On the eve of the club’s 10-year celebration at Hughes Stadium, we spoke with Republic FC’s longtime broadcaster Rob McAllister about his history with the Indomitable Club and its importance to the City of Trees.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: You’ve been with the team since Day One, basically for all 10 years of the club’s existence. Coming up on the big 10th anniversary celebration this Saturday at Hughes Stadium. What do you remember most about that first night in Hughes Stadium?
A: Leading up to it, we were pretty sure there was going to be a sizable crowd. Pulling in and getting there two hours early, and it’s just crazy — there’s bands, everyone’s just chaotic. We’re just getting upstairs in the booth and my partner, Kevin Goldthwait, we took a picture on the side railing right before kickoff. I remember saying to him, ‘This is crazy,’ because for me, this is the largest crowd and stadium that I broadcast for. I’ve done AAA baseball and college, but I had never had 20,000 people pack a stadium. So it was crazy to have this many be part of the broadcast, which is such an awesome opportunity. Crazy for Kevin, it was his very first time ever broadcasting anything. But, I just remember, people were so passionate about Sacramento and I think it was a way to celebrate the city. It was ours. It didn’t come from somewhere else, and it was a way to start new.
Q: You touched a little bit on your prior work with the River Cats, and the Sac State Hornets as well. What is it about Republic’s fan base that you think sets them apart from some of the other teams that the city has?
A: I think that this is a club that really does represent the entire community and I think people feel ultimately welcomed. I think that there’s a special bond you have when something like that happens. Now, I think it was really helpful that the team was good and the first year we had this miraculous run. They would score goals late and things like that. And obviously the Miracle at Bonney with Rodrigo Lopez and ultimately championship, people wanted to be a part of it. I think from then it’s carried on to the demonstration that this city is a soccer town. I think that the fan base is really knowledgeable, and I think that with that they have something to hold on to and a team that cares not only about the product on the field, but what they do in the community as well — and I think those two things together have made it a successful club which then makes people, in return, care.
Q: Speaking of how passionate the fan base is, how do you balance being an objective announcer and presenting the match with the need to try and engage and excite fans during those broadcasts?
A: I think that from day one, no one had ever told us what we were to say, and that has continued for 10 years. I’ve never had an opportunity where someone has said, ‘Hey, we need you to do it this way.’ I think that’s a credit to the team, which is very old school and that’s not typical anymore. Essentially, you are an arm of the marketing [department] and connecting to the fans. So I think that’s been part of it from a club perspective. I think also it’s helpful that our club’s been really good. Winning nine of 10 years, going to the playoffs, I mean, that’s just incredible. And I think that, for us, it’s always a way to connect to the fans and kind of give insight to what’s happening. Sometimes fans get frustrated because they don’t understand why something’s happened. I think it’s our job to ultimately help explain that, but also entertain and make this fun. This is not life or death, this is entertainment, this is a way to bring people together and boost our community. It’s very important, but to me, it’s supposed to be fun. So I try to broadcast with a smile and keep it light because at the end of the day, you should go to have fun at a Republic game.
Q: How do you strike that balance between really digging deep into the analysis of certain things that happen, but also finding a way to explain them for more casual fans who are just getting into the sport?
A: I think you have to do both, and if you do one too many then you start to lose people. I think that again, kind of making fun — if you can sort of come up with fun phrases or things that will keep a casual fan. I think Jerry Reynolds did such a great job all those years, what people didn’t realize: Jerry Reynolds behind the scenes was a brilliant basketball mind — and is. Having conversation with him during pregame and he would break down different players that way, and then he got on the broadcast and he’d leave a lot of that because he knew ‘hippity hop to the barber shop’ was something that people would repeat the next day and it makes you smile. He understood that dynamic. So, I think everyone has their styles, but it’s not easy — you sort of get into a rhythm of it. And I think you also could overcomplicate sports. Football does it the worst, where you have all these different coverages and maybe 1% of the population actually cares about that. So, I think you’ve just got to pick your points, when that matters, to interject that sort of detailed analysis.
Q: What sort of preparations do you make before a match to get yourself ready to start broadcasting?
A: A lot of it’s watching film. For our guys, we see so much of them and we understand — now that [head coach] Mark Briggs has been here for a while — what we’re trying to accomplish most games. We know where they’re trying to get the ball to create better scoring opportunities, Watching opponents, you’re trying to figure out who are their key personalities, try to mention them throughout games when you can. To me, the preparation is watching, trying to research about a lot of the guys, look at stories. Sometimes they are things that you can have conversations with people and never find out. Like Ross Cain, I just found out from you that he loves brewing — so there’s stories that you have to seek out a lot of times and try to get, and that’s part of what makes the game interesting to me.
Q: Have you ever come across any instances in your time covering Republic FC where you’ve found it difficult to cover a certain storyline that’s running through a game, or challenges with how you are approaching the coverage of a match in general?
A: Early on in the league, the amount of hours I had to spend just to put together a roster was insanity. There wasn’t what it is today, where every team has communications people and there’s a protocol where 48 hours [before a match] we have the 23-man roster, there was none of that. We would get times where we think we have a roster, [then] there’d be some player on the field, no name on the jersey, some weird number like 19 comes out and you were just [thinking] ‘Who is this?’ We’ve had a lot of those moments in those early years that people didn’t see, and it was chaotic.
Q: Republic FC in the past 10 years it’s been here has a very storied history in Sacramento. Is there any one instance that sticks out to you as the moment that really defines the ethos of the club as indomitable?
A: I do think it’s the Miracle at Bonney. I just think the way that that game went, it was a story. I mean, you had your rival LA Galaxy II, [the match is] just not going the way the Republic hoped, everyone’s just feeling very down and somber, and it starts to rain in early September in California, which is very rare, and everything changed. Rodrigo Lopez just delivers the most improbable. To me, that is the indomitable spirit — that there was never a quit. I remember after that, the requests for tickets for that championship game was insane, people just wanted to be a part of it.
Q: What do you think the next 10 years holds for the club?
A: With all the trials and tribulations of the MLS effort, it’s been a lot of up and down off the field, which has been sort of this weird dichotomy. I think in the next few years we’re going to grow, we’ll be in a new stadium — whether that be an MLS stadium or USL stadium. What has surprised me is that a lot of teams, even those who have gone to MLS ahead of us who were in line behind us, they no longer have the fan base support that we still have, and they’re playing MLS. That is a credit to this community who continues to show up and it’s because — going back to earlier — this is really their club, and they know that, and they feel that. So, that has continued to surprise me, honestly. We’re still selling out the place and Hughes Stadium. I think more and more people are finding that their young kids are getting into soccer. I know a lot of my friends who have kids that are reaching the 6-10 [age group] have them in soccer, and they’re really excited about soccer, so I think that is part of the transition that you’re seeing. More and more kids becoming fans of the Republic, or who already are, are going to continue to grow and the ultimate fan base will continue to remain strong. So the next 10 years, I think, looks very good and promising for Sacramento.
