A mother, a daughter, and the MISL

My name is Meredith Miklasz and I’m a passionate soccer supporter and co-founder of the Plastics SG, an MLS supporters’ group that advocates for women, trans, non-binary, and queer supporters league-wide. My mother, Mary Kopetskie, was a trailblazing PR director for the Baltimore Blast of MISL back in the early 1980s. 

I was lucky enough to sit down recently for a conversation with my mother about her career as a woman in sports, The Plastics SG, carrying on her legacy, and more!

Meredith
Hey, I am Meredith Miklasz and today I am going to be interviewing a very, very, very special person –my mother, Mary Kopetskie.

Mary Kopetskie
Hi, Meredith!

Meredith
Hi, Mom. This is definitely going to be really fun. We’re here today to talk about your career in MISL (Major Indoor Soccer League), as well as what it’s like to be a woman in soccer, and your experiences working for the Baltimore Blast. So, are you ready to get grilled?

Mary Kopetskie
I am!

Meredith
So, first of all, what is your background? Where did you grow up?

Mary Kopetskie
I grew up in a number of small towns in Pennsylvania near the Poconos. Then, I went to school at Fordham in New York City and got a BA in Journalism.

Meredith
We’ll talk about that more in a little bit. Did you ever play soccer or have any interest in soccer when you were growing up or in high school?

Mary Kopetskie
No. Soccer was not really “the sport” in the US, especially as far as kids playing it when I was growing up. I would say baseball was the big sport. I remember when the World Series would come around every October, everybody had it on their radios- even the school bus driver. So baseball was really it. Soccer was more prevalent when you were growing up, definitely.

Meredith
I definitely remember playing soccer and not being very good at it, which is probably why I’m a soccer supporter now and not a soccer player! So, baseball was big when you were growing up. Would you consider baseball your favorite sport when you were a child and young woman?

Mary Kopetskie
No, not really. I have five brothers and they taught me everything I know about football, so I really became a football fan. It actually started with a crush on Joe Namath, but then it evolved. Then from football, I became a big basketball fan and love the New York Knicks. In fact, I supported the New York teams because I wanted to go to school and live there.

Meredith
Well, that is actually a perfect lead into our next question. What was your path from a small, mountainous town in Pennsylvania to working for the Baltimore Blast?

Mary Kopetskie
It really started after graduation; I had a decision to make. I had an opportunity to work for Newsday in Long Island on the sports desk. I could have worked for them while I was at Fordham, but the campus was in the Bronx and I would have had to commute all the way to Long Island, which was quite a distance, so I didn’t want to do it when I was going to college.

I also had an opportunity to do some freelance work for the Philadelphia Inquirer. At that time, living in New York was very intense, especially in the Bronx. I chose Philadelphia because it was my home city and I thought I had made a really good connection with the Philly Inquirer. So after college, I moved to Philly and got my first job at a very small publishing company. I was what they used to call a “Girl Friday”, which is the equivalent of being an office manager. I have to say that, even though that was an entry-level job, I learned all my office skills there. I also learned how to be a good employee. The things I learned in my first job after college helped me throughout my career.

Meredith
It’s always interesting to see what different skill sets from different jobs lead to bigger and better opportunities.

Mary Kopetskie
Exactly. Every night, before computers, I would literally type my resume out on a manual typewriter and just send it out to any kind of company hiring for a PR position. Of course, sports were my first love, but I also was interested in the arts and culture.

My next job was finally a PR job; I was PR Director for the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. That was an umbrella organization for all the arts and cultural institutions in Philadelphia. I think we had probably about 100 members. What was great about that job was that I made a lot of connections networking at the local PBS TV station and at some of the museums. So it was a good job. There was only one negative thing about that job. My boss is someone we would call a bully today. For some reason, she picked on me, she bullied me, and she made my life miserable. She would embarrass me, humiliate me, and degrade me.

Meredith
What was the age difference between you and this boss?

Mary Kopetskie
She was only in her 30s and I was in my early 20s. So I’m talking about 10 years, but she came from Boston. She was a member of the Coolidge family –Calvin Coolidge. She was a Boston blue blood and I guess she didn’t think much of me or my background. I needed to get out of there. At the end of the year, I had only been working there six months, but I was miserable. I saw an ad for a brand new sports league that was forming. The league office was in Philadelphia and they were looking for a PR assistant, so I jumped on that. Doug Verb was the PR director for MISL and, at the time, they had six teams in their first or second year.

Meredith
Do you remember the first 6 MISL teams?

