On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 5:14 PM, Robert Traller <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

What’s in a name?

We call ourselves the SLACers even though few of us that gather and play regularly still work at SLAC. Several who still work at SLAC have played with us, including Victor, Denis, Luis and Rafa Miranda, but since Arrillaga built that nice facility and field behind the radiation fence those who aren’t SLAC employees have to have a pass to play there and SLAC employees would rather play on their beautiful new field. They play there regularly at noon. The SLAC Soccer Club has split in two: the SLAC SLACers and the Stanford SLACers. The SLAC SLACers are predominantly SLAC employees with a smattering of outside payers including some Stanford SLACers. The Stanford SLACers originated at SLAC but now consist of players from all over the local community including many Stanford staff and professors and a few SLACers. Maybe split is too strong a word…more like evolved.

People were playing soccer on the lawn in front of the cafeteria at SLAC when I came there in the early eighties. I lived in the East Bay, was in an over 30’s league there commuting to work swing shift. I played at SLAC occasionally in those days but with the commute and all it was not very regular. Rafa I’m sure was there and probably Dave Freiberger. Rafa has worked in the Klystron Department at SLAC forever and was a regional soccer star in his youth. Dave is a SLAC physicist who played with us regularly until he was about 75.

In 1993 I moved to Redwood City with my wife and our 18-month old son. I started playing more at SLAC. The games at SLAC were popular and crowded. The primary area of play was a shallow bowl with a large Cork Oak on one corner. The field drained very poorly and the most downhill portion would get soggy. Chasing a ball through that area was like running across a waterbed. The field was surrounded by asphalt and concrete pathways. Balls would some times get away and roll down a path toward the SLAC main entrance. If not caught a ball could end up at the Stanford Shopping Center. Guys occasionally slipped chasing a ball across asphalt in cleats. The uphill side of the field had a low concrete wall and a short distance from it a full-sized iron manhole cover.  It is amazing there weren't more injuries there. 

Many of our coworkers and everyone else at SLAC would be walking by, to and from the cafeteria. Jonathan Dorfan was director of SLAC then; he was friendly to us and something of a soccer fan (though he never stepped on the field). Perhaps that is why the games continued. Aside from all the safety hazards for us there was the possibility of hitting some elderly Nobel laureate in the face with an errant shot. That such a thing never happened is in part because we were all pretty safety conscious and there were rules such as no overly aggressive play, no slide tackling and everyone called their own fouls, no questions asked.

In the early days we played with traffic cones for goals until, a player named Tony got some small goals made from steel tubing. We never played with full sized goals or goalies except when special gameswould get organized off-site. Charlie Young, a physicist at SLAC who played with us was involved in the SLAC Summer Institute which brought a bunch of grad students to SLAC every year. He would organize a SLACers v. SSI game. We had an SSI game up on the field above the Alpine Inn and another I remember at Churchill fields. I’m sure there were others.

There were The Americas v. The World games, and famously, the Old Farts v. Young Guns game. An accounting would be made of all available players and anyone older than the median age was an Old Fart. I don’t have the exact score but the Old Farts won most of the games. The median age of the group has increased over the years to the point where now if you’re 47, you’re a Young Gun.

The SLAC soccer group was always a very nice group of people and accommodated players of all skill levels yet some people were very skilled players. People like Rafa Miranda. I don’t know if Rafa started the group but it seemed to originate in the Klystron Department. The field was right next to their shops and the games would begin as people started coming out of the Klystron Dept. on to the field. Someone (Lou?) started a klystron group soccer mailing list. Eventually the noon time games spread well beyond just the Klystron Dept. and the all inclusive SLAC soccer list was started. Some people are on one list or the other, some people are on both lists.

The games were popular and people from outside SLAC were participating including Jeff O and others from Lockheed Martin. Glenn was at SLAC by then and a major player. Certain people just naturally take responsibility because everyone else is too slow responding to the need. There would often be recaps of the games on the mailing list written by Dave F. or Glenn. Game summaries would have a detailed account of each score. Since I would occasionally write something I felt it was expected of me to know something about the score but I would never know the score and really didn’t care much about it. In some early games there would be long arguments (by Dave most likely) about whether or not a ball passed below or above an imaginary line connecting the top of the cones. If sides were too lopsided perhaps we would have a roster adjustment but really: it’s not as if one or the other side was in danger of relegation.

