The Austin Aztex announced last night at their kick-off meet-and-greet that the U-23 team will be playing their first season at Round Rock High School’s Dragon Stadium.
Located just off I-35 at FM 620, Dragon Stadium has about 8,000 seats, and a brand new synthetic turf field. Aztex president Phil Rawlins was clearly pleased to have the very difficult stadium hunt finally behind him, and to have a guarantee of a home stadium for all eight home games, rain or shine. Still, though it remained largely unsaid, you could tell that a location that far north had not been anybody’s first choice.
As Rawlins noted in his official announcement e-mail: “Many of the field options our fans had talked about are unavailable in 2008, for one reason and another, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be re-visiting them for the 2009 season” (i.e. the inaugural year for the first division pro team).
Also attending the kick-off event were USL founder and President Francisco Marcos, Aztex coaches Wolfgang Suhnholz and Adrian Heath, and an impressive showing of the local soccer community. The youth organizations, in particular, don’t always get along so well, and it was good to see everyone together in one room, rallied unanimously behind a single goal. Rawlins set that goal for the Aztex early in the evening, and it was repeated a few times: he wants to become the best soccer franchise in the U.S., outside of the MLS.
I mean, who can argue with that?
This article appears in March 21 • 2008.