Mary Kopetskie
Okay, I want to say Philadelphia, New York, Houston, Cleveland, maybe Cincinnati, and I’m blanking on the sixth one. (Pittsburgh Spirit were the sixth team)

Meredith
Five out of six is not bad! So, I didn’t realize you actually worked in PR for MISL before you ever worked for the Baltimore Blast.

Mary Kopetskie
That’s correct. I worked in the league office for three, three and a half years. I really learned a lot. For anyone who’s ever blown a job interview, here’s an encouraging story. This was my dream job in sports and I was so qualified for this job. When I interviewed with Doug [Verb] I don’t know what happened, but I was not myself. I was awful. I don’t even remember what I did or said, I just know that I don’t think I came off as enthusiastic as I wanted to be. But anyway, it really bothered me and I was really upset. I thought I blew it. When I went home, I made a decision to call him, tell him that I knew I had given a terrible interview, and asked him to give me another chance, and he did.

Now, I didn’t end up being his first choice for the job. He did have someone in mind for his first choice. But he said that because I had called him back and did another interview, I was the second choice. Well, as luck would have it, his first choice took another job and I was hired. I worked for Earl Foreman, who was the Commissioner at the time. He recently passed away, but he was also responsible for bringing Julius Erving to the New York Nets. I worked with another man named Ed Tepper, who was one of my favorite people. Doug, of course, was the head of PR. We had a secretary, a receptionist, and I was the PR assistant. So we had a very small staff, but we were very close. We worked all hours. But what was great was Earl, who lived in Washington, DC, would commute sometimes to Philly. Whenever he was in town and we work too late, he would buy us all dinner and then he would put a $20 bill in my hand and tell me to take a cab home. We worked very hard, but we were treated very well and that meant a lot as young professionals. My first flight that I ever took was a short flight to New York with MISL. Same with being in a stretch limo for the first time. Oh, same with my first glass of champagne!

Meredith
Living the high life!

Mary Kopetskie
Yeah, it really was. It was fabulous. But after being there for three and a half years, I was anxious to work for a specific team and not just the league office. By then we had expanded and I saw a job opening. I want to say we had at least 12 teams by that time. Baltimore was one of them and it wasn’t very far from Philly. So, they had an opening and I took the train to Baltimore and interviewed. I mean, I was more than qualified for that job and I’m not trying to, you know, be arrogant.

Meredith
You’re a very humble person.

Mary Kopetskie
But I had all the qualifications. I mean, who wouldn’t hire me from going from the league office to a team? And as my friend Denise, who was the ticket manager, would say, “We will never have a job like this ever again.” It was beyond fun. Again, we worked really hard. We worked nights, we worked weekends, we worked holidays.

During the season, I traveled with the team. I was the only woman who traveled with the team. I got to see about 75% of the United States. It was just great fun. The only rule was set by Coach Kenny Cooper – who really loved me, we had a great relationship! It was I couldn’t date any of the players –that was off-limits. So I kept to that because to me, it wasn’t worth losing my job over. It was a tremendous job.

Meredith
People talk even to this day. You unfortunately have to be very careful as a woman in soccer that word doesn’t get around about you, especially if you’re literally working for a team and around the players all the time. Even in soccer supporters communities, you have to be careful with even meeting a player at an event. People might be looking at you like, “Ooh, what’s going on there?” and you’re simply talking to a player.

Mary Kopetskie
Yeah, we could socialize, but in a more official type of way.

Meredith
So, how long did you work for the Blast and what was your official position there?

Mary Kopetskie
I went to Baltimore in 1981 after working for the league office for about three years. I worked for the Baltimore Blast as Public Relations Director until 1985.

Meredith
So you worked from the beginning of the league to the heyday of the league. Wow. What was a regular day like you in your public relations director position?

Mary Kopetskie
Well, it depends. On game days, we would get there fairly early. It would be a very long day; I probably sometimes didn’t finish up working until midnight or 1 a.m. I would make sure that I had press credentials for everyone who requested them, both Baltimore media and the away media, would arrange any interviews that anyone wanted to have with us or our players before the game, and I would get the press box ready and make sure there were food and drinks –always beer for the press box.

I had a group of statisticians that I took care of. We would always update the statistics, as that was very important. The goalkeepers wanted to know what their goals-against average was, and, you know, all of that.

I would meet with the other team’s PR Director and usually take them out to lunch as a goodwill gesture. If there was anything they or their team needed, I would help them. During the game, I was always running back and forth along the press box to see if anyone had any questions or if anyone needed anything. Sometimes I would have to do radio blurbs because, while we were broadcast on a network, sometimes they needed me to recap the first half or the end of the game.

