Soccer….Family Style

Remember That Guy Who Stole Prairie’s Banner? You’ll LOVE This. Meet Banner Thief #1, Noah Spake!

Last year, at the World Cup Qualifier in Kansas City, someone stole two banners that I’d carried from Boston for Prairie Clayton (@Hoover_Dam on Twitter). It was an absolute panic of a night for me, thinking that I’d lost banners that belonged to my friend, it took me away from my celebration with family and friends as I had to search through the banners collected by the stadium, and talk to stadium ops about where they might be. I felt horrible that night, and ever since then, I have been nervous about taking tifo into the stadium, especially when I have to have items in two separate areas. Yes, the banners eventually made their way back to Prairie via CSI SKC, but this incident forever changed my experience of bringing tifo around the US. We agreed not to press charges against the anonymous thieves, who, we were told, were college kids who were very sorry for what they’d done, were terrified that they’d been caught, and were returning the banners.

Then Grant Wahl tweeted a photo of one of the banners yesterday, and Noah Spake (https://twitter.com/Noahspake) tweeted back “It honestly looked better in my dorm room.” which was seen by Prairie, who called him out, and my friend @WeberKing, who showed amazing restraint in not tagging me until an hour in to the banter that ensued.

Noah offered what struck me as a pretty empty apology to Prairie and I. I mean, how sorry can you really be when you’re tweeting Grant Wahl, Damarcus Beasley, and the person you stole it from that you think it looked better in your dorm room? Kinda takes some of the sincerity out of it, doncha think? Prairie accepted it, which is fine, but I’m sick of stuff like this: people who give a half-hearted apology, then go right back to acting like they could care less. So I called his bluff. No, I don’t accept your apology, Noah, go do some community service, show me that you actually FEEL remorseful. Think about this long enough to at least be able to give a sincere answer when Prairie asks “Why did you do this?”

As my teacher friend @Dutkae pointed out, Noah is one of “those guys” who throws a fit better than my five year old when asked to sincerely apologize for a wrong-doing. To him, this is ancient history that has no impact on his life today, so obviously I’m over-reacting.

Only I’ve never gotten to say anything to Noah. I never knew who he was until he outed himself, bragging about the banner he “snagged” on Twitter. So while it was several months ago, it still impacts my life, and he’s still not sorry. I would have been happy calling him out for the thief that he is, and showing him as a childish prick that’s not even capable of a sincere apology. I quit tweeting about this 24 hours ago.

But Noah wasn’t done yet. He got his friends involved, tweeting: “You should tweet them, piss them off.”  Tweeting me more than a dozen times, and encouraging his friends to blow up my twitter feed all day today (can’t wait to see my Klout score for this week!) This harassment continued all day, as I worked on my house, as I took my kids to the pool, as I went to ceramics studio…my phone buzzed all day long with accusations that I should drop it…as I sat in radio silence. I assumed he would eventually stop.

Then Noah tweeted this: “@hoover_dam @WeberKing @iamthorandmore @TanyaKeith @TaylorTwellman Haha we are meeting at a future game sometime, all of you!”  Are you effing kidding me? My husband loved that one. He said “Yeah. Let’s meet. Then I’ll take your phone, or your car while you’re not looking. I’ll give it back in about a month and everything will be cool, right?” What you fail to understand in your inexperienced, naive little world, is that you’ve returned the banner, but the night we spent feeling shitty that we’d lost our friends banner, you’ve done nothing to replace. Worse, you and your friends have proven themselves to be immature idiots with nothing better to do than blow up my phone with your harassment all. day. long.

Then you have to bring Zusi into it. Do you seriously believe that Graham Zusi would honestly tell you to STEAL tifo made by a famous USMNT banner artist? Really? A national team player, knowing all the details, would tell you to keep your ill gotten gains?

You and your friends have insulted supporter culture, admitting you’re too cool to go to games, dress up and yell for the boys we all love. You’ve insulted players by implying that they encouraged you to steal. You’ve called names and cried about how persecuted you are, when you got off for stealing REALLY EFFING EASY.

You’re a disgrace…to the Midwest, Big 12 education, and a poor representative of US Soccer fans. Until you show any understanding of the havoc you created (and continue to try to create) in all our lives, I have zero interest in meeting you, or really ever communicating with you again. You are not welcome, Noah Spake and your thief buddy friends who helped you. Grow up and take responsibility or stay away from me, my family, and my friends.

Or, if you can only digest things in 140 character blips, or you need to hear it from someone besides me, I’ll let Grant Wahl defend my honor any day: “@Noahspake @TanyaKeith @WeberKing @iamthorandmore @gzusi Poor behavior, and that’s an understatement. Making KU (and yourself) look terrible”  (Thanks much, Mr. Wahl!)

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