Just For Kicks

By Al Chase

Thursday, October 14, 1999

U.S. women taking their
hit show indoors

THE time has come for the United States national women's team members to cash in on their popularity and have some fun in a different setting.

The team's 11-city Indoor Victory Tour vs. the World All-Stars kicks off next Friday in Pittsburgh.

Other stops are: Detroit (Oct. 24), Cleveland (Oct. 29), Chicago (Oct. 31), Philadelphia (Nov. 13), East Rutherford, N.J. (Nov. 14), Washington, D.C. (Nov. 20), Raleigh, N.C. (Nov.21), Anaheim (Dec. 9), San Jose (Dec.11) and Tacoma, Wash. (Dec. 12).

The players will be able to earn between $50,000 and $100,000 depending on how many matches they play.

The U.S. National men's Under-17 team, riding a 19-match unbeaten streak, plays Ghana Saturday and Sunday in Georgia. It's the final tune-up before the FIFA Under-17 World Championship in Auckland, New Zealand, next month.

The Northern Colorado women's soccer team is fighting to secure one of two NCAA Division II postseason berths from the Great Plains Region.

The Bears (10-3) are No. 21 in the National Collegiate Coaches Association Division II poll.

Six Hawaii players have contributed to the Bears' success this season.

The seniors are Jackie Pang (Mililani), a striker/midfielder; Jan Yomogida (Mililani), a midfielder, and Jodie Nomi (Kapaa), a striker/midfielder.

Megan Inouye (Mililani) is a junior midfielder/defender. Also playing midfield is sophomore Streisand Reverio from St. Francis.

Freshman Maya Sakamaki (Iolani ) is a midfielder. Another Iolani grad, Ashlyn Markus, is redshirting this year.

Hawaii players have accounted for four goals and 13 assists. Pang has dished out a team-leading nine assists.

Alicia Vegas, the senior striker at Simpson College in Iowa, did not score in Tuesday's victory over Luther.

The Lawai, Kauai, resident has scored 106 career goals and needs five to break the NCAA Division III women's record.

By defeating Luther, the Storm moved into second place in the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference standings. That increases their chances of qualifying for the league postseason tournament and extending the number of matches Vegas has to break the record.

Sandy Shimogaki is in her second season coaching the junior varsity girls at Iolani, her alma mater She played collegiate soccer at Massachusetts.

According to a story in a recent edition of the Sunday Times of Singapore, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is putting together an American team of cable and broadcast parties to challenge Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. subsidiary, British Sky Broadcasting, is in the fourth year of a five-year, $1.2 billion deal with the English Football Association.

An English FA official said the Gates group is planning to bid $1.62 billion next season. Seems the big boys want in on the action as the appetite for televised soccer increases.

This probably will make FIFA head Sepp Blatter's goal of reconciling the global soccer calendar more difficult.

Blatter told the Swiss newspaper Sonntags Zeitung, "There has to be one time each year when there is no football. Only then can the desire for the game be maintained in the long run."

Major League Soccer is committed to adding two teams for the 2001 season. Among the cities under consideration are Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta, Charlotte and San Diego.