Meredith
So that’s where I get my golden, award-nominated voice from!

Mary Kopetskie
Yes, I’ve been told that people love my voice. So after the game, we would have post-game press conferences and interviews. We would update the stats as quickly as we could to print and hand them out, particularly to the newspaper writers on deadline and the TV sportscasters who had the 11 o’clock news spots. They needed that and it was a really important part of my job. I had to send all of the stats out using something called a telex, which predated the fax machine.

Meredith
My millennial brain is blown!

Mary Kopetskie
Right? So with the telex, I would have to type in certain information using certain codes and things— kind of its own shorthand. I would send a whole recap of the game across the wire to the other MISL teams and publications like the Associated Press. It was important information to get to the other teams, because the coaches, in particular, wanted to know what all the other teams were doing, who was scoring, how their goalkeepers were, etc.

Meredith
So, you were almost like the gatekeeper of all the Blast’s results and recaps?

Mary Kopetskie
Yeah, in a sense, I really was. Now, during the offseason was the time when I’d put together the media guide and the MSL program. The media guide I was always very proud of, especially my covers. I was the first one to use actual photographs on the covers of media guides and they were very striking. People loved them. I would spend a lot of time over the summer putting together the media guide, including our prior year, what the upcoming year was going to look like, and game information like rosters and stats and features on that particular game.

The summer was nice because we worked so hard and would get every other Friday off, with just a slower pace. Once the season started, it was very frenetic from November to May, possibly early June. So it was a long season.

Meredith
That sounds like a lot. It sounds like you also accrued quite the skill set and had quite the pedigree from that time period. It’s all so awesome and impressive. So we all know your MISL career took place in the early 1980s. I know you’ve told me some stories –I obviously don’t expect full detail on all of them because they’re very personal. Did you ever experience any sexism from not only men but also other women within the league or The Blast?

Mary Kopetskie
Yes. I made some good friends, both male and female, especially female friends, throughout MISL in other cities. But I have to say that, sometimes women can be the worst enemy of other women. There were a couple of PR Directors who I felt were catty. They would throw you under the bus. They would backstab and spread rumors –that was very hurtful. I have to say I didn’t handle it very well then. I would just stop speaking to them and give them the cold shoulder. I would be civil professionally and do what I needed to do for them. But there was no warmth there. I couldn’t be friends with someone who stabbed me in the back.

Meredith
I think it’s also difficult to be confrontational in a professional setting like that, especially in sports, because you would be quickly accused of being over-emotional or stirring up drama or “Oh, these women can’t get along.”

Mary Kopetskie
Yeah, especially since I traveled with men, I didn’t want to bring drama to the airport or the train station. I didn’t really want people knowing my business. So, in retrospect, I think I would have called these women and peers of mine out on it, instead of giving them the cold shoulder. I would handle it a little differently today.

Meredith
Aside from that, what forms of sexism or what sort of things were said to you by men? Obviously you held this high ranking position and were in charge of a lot of things, with the resume to back it up. What was your experience with sexism from men?

Mary Kopetskie
There was jealousy from men who wanted my job. People were always after my job and had a problem with a woman having the job when they felt that they could do it so much better as a man.

Meredith
Spoiler alert: They still do!

Mary Kopetskie
I have to say this: I’ve always been underestimated my whole life. I recently saw a t-shirt that said, “Go ahead, underestimate me. That’ll be fun.” It was really perfect because I was underestimated. I did come across as sweet and demure. I had kind of a higher voice. I look very non-threatening. I was short. I certainly didn’t intimidate anyone and so people underestimated me. But once they saw what I could do, their opinion would change. I remember the first year in Baltimore, I had worked really quietly all summer in my office at this brand new job. I’m very organized and I really work hard.

I knew I had to do the media guide and the game program. I started working on the media guide and I’d show it to the coach, Kenny Cooper, to ask for his opinion. Well, we had a staff meeting and Kenny would come to the staff meetings. I remember he pointed me out and said something like, “I just want to say what a difference it is to have Mary as PR Director. She has worked quietly behind the scenes all summer. She’s put together one hell of a media guide. She just came in every day did her job, never complained, never whined, and was a professional.” He hadn’t liked the female PR director before me, so I was happy that he noticed and I was kind of surprised he would talk about me in this team meeting. Once people saw what I could do, they would give me credit for that.

Meredith
Did you experience guys hitting on you or not taking you seriously because you were a woman?

