Professional sports franchises are often considered synonymously with the places that host them, and team lore intertwines itself within the braid of civic memory. The Chicago Bulls. The New England Patriots. This is all well and good for America's largest cities, but what of the smaller ones? For the Tulsas of the world, where the crowds are smaller and the spotlights shine a little less bright, the legends still live on, as writer RJ Young shows in this story, first published in This Land, Vol. 5, Issue 9, May 1, 2014.
All this man wants to do right now is find the damn game. It’s a Saturday in the middle of the European football calendar, so there’s got to be a soccer game on television. There’s got to be.
He leans across the bar, watching the barkeep click away at the remote, doing her best to satisfy his need to see some of the world’s best have a go at each other on a field as long as any Peyton Manning played on but nearly twice as wide. She goes to the TV’s guide for help, and finally finds a game.
The channel changer stops on the beIN Sports network. But the screen informs them their package doesn’t allow for this channel. They’ll have to contact their cable provider if they want to watch the Serie A today.
“Cheap bastards here,” Charlie Mitchell says inside Charlie Mitchell’s Modern Pub.
Mitchell, the first ever Tulsa Roughneck player, sits cross-armed at a table in front a blind-covered window that makes his white hair seem silver, his skin flush. Now he’s telling stories. Old stories. Stories about the enchanting country that raised him, made new by some characteristics that never left him.
“I’m sure you’ll pick up my accent,” he says.
Of course you do. Just as you pick up his wit, his sense of humor, and his love for a game that has begun to take hold of this nation enamored with balls oblong, balls stitched, and balls bounced. Mitchell, in his 60s now, began playing soccer about the time most folks begin grade school. He grew attached to it because, frankly, there weren’t a whole hell of a lot of choices in Paisley, Scotland, a town renowned for weaving and sewing patterns but still big enough to kick your ass.