Inside The Indoor Game // Michael Lewis

For the past seven-plus years, I have written a column during Major Arena Soccer League seasons, spotlighting players, coaches, team and league officials, and throwing in some indoor soccer history as well.

I have enjoyed writing about the indoor game because there are so many intriguing personalities and stories to share.

Today, I will be going off track just a bit and writing about myself, which is not my usual method of operation.

I was asked by Lindsay Mogle, the MASL director of communications/team services, to give my thoughts about the 2025 Clay Berling Media Career of Excellence Award, which I will receive at the United Soccer Coaches Convention in Philadelphia on Friday night. First of all, a big thank you to the United Soccer Coaches for bestowing me with this prestigious accolade.

I am quite humbled and honored to be the sixth recipient of the award. Just take a look at the five individuals who have been honored.

In chronological order, they are Paul Gardner, Paul Kennedy, JP Dellacamera, Grant Wahl, and Bill McDermott. I have known all five gentlemen and have followed their work for years.

One name might stand out to indoor soccer fans, or soccer fans in general, and that would be Dellacamera, who is the MASL president of communications/media.

Receiving the Clay Berling award was a big deal to Dellacamera for a big reason.

"All awards are great, especially when they're named after people who have contributed so much," he said. "It gives it more of a special meeting. Colin Jose was a historian for U.S. Soccer for so many years. He's not a name that a lot of people, even in the soccer world ,knew, but those really connected to the game knew who he was and what his contribution was."

In 2018, Dellacamera was named the winner of the Colin Jose Award by the National Soccer Hall of Fame. 

"The same with Clay Berling," he continued. "Somebody growing up now that's a much younger person, somebody that's in grade school or high school, probably doesn't have any idea of what Clay Berling did, but Clay Berling paved the way for a lot of the journalism that we see today in the soccer world. Clay did it at a time when money was not the motivating issue, and clicks on social media, which we didn't have back then. It was not a motivator. He was in it really for the love of the game. So, when you get an award that's named after someone who contributed so much and loves the game as much as you do, I think it's always special.”

It certainly is a big deal for me, as well.

In 1967, Berling founded Soccer America and stuck with it. He was a man with a vision at a time when few people had those ideas and were bold enough to act on it. He put his money where his passions were and helped inform a public about the beautiful game.

I had the privilege of getting to know Clay. Through the years, I struck up a friendship with him, usually meeting on the last day of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (now United Soccer Coaches) convention.

We talked about a varied number of subjects — of course, our favorite, soccer, the politics of the game, life in general and the challenges of running a soccer publication (way, way back in the day, I was the editor and publisher of Soccer Week, a weekly newspaper that covered the local leagues in New York and New Jersey and when appropriate the national teams and the international end).

I found him to be a knowledgeable, humble man who offered solutions to the sport’s problems. I didn’t necessarily always agree with Clay, but he had an open mind to listen to my ideas, which was greatly appreciated. 

In October 2017, Clay passed away at the age of 86.

So, it is appropriate that the United Soccer Coaches’ honor is named after him. 

As it turns out, the Clay Berling award presentation comes only four days after the 51st anniversary of a discussion that changed my life on Jan. 12, 1975.

Let me set the scene. 

Barely a month into my first professional job at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, it was a slow mid-summer night at the newspaper. So slow that we had a two-hour dinner break. Sportswriter Tom FitzGerald suggested that we venture out to Holleder Stadium to watch some of the friendly between the Lancers and the Italian National Army team.

Lo and behold, there was a fan invasion as they ran onto the field and attacked the home team. That's right, the Lancers were attacked by their own fans!

Thank heavens I did not have to cover this team, I said to myself.

On a cold wintry night six months later, I was called over to the desk of assistant sports editor Bill Parker. There was a stack of files on his desk. He talked about how he and sports editor Larry Greybill were encouraged on how I was covering high school sports and about taking on other challenges. Then he started talking about the Lancers. 

"Congratulations, you are covering your first professional team," Parker said, pushing the files toward me. 

All I wanted to do was push the files back to him and say, "No thanks."

But I was not in a position to say no. Although I was off to a promising start, like every first-year reporter, I was on probation. So, I accepted my new assignment. 

I didn't know much about soccer then. I was more of a baseball, football, basketball, hockey type of guy. And I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of our 150,000 subscribers. 

As it turned out, my first game was an indoor tournament hosted by the Lancers, which included the New York Cosmos, Boston Minutemen, and Hartford Bicentennials. Some of the names on the rosters might be familiar to you - Shep Messing and Carlos Metidieri, the only player to win back-to-back MVPs and scoring titles in the North American Soccer League.

I wrote a feature about the Lancers coach, Ted Dumitru, who could not return to his homeland, Romania, on fear of being arrested. It was an interesting tale. I slowly grew into the sport, learning about various cultures. I also got an opportunity to travel the world, covering 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics (10 soccer gold-medal matches), and many matches in the Caribbean and Central America.

I fell in love with the sport, learning its intricacies and tactics. 

I have written nine books about soccer, including two about the Lancers. Yes, the same team I did not want to cover.

O. Henry would have been proud of the irony!

Through the years, I have covered dozens of indoor games in six leagues. That includes the NASL, National Professional Soccer League, the first and second incarnations of the MISL, M2 (MASL2), and of course, the MASL

It's been an incredible journey to get from there to here.

Saying that, while I will be receiving a lifetime achievement award, I feel I still have much left in the tank, whether it is about indoor soccer in particular or the beautiful game in general. I have a few books on the planning board, including one about the indoor game.

I am looking forward to keep writing about the beautiful game for as long as possible.

Michael Lewis, the sixth recipient of the Clay Berling Media Career of Excellence Award in 2025, can be followed on X (formerly Twitter) and Bluesky at @Soccerwriter. His 10th soccer book, Around the World Cup in 40 Years: An American sportswriter's perspective, will be published this spring.