The Triangle soccer community mourns the passing of Charlie Slagle
.JPEG "TARHEEL.NEWS.090403.CLL -- Charlie Slagle, 51, has been the CEO of CASL (Capitol Area Soccer League) for 2 years. The company employees 30 people, has thousands of volunteers and about 10,000 boys and girls participating.")
Charlie Slagle had a gift for conversation and not just small talk.
A giant in the North Carolina soccer community for more than three decades, Slagle died on Monday in Richmond, Va. He was 67.
As a coach, he led Davidson’s men’s program to soccer’s version of the Final Four in 1992 and won 209 games. As a youth club executive in Raleigh, for the Capital Area Soccer League, he helped bring the NCAA men’s and women’s championship to Cary.
But Slagle’s real talent was his ability to connect with people: friends, colleagues and strangers alike.
“Charlie made everyone feel important,” said Jim Wright, who worked for Slagle as an assistant coach at Davidson and at CASL (which has since merged into North Carolina FC).
“His reach and grasp of human nature was truly incredible. He was so affable, so likable.”
Wright went on an annual golf trip with Slagle and a group of friends in South Carolina two weeks ago. The two friends had talked on the phone on Sunday as Wright drove back to Raleigh from Florida. Slagle, who coached at Davidson from 1980 through 2000 and worked in the Triangle at CASL for 12 starting in 2001, had most recently been working for a professional club in Richmond.
He was found collapsed outside of his apartment in Richmond on Monday, Wright said, and the city police notified Slagle’s family in North Carolina. The Richmond Kickers soccer club released the news of Slagle’s death on Tuesday night.
“It just doesn’t seem real,” said Damon Nahas, an assistant coach for UNC’s women’s soccer team who worked for Slagle at CASL.
NCFC will honor Slagle before Thursday’s home game and the North Carolina Courage will do the same before their game at WakeMed Soccer Park on Friday.
One of the many hats Slagle wore during his time in the Triangle was as a public address announcer for the first iteration of the Courage in the early 2000s and as a color analyst for the Carolina Railhawks (NCFC’s professional men’s team predecessor). He also had his own weekly soccer show on sports talk radio.
“He made a whole career of doing incredible things,” said Curt Johnson, who is the president and general manager of NCFC. “He was a coach, a CEO, a referee, a sports marketer, a Pied Piper. He loved what he did and he did it all with a smile on his face.”
Slagle grew up in Binghamton, N.Y. and football was his first sport. He started his athletic career in 1970 at Davidson on the gridiron and then switched to soccer, as a goalkeeper. He still holds the single-season school record for saves.
Five years after he graduated from Davidson, he became the Wildcats’ head coach in men’s soccer. He also coached women’s basketball, golf and baseball.
“That’s so Charlie,” Nahas said. “He was unique.”
Slagle was instrumental in getting the NCAA to bring the College Cup, the national semifinal and championship rounds, to Davidson. The school hosted the men’s event for three years in a row from 1992 to ‘94.
When the Wildcats beat N.C. State in the quarterfinals in the NCAA tournament in Raleigh in ‘92, they weren’t just hosting but they were playing in the Final Four.
“That was a sports miracle,” said Scott Dupree, the executive director of the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance and one of Slagle’s friends. “That was really just an amazing story.”
Slagle finished his coaching career at Davidson in 2000, with three regular-season Southern Conference titles and two conference tournament titles. He left Davidson and took the job as the chief executive officer of CASL, one of the largest youth soccer clubs in the country.
He eventually helped Cary land the NCAA and ACC tournaments, for men’s and women’s soccer, but first he was able to rehabilitate CASL’s image as a cold, soccer monolith.
“He was like a magician in that regard,” Dupree said. “The perception, especially back then, was that CASL was a big machine. Charlie came in and unbelievably, and immediately, personalized it. He put a face on it, and not just a face but a warm, friendly face.”
With the efforts of Slagle and Dupree, the NCAA first brought the women’s College Cup to Cary in 2003. It has been held there eight times, including last year. The men’s championship was first held there in 2005 and will make its fifth trip to WakeMed Soccer Park in 2019.
The facility has also hosted the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams but without Slagle’s connections in the soccer community, that might have never happened.
“Charlie’s presence is the reason the NCAA felt comfortable taking that first step to a new market in 2003,” Dupree said. “The confidence that they had was, ‘If Slagle is here, everything is going to be fine.’ “
This story was originally published July 3, 2019 at 7:21 PM with the headline "The Triangle soccer community mourns the passing of Charlie Slagle."
