From the Email Bag

We get a lot of email, but most of it is just fluffy love letters. Recently though I got this question:

I heard that Doug Hamilton was promoted to head of AEG Sports. Did he get pushed out from the Galaxy?

Hamilton actually is getting a major job upgrade. Doug will be head bigwig of AEG sports.

In fact, Doug has been mentioned for a while for this gig, and Michael Hitchcock was being groomed to take over the Galaxy GM spot. When Hitchcock took the FC Dallas leadership role, that put Hamilton's promotion up for question.

Now it appears that they have found someone to take Doug's GM spot. Hamilton has won MLS "Exec OTY" the last two years and the Galaxy have certainly been very positive at the gate. While Hitchcock had a lot to do with that Hamilton is highly regarded by Liewieke and AEG.

Unlike Nick S' booting in NYC (to head the stadium effort) as the top cheese of AEG sports Doug will have far-ranging responsibilities within the AEG empire.

Houston - Where the Team Has No Name

Like many of you, I have been following the San Jose/Houston debacle with some interest. It seems AEG did what they could to stay in San Jose and give the town a chance. I haven't talked about it much because there really wasn’t a lot going on that wasn’t in the SJ papers or coming out of the SSV people.

But consider this… While there is going to be voting for the name, MLS/AEG has the artwork and logo all ready to go for the new franchise. Even if you don't know anything about graphics design, I am sure you will know that these things take time. Also the deal to play in Robertson Stadium was done in time for today’s announcement. Those kinds of deals also take time. So for them to be done already with these items, means they have been planning this for a while. It makes me wonder if there really was much chance San Jose was going to be in San Jose for 06.

I have been trying to get a hold of the logo but have not been able to. But I am told by some people involved in the process that the logo is a "shield." Go look at the Real Salt Lake logo if you don't know what a shield logo is.

Does This Make Me Look Fat?

To follow up my long ago post about the upcoming US National Team jerseys for the 2006 World Cup. The new Nike catalogs are out and there might be some clues that clear up what we mentioned. The pics here are from this catalog.

In the catalog is a kit called, "US Mercurial Jersey". As earlier noted it features a vertical stripe down the left chest and the stripe continues down onto the shorts. While not specifically in these pics, the US jersey will be white and have a red and blue vertical stripe. I have heard that Nike talked about continuing the stripe down onto left leg sock, but I am not clear if that will in fact happen.

It also appears that Nike is looking for a date for an unveiling. One of the two games in February on US soil are the likely dates for the unvieling.

Crumbs

Sorry that it has been so long since I last posted. Vacation, work and the fact that there has been little to talk about that was not already out there are all part of why its been sparse picking here.

But I do have two tidbits.

It appears that Thomas Rongen will return as the Head Coach of the U20's. He's replacing Sigi, who replaced Thomas.

Also, just after the first of the year a few MLS (AEG) teams will play a series of friendlies against two foreign teams at the Home Depot Center.

Just a couple of crumbs, but better than nothing.