90 Days: Thursday, November 21 (Day No. 46)

 

(This is the time of year when the horse racing season for the Ivory Pine Syndicate is winding down, but the soccer season for the Rosevelt Soccer Club is gearing up. Here's a 90-day glimpse of the day in the life of a horse racing managing partner and soccer club administrator.)

Awoke, 5:38a

Listened to From the Forest, to the Tide podcast, 5:45a-6:30a

This is the podcast of the Dirigo Union, the supporters group for the Portland Hearts of Pine that Colin Durrant, Mario Moretto, and I co-founded in 2020.

Of the three of us co-founders, Colin is the only one still actively involved in the group (Mario moved to Washington D.C. to work as Rep. Jared Golden's communications director, and I needed to step back to focus on Rosevelt SC and developing 23U programming in Maine), but Colin and the new crew are knocking it out of the park.

The most recent episode featured an interview with Hearts of Pine's first coach Bobby Murphy, and I'm looking forward to the new episode about the club's jersey launch event. 

Worked at Westbrook High School, 7:30a-2:30p

Ivory Pine Syndicate admin, 3p-4p

Sent out partners' updates about our partnership's two pacers, Crimson Pine and Sixby Hanover, and their upcoming races over the next ten days. 

Today's work session was also focused on the short-term future of our partnership's stable, including a rough draft of our partnership's anticipated 2025 offering that has been mostly sketched out after my meeting with our trainer and co-owner Mike Graffam on Wednesday.

Watched Hammarby vs. Manchester City UEFA Women's Champions League game, 4p-6p

I usually work best with audio as background noise, but I had a rooting wager on Hammarby and couldn't pass up watching the free broadcast of the game on DAZN's YouTube page while I worked.

Unfortunately, DAZN's free streaming of live women's soccer isn't widely-known. Highly recommend it.

Rosevelt SC admin, 4p-6p

Today's focus was onboarding new players who've recently joined our club, assigning uniform numbers to as many new players as possible ahead of launching our online store next Tuesday, and finalizing a rough draft of our teams' winter programming schedules to share with our coaches for review ahead of releasing that schedule on Tuesday.

Maine Soccer Association admin, 6p-6:30p

On my drive into Portland to attend the Hearts of Pine's jersey reveal event, I called the president of one of Maine Soccer Association's member clubs to check in on potential dates for our next meeting among clubs who fielded 23U teams last summer. 

We want to grow both our 23U Men's and 23U Women's programming in Maine programming next summer to include at least four clubs each, so that we can organize a league schedule that features 4-7 games. So the focus is organizing a meeting among existing clubs before the end of the year to get on the same page about our preferences, and then start meeting with prospective clubs in January with a common vision.

Both of our clubs also roster youth teams, so part of our chat was also on the goings-on within and outside our clubs as we both prepare for the start of our youth programming.

Attended Hearts of Pine's Jersey Reveal Event, 6:30p-7:45p

The new professional club's event at State Theatre was really well-planned and well-executed. The professionalism and panache demonstrated in the event is already a hallmark of the club, and the jersey itself is rugged and elegant--a tough combination to pull off.

For me, a highlight of the event was Kennedy Park FC's Jon Cross and Muntasir Ahmed talking about their club right before the jersey was unveiled. 

Kennedy Park FC is a member club of the Maine Soccer Association, and their men's team has joined Rosevelt SC's men's team as one of the three founding clubs of our state association's 23U men's programming. Jon is also a former colleague of mine at Westbrook High School, and Muntasir is one of our club's alums.

Muntasir's praise of Phil Darasz, a teacher in Portland and one of our club's former coaches, was particularly touching. Phil's son Michael played with us as a youth player and has continued to play on our 23U Men's team, and Muntasir shared his memories of Phil connecting him with our club and playing the vital role of advocate and supporter throughout Muntasir's youth career.

It's so great to see Muntasir work with Jon to stand up a club of their own and "be a Phil" (in his words) for future players, even while he finishes his academic and soccer career at Saint Michael's.

Ate dinner at Yosaku, 7:45p-9:30p

Even though we live only about 10 miles outside downtown Portland, I don't go in town all that often anymore. So I stopped in to Yosaku, a Japanese restaurant in the Old Port, for dinner.

Ram Tray, one of our club's charter coaches, owns the restaurant and I've always had great meals there. Ram is also one of the few chefs in New England--if not the United States--who makes handmade soba noodles from scratch, and you need to try them if you're ever in the neighborhood.

It was great to sit with Ram, reminisce about the earliest days of our club, and catch up on family news. We even came up with a few new ideas related to both Rosevelt SC and Hearts of Pine, and all of them are short-term enough to get started on now.

Asleep, 10:52p