Charlotte FC owner David Tepper reflects on team’s impact on city as MLS offseason begins
Standing in front of a crowd of excitable elementary-school-aged children on Tuesday afternoon, David Tepper grabbed a microphone and asked a simple question.
“How many of you have ever played soccer?”
Pretty much all of the students at Nations Ford Elementary, one of the most diverse schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, shot their hands up. One student proudly shouted, “Almost the whole school!”
“Wow,” the Charlotte FC and Carolina Panthers owner responded, his voice rising over a bunch of high-pitched cheers. “That’s fantastic.”
Tepper and wife Nicole were joined by Charlotte FC and CMS officials to help open a new “mini-pitch” project Tuesday afternoon. Seven such miniature soccer turfs have been installed in an effort to connect with a city that — by pretty much all metrics and indications — has embraced the MLS team that just wrapped up its inaugural season a few weeks ago. The project is a joint effort by the team and the Teppers’ foundation.
“It’s so interesting to see the diversity that Charlotte has,” David Tepper told reporters as an exhibition match on the newly installed field started getting intense. “And I really, really think that we have an international city, and it brings out the international-ness of it. And it quite frankly makes us happy to see everybody enjoying themselves.”
Nations Ford’s principal and lifelong Charlotte resident Nick Paquette told reporters that this sort of outreach is particularly meaningful to his school.
“We serve students from 13 countries here,” Paquette said. “Our district, 100 countries. And what I’ve found in serving one of the largest populations of new-to-the-country students in all of CMS is that this game of soccer is the first thing that feels like home.”
The team said there will 22 mini-pitches by the time this outreach project is complete. Charlotte FC president Joe LaBue said that while this outreach plan has largely been in Charlotte, there is consideration of extending the project to other parts of the Carolinas.
“With every mini-pitch, it’s another commitment to the community,” LaBue said. “It’s something we set out to do. We talked about it a ton over the last two years.”
As far as other mini-pitches throughout the Carolinas: “We’re working on that right now. We’ve got some ideas. The quick audible to CMS and that partnership really came about the last six months or so, so who knows where we’ll be in another six months? We want to keep building on what’s a great foundation so far.”
Tepper talks McAlpine, signing Christian Lattanzio as coach
The Charlotte FC owner also gave his perspective on a few key story lines into its first offseason.
▪ The Queen City club officially named Christian Lattanzio as the team’s second head coach last week, a welcomed change amid a bunch of turnover among Charlotte sports coaches. Lattanzio served as the interim for the final few months of the season after taking over for Miguel Angel Ramirez only 14 games into the team’s inaugural season. Said Tepper: “Christian did a great job coming in. I mean, obviously, you saw the end of the season. ... Listen, we had to go through a process and look for other coaches. It’s just what we had to do. But it’s clear that Christian did a great job and was the best man for the job.”
▪ Tepper Sports and Entertainment announced in August that it had agreed to open a new permanent training facility and business headquarters by the spring of 2023 at McAlpine Park, where the team trained during its inaugural season. Said Tepper: “Going to McAlpine is two years earlier to get there than we ever would’ve gotten at Eastland. That’s probably reason No. 1. Reason No. 2 is that it just wasn’t big enough to do all the things (we want to do) over there.”
Tepper added, making what appeared to be a reference to how fans have reacted to his management of the Panthers: “If it’s one thing I’ve found out here in Charlotte particularly — and I don’t know if it’s this way anywhere else — you want to do whatever you can, in some respects, to (help) the success of the sport first. Two years is a big difference. And quite frankly, the fans would’ve killed me without having a training facility.”
This story was originally published November 1, 2022 at 5:19 PM.