Mary Kopetskie
Yeah, that was pretty rampant. Remember when I said I couldn’t date any of the Baltimore Blast players? There wasn’t a rule against going out with opposing teams’ players, though my players didn’t like that. They didn’t like it at all. If they saw me out with a player from another team, they would, you know, give me the business about it. They didn’t like that and were very protective.

Meredith
So there was some fraternization with opposing teams’ players? You don’t have to give names or details.

Mary Kopetskie
I mean, we don’t have to go into detail, but St. Louis and Buffalo, mainly.

Meredith
I’m sure it’s fun to talk about now because it’s not like you could broadcast any of this at the time. So now we can get into the juiciness a little bit.

Mary Kopetskie
You could not talk about any of this at that time. You also couldn’t really call out someone who sexually harassed you. There was a group of us who traveled with the team and we were very close and this included media personnel. I remember we were in a bar and we were having a drink. My rule was that I would never get drunk unless it was a situation like we won the championship or we were at an All-Star Game. But other than that, normally after a game, I would not get drunk. I would have a beer or I would have a glass of wine but I tried to remain professional at all times. So this media person, whose name I will not mention because I know he’s still alive, had had a few too many. I was usually put on a floor, above or below the players to enforce Coach Kenny’s rule. My coworker said he would walk me to the room and I was a little uncomfortable with that, but I never thought he would hit on me. We get to my room, I opened the door and he pushed himself in, then proceeded to push me on the bed and started kissing me. I immediately told him no, to stop, and that I was not interested. It took a little bit to get him out of the room. A little too long.

The next morning, the color broadcast commentator Charlie Ackman, a legend in Baltimore who sadly has now passed away, comes up to me to show his support of the previous night’s events and says “Good move not doing anything with that guy.” He had either found out from the media guy himself or because he was nosy and always in everybody’s business. But unfortunately from that point on, the media guy always had a chip on his shoulder about me. I mean, I guess by rejecting him, I hurt his fragile ego. But he wasn’t my type and I wasn’t into him.

Meredith
You never have to justify it.

Mary Kopetskie
From that point on, he would make disparaging remarks about my “so-called” virginity. That was really rude, unnecessary, and uncalled for. I wasn’t a virgin; I just didn’t want to have sex with him.

Meredith
He needed to find a way to take his power back and humiliate you. So, how about any fun stories that don’t involve, um, the gray area of sexual assault? Any that you want to share? Do we want to keep those in the box of secrets?

Mary Kopetskie
I remember one night— and I have to be careful how I say this— a player that I had a little fling with St. Louis, a PR guy that I had a little fling with Buffalo, and your father, who I was also having a fling with, were all at the Baltimore Civic Arena.

Meredith
Wait. Was this like one of those awkward situations where I show up at the same bar and all of my exes are there and I’m just, like, “What do I do?” We’ve all been there at some point.

Mary Kopetskie
So my friend Denise— who after the nightmare of tickets was resolved, would always come to the press box— I remember calling her over to the end of the press box where nobody was and saying to her, “This is terrible. All my flings are here tonight.” Then we just sort of laughed about it.

Meredith
That’s really all you can do in that situation –laugh and try to deflect and make sure that you don’t have to be around them all at the same time. That was fun! Thank you for sharing that scandalous little bit of your past. Now I want to talk about what you’ve done since your career in soccer, so let’s start with the next question. Why did you end up leaving the Blast?

Mary Kopetskie
So perhaps this is a cautionary tale for young women today. Your father was working for the Baltimore News-American and he was covering the Blast, which incidentally, he felt were beneath him. I found out he was the new beat writer for the News-American and called him to introduce myself. I offered to put together a media packet for him to get acquainted with the team. He was really rude and said, “This is my day off, don’t call me, I’ll call you.” So that was the beginning of that. That was an omen. I should have paid attention and I didn’t, because of course we’ve been divorced for a very long time. So anyway, that was 1982 and we married a year later in 1983. I remained working for the Blast and stayed in Baltimore until 1985 when the Baltimore News-American had folded. His old boss went to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, so we thought that would be an adventure. I went with him and gave up my job at the Blast.

I want to say, in hindsight, I did that several times for him. We moved to St. Louis in 1985. A couple of years later, after we had just bought a house, the St. Louis Cardinals NFL team moved to Arizona. He was a football writer and didn’t want to be without a football team. So he was hired by the Dallas Morning News to cover the Cowboys, who at the time were practically winless. This was before Jerry Jones, Jimmy Johnson, Troy Aikman, and all that. I did not want to move to Dallas, but there we were, for his career and not my own. I just want to say this: every time we moved, I took a job that was less than my stature, less to my liking, and way less money until I was out of touch with public relations and the changes in that field.

