Protagonist Podcasts Presents: America’s Greatest is a brand new podcast series co-hosted by several of Protagonist’s writers and podcasters. We want to explore the history and pedigree of the sport in the United States - to tell the stories about our greatest games, moments, and iconic soccer characters.

We’ll reach out to authors, historians, coaches, players and fellow podcasters to help uncover the narrative of soccer in our country and in episode two we explore the 2017 Summit League Final between University of Denver Pioneers and University of Nebraska, Omaha Mavericks with Broadcaster Donny Baarns, who’s lent his voice to the USL, CONCACAF, the NCAA (including this match) and probably a hundred other interesting projects.

When we reached out to Donny to see if there was a game he’d like to chat about in our series, he didn’t hesitate to pick this final of the 24th Summit League Soccer Final. We lead into the game by discussing the 2017 season for the Mavericks and how Jay Mims was more that just a coach, but an architect, who built the University of Nebraska, Omaha’s program from scratch. He kickstarted the soccer program in 2011, joined the regional NCAA’s Summit League in 2012, and by 2014 they finished first in the conference.

Despite all of his good work, the Omaha World Herald ran a slanted article which ridiculed the athletic department and its move to NCAA Division 1 - questioning the intent and the financing. Donny walks us through how Mims navigated that issue and by 2017 Omaha were hosting the regional collegiate final which would determine which squad would go to college soccer’s big dance.

Not to get lost amongst all the plaudits for Mims and the Mavericks is the fact that the University of Denver Pioneers won the regular season schedule that year, and had done so for many years - they were the standard and were Omaha’s bogey team. At 5-0, Denver were the Number 1 seed in the tournament and when they defeated Number 4 Eastern Illinois in the Semi, they booked their place in the Final.

Omaha were the Number 3 seed, despite being the hosts, and shutout Western Illinois to get themselves into the Final on their home turf at Caniglia Field. College standouts, and future MLS, USLC, and USLL1 pros were in both rosters and they went at each other, “hammer & tong.” In the end it finished on 1s and headed into 11 rounds of penalties to determine the winner…

Join us here for the second episode of America’s Greatest to learn about the development of Jay Mims as a top-level coach and one of the greatest moments in Omaha sports.

We have a few more episodes already recorded and look forward to releasing them every few weeks during the Autumn / Winter. If there is a player, game, or moment you think we should consider, don’t hesitate to reach out and let us know!

by Joshua Duder