Kasey Keller To Ring Of Honor - Not So Fast

But I think that missed the most important part of his accomplishment here. I think we have to treat him more as a venture capitalist and less like an employee. He bought in at the BEGINNING. That counts for more. I’m sorry. But it does. He gets the early money benefit. He took a higher risk than any player will who follows. He has been here as long as we’ve been an MLS team, and that deserves respect in its own right. He put this club on the map in a serious way. No one who plays here will ever be able to escape his legacy. Ring of honor. Without a doubt

and leave tiny holes in it. The contractor can call them weep holes, we’ll know its because barely anything can get through.

In seriousness, I’d prefer we do our own thing. If that’s setting up our own ring of honor, that’s fine, but I don’t want the two sharing. The Seahawks’ Ring of Honor means a tremendous amount to that team, I don’t like the idea of our butting in just because we play in the same stadium.

The Seahawks Ring of Honor is about the fans as much as it is the ondividual players. For instance, Easley was deliberately excluded from the Ring for years and it was Seahawks fans who demanded his inclusion. Also, rather than seasons, compare the number of games Keller has played for the Sounders compared to Easley and Warner, both of whom missed a significant number of games due to injury in their respective six seasons with the Seahawks. Kasey Keller has served in the same role that Jim Zorn did, being the face of the team. Of course the difference is that Keller was a world class soccer player while Zorn was never among the NFL elite QB’s. Finally, I also think Keller deserves special consideration due his native son status. After all, we were reading about Keller and following his accomplishments not only before the existance of the current Sounders team, but before the existance of MLS as well.

The Warren Moon comparison is perfect.

That said, they should engrave his name on the goal posts with some cheezy saying that i can’t think of right now.

The Sounder Organization should to create something distinct to honor their players and coaches.

…like others above, I also oppose retiring soccer player numbers. Additionally. I don’t think it’s appropriate to share the Ring of Honor with the Seahawks (I doubt the Seahawks would allow that anyway). A Sounders Ring of Honor would have to be seperate. In fact a Sounders Wall of Honor outside the stadium might be an appropriate alternative.

The man is a legend, but that would be true even if he never donned Rave Green.

I greatly admire and appreciate him, but it feels wrong to talk of retiring his jersey or putting his name up for posterity somewhere. Three great seasons don’t leave an indelible mark.

Honestly, it even seems a little desperate. I’m reminded of Tampa Bay retiring Wade Boggs’ number because he was from the area and played his last two seasons there. To any observer, it felt like the cheap marketing gimmick that it was.

What is this “maybe” talk? :)

The photo on wikipedia article for the Ring of Honor linked in the story. Look at the scoreboard.

“I think we need to get a street named Kasey Keller. I think it should be a dead end because nothing gets through Kasey Keller!”

Any dead end streets near the CLink?

How about renaming King Street north of the CLink parking lot? It only runs from the Amtrak station to Alaskan Way — it’s disconnected from the King Street that runs east of 5th.

If there’s question as to where/when/why, we can take it back a bit more and do a USMNT / MLS banner and hang it in the Home Depot Center (with another here at CLink) as part of the MLS Cup activities.

Besides, no better way to piss off LA by hanging something at the home pitch of the USMNT.

The conversation is the important part right now,right? How many traditions were soccer fans worried about starting organically? We didn’t want sound piped into our games, we didn’t want ads played during run-of-play. We didn’t want ANYTHING played during run of play. We wanted the March to the Match to work, but not tainted by corporate ideals. The alliance council is a bizarre marriage of Sounders fans trying to keep things organic and owners who want to maximize return on their dollar by doing all the marketing tricks other major sports brands have succeeded on. We are at another crossroads. Three or four months ago I would have agreed with putting Keller up in the rafters at C-Link; however now the search for the right "new tradition" tickles my fancy.
We are a clever audience of passionate fans. The conversation should continue to find our right answer. My hope is our FO just doesn’t do anything rash. It should feel “right” to all of us.

To put some perspective on this, take a look at the Boston Red Sox. Besides number 42, they have only 7 retired numbers, with more than 100 years of rich history. The Yankees have 17.

KK could very well be the Sounders first but do remember it should be a very high bar to reach.

Speaking of which, where are we going to be able to retire Gary Payton’s jersey?