My skill set became rendered irrelevant by my marriage. I have to say that a woman’s career today is just as important as a man’s career. In some cases, you even make more money than your partner. So, I think you better think long and hard before you make a sacrifice for your career for your spouse. I learned that the hard way.

Meredith
So, wrapping up on this topic, the moral of the story is you should never sacrifice your career for any partner? I think that is very, very sound advice and advice that I have definitely taken. I’m 30 years old, still single with no ring on my finger, and no man telling me what to do with my life. So, since you’ve been visiting me in Chicago, I showed you the racist, xenophobic shirt the Baltimore Blast released. Since you’ve left the team and (they’re) under new ownership, they have fallen in many ways, but the most visible one is their far-right ideologies and bigotry. How does it make you feel to see the club you worked for and loved turn into something that embraces hatred and racism?

Mary Kopetskie
Well, when I was with the Blast, I worked with a man and entrepreneur from New York who was very generous, not only to his players, but (also) to his staff. I was treated very well. We were all more like a family.

Meredith
Is it disheartening to see such a warm, inviting, inclusive club that was a part of your life fall to this rock bottom of racism?

Mary Kopetskie
Well, it’s very, very distressing. So I probably would have resigned after that shirt came out. I have only resigned once in my life while working at the St. Louis Public Library after a change of directorship.

You have to be able to stand up for something you believe in or are against, even when you have to pay the rent. I just couldn’t work for someone like the current owner.

Meredith
We can both agree that racist ideologies and releasing shirts like that for profit is just absolutely inexcusable and dehumanizing. It’s clear that, despite the current state and ownership of the Blast, Baltimore has always had a rich soccer tradition. Could you compare how Baltimore soccer fans are different from other supporters you’ve encountered? What makes them special, what makes them stand out, whether it was at the away trips you went on or your time at MISL and working for the Blast?

Mary Kopetskie
Well, I have to say that, first of all, we’re talking about indoor soccer, which at the time, not everybody was into. It was a big deal for us when, I think, it was CBS and John Tesh, who now has a music career, broadcasted a MISL game. We just couldn’t break into television.

So indoor soccer required a different kind of fan. Baltimore’s fans, along with St. Louis fans, back when they were the Steamers and played in the Old Checker dome, were rabid fans. In Baltimore, a lot of kids grew up playing soccer, which led to more support. Like I said, there was some prejudice towards us from the outdoor soccer fans, the so-called “purists”. But we were a charismatic team with Kenny Cooper as our coach. We always had some hometown players. We had a reputation for being gritty. I mean, we had players from Philly!

Meredith
Would you say that the Baltimore fans were representative of the Blast?

Mary Kopetskie
Yes, we were a blue-collar kind of team that you wanted to root for.

Meredith
Underdog team with underdog fans?

Mary Kopetskie
Yes, but then we had a winning reputation eventually.

Meredith
So, another kind of fun question, and you might even have your own answer to it. What are the best crab cakes in Baltimore? Faidley’s or Jimmy’s Famous?

Mary Kopetskie
Pappas’s has the best crabcakes, but I miss Kaufman’s. I usually go back to Baltimore probably once a year to visit my friend Denise from my Blast days. She knows what’s good to eat in Baltimore.

Meredith
Alright, so is SocceRoo the best mascot in MISL history?

Mary Kopetskie
I love SocceRoo! SocceRoo is the best mascot ever. The only mascot that comes close in any way today is Gritty for the Philadelphia Flyers.

Meredith
Don’t tell my best friend Moria that.

Mary Kopetskie
I knew the guy who played SocceRoo and he ended up coming with Doug Verb to the Chicago Sting. Socceroo was just a fun and playful mascot. He was one of the first soccer mascots and there was just something homemade or hometown about him. SocceRoo wasn’t a silly kind of mascot like some of these cities or teams have now. I was always partial to Socceroo.

Meredith
Would you say Stan Stamenkovic was one of the better indoor soccer players you got to see during your time in the game?

Mary Kopetskie
Yes! The Magician. That was his nickname. He was probably the best. Stan was a fun-loving man from Poland who loved to eat, but the way he could turn and kick the ball with different foot positions… his footwork really was magic. He could just out twist and turn defenders and score goals in the blink of an eye. I was thrilled when he became a part of the Blast.

But I have a sad note; Stan died early in his life. When his career playing days were over, he moved back to Poland. He was working on the roof of his house when he fell and suffered a fatal brain injury. So that always made me very sad because I can still see him playing on the indoor soccer turf with his moves.

