. That was like the most exciting time ever.”

▪ NOW: Rihanna and Drake have topped the charts for eight weeks running with “Work.” No, it’s not played during Sporting KC matches. But the Magic Minutes will return for Wednesday’s match. If Sporting KC scores during the 74th through 76th minutes, Papa John’s Pizza will give away a free select side or dessert the day after the game.

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Sporting Kansas City: Then and now after 20 years."