Houston's Got the Dynamo Hum

With the Texans playing like ass, it’s nice that Houston’s new Major League Soccer team made it to the MLS Cup game in their first season in town. The Houston Dynamo, formerly the San Jose Earthquakes, take on the New England Revolution at 2:30pm Sunday at Frisco’s Pizza Hut Park.

The Dynamo started off its Texas residency as Houston 1836, but they quickly realized that calling attention to the Texas Revolution might not help in marketing the team to Mexican immigrants. Now playing in Robertson Stadium on the UH campus, the Dynamo’s long-term goal (ha) is to build a soccer-only stadium complex that also houses youth leagues. Maybe the youth tie-in can give pro soccer the boost it needs to gain a permanent foothold (ha ha) in the U.S.

I played soccer for four years when I was a kid in Dallas and Houston. I wasn’t very good, but all that running around depleted energy that would’ve otherwise been spent setting things on fire. The long-defunct North American Soccer League (NASL) fielded both the Dallas Tornado and the Houston Hurricane at the time. My dad occasionally took me to games and it was a lot of fun. We even got to see the Tornado play an exhibition game against Manchester United at SMU’s now-razed Ownby Stadium.