A rubber soccer ball that’s so old its white panels are now brown sits on a dresser in Shawn Kowalewski’s son’s bedroom.
The ball was a giveaway at a Chiefs game in 1981, the last year the team played before it ceased operations.
But that ball, and that team, fueled Shawn Kowalewski’s love of soccer.
“That ball’s going to the grave with me,” Kowalewski said.
It’s a love that has burned throughout the years and burns even more brightly because of the launch of Atlanta United, an MLS expansion squad that will begin play in 2017.
While the league’s growing popularity is being carried by the millennial generation, at least in Atlanta some of the parents of some of the millennials are jazzed that there’s a professional team coming to join the Braves, Falcons and Hawks in the upper tier of leagues.
“The excitement is on two levels,” Kowalewski said. “A, to have the highest level in country in our city, and B, the fact that Arthur Blank paid as much for that franchise as he did was exciting to me because he saw soccer as a viable entity.”
Kowalewski can remember as a kid sitting in the upper decks of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, watching the Chiefs play on a field that was partly dirt because the site also was home to the Braves’ baseball diamond.
For career days in school, Kowalewski would dress as a soccer player because that’s what he wanted to be.
Though the Chiefs left, his passion didn’t and his dream came true.
He played in high school at St. Pius, in college at Charlotte, played professionally and even managed teams in lower leagues in the U.S. before deciding to use his college education to find a job that could better support his family.
Now 46 years old, he lives in Avondale Estates and serves on the board of a local club, and his three children play. Though he follows Atlanta’s other teams, his level of interest never approached what he had in the Chiefs.
When it was announced two years ago that Atlanta United was online, he was ready to purchase season tickets. He has five.
He expects that Atlanta could become the next Seattle, which has led the league in attendance for years, because he thinks that the team will have a first-class venue with a high-quality product.
“I think there’s an undercurrent of people that are really excited, people in our age group that would love to support a team,” he said.
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