By Evan Sandel
The Scene staff
St. Louis Community College men’s soccer coach Dan O’Keefe is thrilled to see the St. Louis Ambush back in business.
The professional indoor soccer team will play its first home game in 13 years on Nov. 22 at The Family Arena in St. Charles.
O’Keefe played for the Ambush in 1993-94 under Daryl Doran, a St. Louis soccer fixture who has been tapped as the team’s new coach.
“He’s the right guy to take over,” O’Keefe said. “It’s going to be a young team, so they need somebody like him to develop them. His indoor background is really extensive. He knows that game as well as anybody in America.”
The Ambush originally was based in Tulsa, Okla. Dr. Abraham Hawatmeh, a respected urologist, brought it to the old arena on Oakland Avenue for the 1992-93 season.
The team was immediately successful, reaching division finals in its first St. Louis season and winning a championship in its third. Then it set National Professional Soccer League attendance records for a game (17,603) and season (182,043).
The Ambush later moved to the Kiel Center, where its record and fan base declined. An 11-13 season in 1999-2000 was a franchise worst. Kiel terminated its lease, and the team folded eight years after inception.
“It was really disappointing,” said longtime fan and former Forest Park student and political science instructor Charlie Herrick. “… For the team to be gone just a couple seasons after winning a title, fans felt robbed.”
The Ambush’s resurrection is being made possible by an ownership group of three couples: Andrew and Leah Haines, Will and Shelly Clark and Glen and Dawn Goldstein.
They have gathered local sponsors and small business partners — ranging from painters to mattress salesmen to deli owners — to help offset the cost of starting a major indoor soccer league expansion franchise.
“Ownership also considered bringing back the Steamers (another former St. Louis indoor soccer team) but ultimately felt the Ambush resonated more strongly with St. Louis fans,” Doran said.
The Steamers drafted Doran out of high school in 1982. He has played for every professional indoor soccer team in St. Louis and coached the Ambush to a national title in the 1994-95 season.
The year O’Keefe played with the team, it lost to Cleveland in the finals. He was traded the following season, but he and Doran maintained a friendship over the years. Both call St. Louis home.
Today, the two laugh about playing in the over-40 recreational league and now together again in the over-50 group.
“I’ve played with (O’Keefe) a lot over the years,” Doran said. “He’s a good buddy of mine. The guy has great … one-on-one skills with a goalie, better than anybody I’ve seen.”
O’Keefe’s playing career spanned 10 seasons and seven teams, including a year when he led the American Indoor Soccer Association in goals, scoring 108 in 40 games.
Retirement from the Baltimore Rockers in 1995 brought him back to St. Louis, where he has remained active in the soccer community. He became the Archers men’s soccer coach last season.
O’Keefe and Doran’s friendship is rooted in a healthy respect for each other. They have similar coaching styles.
“We both are geared toward developing individual players,” O’Keefe said.
“My main focus is to get a good nucleus of guys and develop them for two or three years and then see where we’re at,” Doran said of his strategy with the Ambush. “We’re not going to win in this league right off the bat. … Our focus is to build and not lose (our) base guys in the off-season.”
In some respects, O’Keefe and Doran still are in competition. O’Keefe lost a star recruit to the Ambush this year.
Shane “Bubba” Hitchcock, 18, who attends St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, forfeited his college sports eligibility to try out for the professional team. It was a risky decision, considering Hitchcock can’t regain eligibility, even if he’s not picked by the Ambush.
The Archers face a year when a substantial chunk of its recruiting class failed to materialize and could’ve used a player of Hitchcock’s caliber.
O’Keefe hopes to improve a 6-12 record from last season. His plan is to focus on player development and hit the playoffs hard.
“We’ll get better,” he said. “We’re struggling right now, but it’s early.”
One team strength is freshman goaltender Josh Hampton, who came from Sikeston High School. He was a Missouri High School Keeper of the Year and All-Conference fullback.
This diverse skill set will allow O’Keefe to use Hampton both in the net and on the pitch this season.
“He’s really quick, a solid overall athlete,” O’Keefe said. “I believe he’s going to play baseball for Meramec, too. His versatility will be very useful to the team.”
Local fans have long described St. Louis as a “soccer town,” citing St. Louis University’s solid attendance record for games and 10 national championships, and the presence of 29 St. Louisans in the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
On May 23, more than 48,000 people turned out for a game between Chelsea and Manchester United at Busch Stadium. That set a stadium attendance record.
St. Louis has shown that, given top-level soccer competition, fans will turn out in droves.
“I tried to get tickets to Chelsea vs. Manchester the day they became available,” Herrick said. “The vendor told me that they had sold out all of Busch stadium in 10 minutes.”