Meredith
Wow. Rest in Power to The Magician. That is such a tragic end for someone with such a legacy. Besides seeing legends like Stan Stamenkovic play on the turf, what was your most memorable experience working for the Blast?

Mary Kopetskie
When we won the Championship and also whenever we beat the Steamers because that was a rivalry. We were both really good and both had hometown players. To go to St. Louis and beat them was really a feat.

Meredith
I wouldn’t know what that’s like as a Chicago Fire supporter, who St. Louis FC defeated in the US Open Cup last year, but that’s okay. Let’s talk about your team beating St. Louis on their home turf. Maybe it’ll happen for my team one day.

Mary Kopetskie
Well, we actually won the championship in Baltimore. So we got to celebrate at home, but it was a series. I remember the organ player at the Checker Dome, he was awesome. They would play the Budweiser song, and that would be their way of getting the fans revved up. That was always fun. Just the sellout crowd at the arena. They always played sell-out games, and Baltimore did, too. So the atmosphere was at 10 and you could feel it.

When we beat them for our first championship at home, we got to celebrate at our favorite watering hole afterward. As I told you, our owner was such a generous man. You know, it was like drinks and food on the house that night. My parents were even in town for it. My mother who never stayed up late was on the edge of her seat during the game. I couldn’t have imagined her being like that. She was eating well and enjoying the victory. So it was quite a late night. I mean, we were out until probably close to 2 a.m. But I have to say that was one of the only times I saw her have that much fun. Oh, and my father of course enjoyed it. It was just very festive.

Meredith
You have a lot of good memories to share from this time in your life, and that makes me very, very happy.

Mary Kopetskie
Denise and I still say that we got to have the best jobs in the entire world.

Meredith
So let’s get into some juicy bits. This is a question that’s been submitted. I don’t know what they’re referring to. So we’ll see if you know what they’re referring to. Did you know of a quiet rumor involving one of Tacoma Stars’ big players? Did other teams in the league know about it?

Mary Kopetskie
Okay, I remember Tacoma because that was my first visit to the Northwest and I fell in love with it. I didn’t catch wind of anything that I can remember. The usual rumors were if players were cheating on their wives because there was a lot of that.

Meredith
So that was mostly what the rumor mill whispered.

Mary Kopetskie
Yeah, during my time, the biggest rumors were about infidelity.

Meredith
On a similar note, what was the worst soccer scandal that was turned around through PR and nothing else? It can be one that you worked firsthand on or one that was on your radar. Something that could have been a disaster, but good PR averted the crisis

Mary Kopetskie
We really didn’t have anything like that in Baltimore. I think the biggest PR crises were if a team was in danger of folding, if there were any rumors like that. That would just kill the team from any chance of anyone coming in and trying to revive it. So that was probably the worst scandal that could hit a team. Like when an owner would pull out and then it would come out that players and staff weren’t getting paid. It always took good PR to revive a team who was at that point.

Meredith
So, the next question comes from one of my favorite clubs so I’ve been telling you about –Motorik FC in Alexandria, Virginia. They’re very grassroots and very DIY, which is what I love about them. What advice do you have for smaller clubs in terms of PR and marketing? Obviously the game has changed but, do you have any timeless pieces of advice for smaller clubs?

Mary Kopetskie
Obviously the Baltimore Blast and MISL were very small starting up. I remember, when I was in Baltimore, the Baltimore Sun didn’t care about who covered the team, so they assigned this elderly gentleman –and he really was a gentleman! He didn’t get around much so it wasn’t like he was going to make his way to the Blast office. So I would walk up one of the Baltimore streets to deliver our media information to him at the Sun building. Before the season started, I would go around to the TV stations. If we wanted press, we had to go to them.

Meredith
You had to give them a face to the name of the Blast.

Mary Kopetskie
We had to give them our information. One time we were trying to improve ticket sales, even though our ticket sales were generally good. So one of the staff members was from DC. We went there and we made the rounds of the DC radio and TV stations and papers to try to get a little bit of interest from the DC area. So I would say if it’s publicity you’re seeking, like if you want your box scores put in the paper, you have to go to them. That would be my advice about publicity. In the early MISL days, you had to make it as convenient for them as possible.

Now, that aside, of course now you have social media. I would definitely take full advantage of social media. Keep it updated. There’s nothing worse than looking at someone’s old Facebook page. Another piece of advice for smaller clubs is to actually venture out in the community. We had a Community Relations Department with the Blast. We were everywhere –putting on free clinics at malls, festivals, fairs, and schools. I mean, we were really taking the Blast to the community and always having players volunteer.

