What was your first soccer experience?

Probably in the mid-70s when my family lived in Memphis was when I first kicked a ball, but I didn't really play until my family moved back to the St. Louis area at the beginning of the 80's. I was primarily a baseball player, much better than I was a soccer player, and remained that way basically into my 20s, despite getting a soccer scholarship to Drake University. But as the new kid in town, even in 5th grade, I was able to see that soccer players were getting all of the girls so I thought that might be a good thing to try. | show longer version of the story

What was your greatest soccer experience?

My personal greatest was scoring the winning goal vs. our arch rivals, Granite City, at their field during my senior year of high school. My team's greatest was winning the Illinois High School Class AA State Championship, also my senior year. And my greatest as a fan was attending the US-Mexico qualifier in Columbus, Ohio, in September 2005 that guaranteed our spot in Germany. | show longer version of the story

What team or teams do you absolutely despise?

In the spirit of FIFA's Fair Play, I don't really have any hatred for these teams, but I generally cheer every loss they experience, unless my team is out of contention and it sort of helps us out by comparison in things like power rankings, in which case I don't necessarily root for their victories, but I also don't root too hard against them.

That being said, here are the teams I am generally rooting against. My roots: Granite City High School (far and away more state championships than any other school in Illinois, and our conference rivals), Belleville East High School (we had a nasty bench-clearing brawl with them during a game my senior year). International: Mexico, Germany. Not really applicable: Kansas Jayhawks, but neither they nor Missouri had teams when I was in school there, so it's more a theoretical hatred that applies more explicitly to basketball than soccer in reality.

What team or teams do you love?

Obviously my high school alma mater, Collinsville High School Kahoks is number 1 (named after the local mound-building Cahokia tribe of Native Americans, and pronounced similarly to the Jayhawks). After that, I root for both of my hometown college teams, Saint Louis University and Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, both with NCAA Division 1 Championships under their belt, though SIU-E no longer competes at that level and it's been a while for SLU as well. Next is my adopted hometown college team, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and DC United. Finally of course is the US national teams, at every level. Just about any national team game televised I will watch, so gimme more, television executives! | show longer version of the story

Where are you going to watch the World Cup this June?

At home or a friend's most likely due to the fact that we now have a wonderful 1-year-old boy named Henry, and I work from home on this sort of internet stuff. Summers in downtown Arlington is generally the place to be I'm told, but my beer will be cold coming out my fridge also, though the camaraderie and tv screen sizes will be less. Oh, and I can't watch the game with Henry because I get too excited and scream a lot, which makes him cry. Slow, boring, baseball is more the speed for a one-year-old.

What is the most ignorant, offensive, or just plain stupefying thing you have seen a clueless journalist, player, coach or supposed fan do or say about soccer?

I've been doing a lot of reading and talking about soccer ever since I decided to create the US Soccer Review following the 2002 Cup, so I have many, many examples, but probably the worst all revolve around why soccer is incompatible with American sports (too little scoring, too complicated, too foreign, "too many girls", etc.)