How Parker's Colorado Foxes helped shape U.S. soccer
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Stroh Ranch once was the proposed site for a 10,000-seat soccer stadium. Photo: Robert Sanchez/Axios
Before the Colorado Rapids and Major League Soccer, one of America's best pro soccer teams briefly called Parker home.
Why it matters: The Colorado Foxes won two national championships, trained on a Stroh Ranch field, beat an English Premier League team and nearly positioned Parker at the center of professional soccer's growth in the U.S.
Flashback: In 1989, the Western Soccer League awarded an expansion franchise to Stroh Ranch Development. German businessperson Martin Nixdorf helped launch the Colorado Foxes.
- He saw the team as a door to soccer's expansion in America — and he imagined Parker playing a key role.
Yes, but: The Foxes never played regular-season games in Parker. Players trained in Stroh Ranch — just south of downtown Parker — and operated out of a trailer office.
- Home matches were at Jefferson County Stadium, Englewood Stadium and, later, Mile High Stadium.
The intrigue: The Foxes quickly became more than a run-of-the-mill minor-league club.
Long before "Welcome to Wrexham," Nixdorf tried something similar.
- "Martin was really committed to making [soccer] work in the U.S.," says Rich Karlis, the former Denver Broncos kicker who later became the Foxes' president and general manager.
- "We really tried to create a very professional environment."
By the numbers: The Foxes quickly became one of the country's top clubs.
- After joining the American Professional Soccer League — then the highest level of outdoor professional soccer in the U.S. — they won league championships in 1992 and 1993.
- In 1993, the Foxes defeated Norwich City of England's Premier League in a Four Nations Cup exhibition match.
Behind the scenes: Success fueled larger ambitions.
- Developers proposed a 10,000-seat stadium at Stroh Ranch as the Foxes' future home.
- When that effort stalled, then-Foxes president Bob Healey told the Rocky Mountain News he wanted to build a soccer-specific stadium at Parker's Challenger Park that could eventually grow to 35,000 seats.
- Neither project materialized.
Then came MLS.
- Karlis says MLS founder Lamar Hunt approached Nixdorf in the mid-1990s about joining the fledgling league, but Nixdorf declined.
Friction point: Disagreements over MLS' structure and tensions with U.S. soccer leadership contributed to that decision, Karlis tells Axios.
Nixdorf, now president of Germany's Heinz Nixdorf Foundation, could not be reached for comment.
MLS instead turned to Colorado billionaire Phil Anschutz, who became one of the league's founding investors and launched the Colorado Rapids in 1996.
Threat level: The Foxes struggled to compete.
- The club moved operations to Mile High Greyhound Park in Commerce City.
- But attendance sagged.
The Foxes sold after the 1997 season and became the San Diego Flash, which folded in 2001.
The bottom line: While you watch the World Cup this month, remember that a Parker-based team once sat at a crossroads in American soccer history — and chose a different path.