Meredith
Outreach and visibility are both very important things when it comes to a club’s relationship with the community around them. So what are you doing now that your MISL days are behind you?

Mary Kopetskie
I stayed home with you until you went to kindergarten. I realized then that I was so out of touch with PR and I had already achieved what I had wanted to. Through you, I had found my love of kids and wanted to be a teacher. So I did go back to school to get my teaching certification, which took two and a half years on top of my BA. I was fortunate enough to be hired at a very good school district in the St. Louis suburbs. It was an expectation for us to get our master’s degrees. And so yet again, I went back to school for two years to get a master’s degree in Library Science. After I put in about 10 or 11 years as an elementary school teacher, you were ready to fly the nest and move to Chicago. That’s when I decided I wanted to go back to the East Coast. I’m really an East Coast girl at heart.

Now I’m an English and English writing professor at a community college. I teach writing and essay writing to college students. I never thought I would have this opportunity. I never even considered it. I didn’t have a job when I moved to Cape May, New Jersey, but someone I had met told me that they were looking for adjunct instructors. I jumped on that and I’ve been there 10 years now. I had to teach myself how to teach college and I worked really hard at it. I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished as a senior adjunct professor. I absolutely love my students and always tell them that when I look at them, I see you, my daughter, and I treat them the way that I would want you to be treated.

Meredith
I have many reasons to be proud of you, but the fact you’ve had so many careers is definitely one of my favorite things to brag about when I talk about you. So I promise to everyone that I did not submit this question myself. But someone wanted to know: What do I do in order to raise a daughter as amazing as your daughter is?

Mary Kopetskie
Oh, wow!

Meredith
Don’t you dare make me cry.

Mary Kopetskie
Well, I’ve always wanted a little girl. If I didn’t have one, I probably would have adopted one. But I always wanted a little girl and I know I overdid the pink and I’m sorry. But I didn’t have a lot of pink growing up so…

Meredith
She projected the pink onto me. That’s why I’m covered in tattoos and wear all black everything.

Mary Kopetskie
I did! [laughs] You know you were my best friend. We did everything together. We would have lunch, go shopping, or to maybe a museum. I tried to expose you to everything, especially the arts. Through your dad, you were exposed to sports, but I tried to expose you to different things outside of that. I think I wanted you to have two things, especially one that I didn’t have until later in life, and that was self-esteem. I wanted you to feel good about yourself.

Meredith
Well, everyone will tell you that I am probably one of the most confident people they’ve ever met. So you definitely, definitely nailed the self-esteem part!

Mary Kopetskie
I really wanted that. The second thing was showing you all these different things, like the different summer camps you went to. Sometimes you went with friends and sometimes you went where you didn’t know anyone. I did that on purpose. I wanted you to be able to make friends, no matter where you were, whatever situation you were in, no matter where you lived. My women friends are very precious to me and so I wanted that for you.

Meredith
What principles do you think you instilled in me that led me to be the person I am today?

Mary Kopetskie
Well, I can definitely see that you can go somewhere, you can go anywhere and make friends. Good friends. I mean, I’m blown away by the friendships that you’ve made since you’ve been living in Chicago, but also the friends you’ve made throughout the country. I feel like I did succeed at that and that makes me happy because that’s a really good quality. That’s an important thing to be able to do.

Meredith
It’s definitely got me far in my life. I’ve made my friends into my family, and now I have a family that spans the globe through soccer and other hobbies.

Mary Kopetskie
Another thing I tried hard to instill was good manners, and you have lovely manners.

Meredith
[Laughs] I have lovely manners when I want to have lovely manners…

Mary Kopetskie
Well, you say, “please” and “thank you,” “excuse me” and “I’m sorry,” and that’s important, to be sensitive to other people’s feelings. Kindness is so needed in this world that’s so filled with hatred and anger.

Meredith
Empathy and kindness go a long, long way right now.

Mary Kopetskie
Empathy does go a long way. I’m happy when you tell me some of the things you’re doing and send me screenshots of tweets. I’m very proud of your empathy. You’re much more of an activist than I was. I wasn’t demonstrative. Now, I was in New York in the 1970s during Women’s Lib and I did participate in things like that. Had I seen a bra-burning, I would have burned mine!

I wasn’t that much of an activist. I’m not really a political person. Although, with Trump in the White House, you have to be political right now. But you are- you put your money where your mouth is, you’ll go out there to a Black Lives Matter protest. The rights of sex workers is a particular cause that’s dear to your heart. If you like a particular candidate you would do things to support that candidate.