So many were showing up to play soccer at noon that we actually split into two games. We had a secondary field, even worse than the main field which was bordered on the downhill side by a grove of Redwoods . Otherwise it was surrounded by concrete pathways. Near the uphill border was a large aluminum pedestal atop which was mounted a window from an old SLAC bubble chamber detector. I don’t know the exact dimensions of that thing but the whole structure is about eight feet tall  and resembles a giant lens with a handle. The window looks like a hunk of glass 3 feet in diameter and about 6 inches thick. We would often have to dribble the ball around it. That area has since been eaten up by new buildings.

Many SLACers longed to play longer games on bigger, better fields so Glenn contacted Stanford Athletics and told them we were a SLAC soccer club and would like to use one of Stanford’s fields a couple of times a week. I can’t remember the name of the woman in charge then but she sent an email acknowledging our use of the smaller field of those off Sand Hill Rd. I think that was about 1999 and we started playing Tuesdays and Fridays after work. Sometimes others would be there and we would show them a copy of the letter and they would not bother us. She wrote a new email for us each year for a few of years. 

It wasn’t long before our games were very popular and began to be oversubscribed. You all know how it is: a group starts playing somewhere and passing soccer players notice and ask to join in. That is when the “pinnie”, or practice vest scheme began. With two sets of 11 colored pinnies we could close the game when the pinnies ran out.

Once we started wearing colors we looked official and occasionally some Stanford staff person, maybe the head groundskeeper, would come and ask who the hell we were. They wanted to know we were from Stanford. We assured them that most of us were. Stanford then informed us that we needed to have 80% of our people able to produce Stanford IDs. We tried to be ready but it was never really enforced. If someone did come around we could produce enough IDs to send them away. They weren’t going to wait for 22 people to rummage through their bags for ID.

But then they got a new director for the athletics facilities and she did not want to write us a note. If we wanted to use the field we could reserve it for $50/hour she told me. We had been playing for some years without having to show written permission so we just continued and never had a problem.

It has now been some 15+ years we have been playing at various fields around Stanford. The old-timers among us now include many Stanford Staff as well as members from all over the community. Our games have had the same rules and spirit of the original SLAC games. For years we played with PVC goals approximately 5’X7’ . Some we built ourselves, others were commercially made which just appeared. Then Chuy had made for us some steel tube goals similar to those Tony had made at SLAC. His were beautifully made of 2” steel tubing precisely bent and welded. Chuy had gone to considerable trouble and expense. They were very heavy and Chuy delivered them to the field in his pickup. Glenn provided some old full-sized goal nets which we cut up for them. 

There were other pickup games being played in the area and those used some of the original PVC goals but sometimes our steel goals would be found moved and we had to hunt them down. Then one day we found our goals chained to a tree and padlocked. I made a stencil with “SLAC SOCCER CLUB” and my SLAC phone number. I stenciled the lettering on the cross bar. I got a large set of bolt cutters and cut the lock someone had put on them.

More than once Stanford Hospital used our field as a helicopter landing pad. During the recent construction at Stanford Hospital a semi permanent helipad was constructed and we began playing regularly between fields in front of the cricket cage. Our goals moved around and were found locked up again. Again I cut the lock. The PVC goals were also getting locked. Construction of some sort seemed imminent at the fields and a yard for construction materials was set up under the trees behind a tall chain link fence and locked. One day we found the goals locked inside that yard. We got them out; no easy task getting those things out of there. Then one day the goals disappeared completely.

We found out through Freddie, a Stanford groundskeeper who used to play with us, that our goals had been stored in a yard next to Stanford Stadium. Freddie told us the goals were heavy and got in the groundskeepers way. We got the name of the guy responsible and tried emailing him to try to work out some sort of accommodation but with no response. A couple of us took Chuy’s truck and retrieved the goals. We made sure that after we played the goals were stored well out of the way but if someone else used them we couldn’t control where they left them. Again the goals disappeared but then so did our field. Construction began on all the soccer fields off Sand Hill. 

Since then the Stanford SLACers have been orphans playing wherever we could find a field. We have yet to miss a Tuesday or Friday game and even picked up a few new players but we had had to move from field to field. If we are to apply to Stanford/Palo Alto for official permission to use some facility, perhaps we should call ourselves the Stanford SLACers F. C. or SSFC. Having some affiliation with Stanford, SLAC and Palo Alto may help.

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