Dennis Viollet Relieved

Just eight days after a front page profile in the Washington Post Sports section hailed him as "a respected NASL coach," Dennis Viollet was relieved of that duty. While most players declined to comment, team captain Gary Darrell observed, "Dennis has been different this year. He wasn't as organized as he's been in the past and he hasn't been as enthused." Viollet had finished runner-up in NASL Coach of the Year voting less than a year before.

Dennis Viollet

On June 22, 1977, Donald Huff of the Washington Post wrote the following profile of Diplomats Head Coach Dennis Viollet. The timing of the piece, which portrayed Viollet as a survivor, would soon seem ironic.

1980 Fan Appreciation Day II

Gary Darrell

Bobby Stokes

Tom Rongen

Ken Mokgojoa

Nick Mijatovik

Fan Appreciation Day 1980

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Carmine Posillico

Carmine Marcantonio & Wim Jansen

Alan Green

For This Team, An Offensive Explosion

The 1977 Dips were offensively impotent, scoring a paltry 31 goals in 26 games, for a 1.2 goals per game average. However, the Connecticut Bicentennials were slightly more inept, tallying just 3o. The strange thing, however, is that this 10-16 team averaged 13,068 per game at RFK. The 1978 & 1979 Diplomats, each of whom made the playoffs, averaged just 10, 783 and 11,973, respectively. One side note, the Washington Post's sports editor made a rather unfortunate choice of words when constructing a headline for the game.

Today, everything in sports has a sponsor. Whether it's the Capitol One Visa AFC Wild Card Game Halftime Show, or Flippin Pizza, the official pizza of the Washington Nationals, teams will couple with just about any product, short of personal hygene, to make a buck. In a way, the Dips were pioneers in this dog eat dog (pardon the pun) sponsorship enterprise. Case in point, Diplomats Esskay Soccer Franks.

The Jim Reed School of Cool was established sometime in the late 1970s for those who wanted to emulate that wise cracking, C- poster child, yours truely. Essential to the wardrobe portion of instruction was atleast one piece of Dips wear from the 1979 ticket brochure.

While I'm not certain what articles of clothing came from what year, for these give aways were an annual ritual, I know I had the tube socks, shorts, t-shirt jersey, gym bag and atleast two of those rubberized Adidas replica balls. Unofrtunately, I've lost these momentoes over the past thirty some years.

It would be six years after the original Dips ceased operations that I would obtain my first true game worn jersey. However, I treasured those giveaways then as much as I do my gamer collection now.