So, I’m proud of you for that because that’s not something that I really showed you when you were growing up. I have to say that I’m very proud of you. You have turned into a lovely young woman. When I see any parts of myself in you or things that I know that I intentionally planted seeds and see them come to fruition, it makes me very happy.

Meredith
God, I hope I’m someone you can be proud of.

Mary Kopetskie
You are!

Meredith
So how do you feel about my current involvement in soccer, all of the things I’ve done in soccer supporters groups, and, obviously, now The Plastics SG existing? How do you feel about that?

Mary Kopetskie
First of all, I tell everyone about The Plastics SG and show them my scarf that you gave me! That scarf, to me, says it all. That side of the scarf that says “You can sit with us”, that all-in inclusivity. I have to say that during our time in St. Louis, we saw some exclusivity there definitely in the neighborhoods, the church, and school near us. Remember that one Halloween, where that neighborhood Parkview…

Meredith
That was and is every Halloween, Mom. Parkview is one of the most notoriously racist neighborhoods in St. Louis. They shut their gates to Black children from trick or treating.

Mary Kopetskie
That exclusivity in St. Louis!

Meredith
That’s St. Louis segregation, not exclusivity. St. Louis is one of the most historically segregated cities in the nation. That’s part of my reasoning for disavowing it. Not that Chicago is any better. Chicago is also very rooted in segregation, but St. Louis has a very different breed of racism. The vibe there never sat right with either of us. But less about St. Louis and more about The Plastics.

Mary Kopetskie
I just love that whole theme of inclusivity and embracing everyone who needs a place to sit, not by themselves. That really warms my heart. I tell everybody about that. I’m very proud of The Plastics SG and what they stand for. I waited a long time for you to find your passion in life. And I finally see it. It’s so ironic that it’s soccer because that was such a special part of my life. It kind of tickles me that you gravitated towards soccer.

Meredith
So, would you consider me your legacy?

Mary Kopetskie
Yes, I would!

Meredith
Do you have anything else you would consider your legacy?

Mary Kopetskie
No, you are my legacy. You’re my daughter and I’ve handed off the torch to you. I’m glad that you found your passion. I hope that, when COVID-19 has settled, you try to make a living from soccer in some way. I think you’re very talented with marketing, merchandising, social media, computers, websites –you have so much to offer. I mean, I personally think you should start up your own business.

Meredith
Being an anticapitalist, I definitely struggle with the idea of starting my own business and making what I love so much into a source of income, but that is for another interview. So, last question and not to end it on a negative note, but I want to end it on a note that is very real and very personal to me, as well as other women and LGBTQ soccer supporters that I know, love, and have met through The Plastics SG and elsewhere. Do you think, from what you’ve seen around the media, especially NHL and whether women in sports are distractions, and also obviously my own experiences and the experience of my friends with getting harassed, that the culture around women in sports has improved? Or does it still have that same toxicity and sexism that you faced in the 1980s?

Mary Kopetskie
Well, I was out of soccer from the time I left The Blast until you played soccer as a kid. I’d have to say I kind of picked up interest again when you became a fan of Arsenal and the English Premier League. I started to follow that and then had the best time watching the USWNT in the World Cup last summer in Paris. I’m sorry to say, I don’t know that it’s changed all that much. I don’t think we’ve made the progress that I would like to have seen in 2020.

Meredith
I think the big difference, especially after hearing some of your stories and experiences today that, maybe in the 1980s, women were less empowered to speak up. Now, especially with social media, it’s like we have not only the anger and the spite as fuel to speak out, but we also have social media at our fingertips to raise hell in ways that perhaps your generation wasn’t able to.

Mary Kopetskie
Right, we didn’t have the voice in sports. We didn’t have any power behind our voice. But I think with the #MeToo movement, social media, and grassroots movements like Black Lives Matter happening, women and marginalized people in sports do have the voice and I know at least some people are listening.

Meredith
Honestly, that’s all that matters. If we can get some people to listen to us and they can go on and carry the message, eventually it’ll get some more people to listen, then maybe we’ll see change. That’s what I’m fighting for. That’s what you fought for and that is what The Plastics SG fight for.

So on that note, thank you so much for the conversation and for letting me pick your brain on all of this. I know we definitely went to some interesting places, but I hope you’re excited for your story to be shared with everybody.

You’re finally able to talk about these things. They may be in your past, but these stories are parts of who you are. Thank you very much.

Mary Kopetskie
Well, I loved it, Meredith. I love you.

Meredith
I love you too, Mom.