Staff

Daniel Seco (Editor-in-Chief)

Daniel Seco is a second year graduate student studying journalism at the University of Florida. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland with highest honors in May 2008. Seco has worked for the National Archives, United States Attorney’s Office, Baltimore Orioles and Senator Douglas J.J. Peters.

A writer/columnist for the school paper and radio show host, Seco majored in American Studies at Maryland with focus areas in Media Studies and English. For his honors thesis, Seco wrote a full-length screenplay addressing love in the time of war. In 2008, Seco spent time in Los Angeles as an assistant director on the film Ima. Seco is a former columnist and opinions editor for the Independent Florida Alligator.

His work has been published on Yahoo Sports, CBS News and in countless college newspapers. Starting in Fall 2010, Seco will be moving to New Orleans to teach special education through the esteemed Teach For America program. No word on whether he will be founding an MLS team in the city.

On a lighter note, his cell phone once went off during a press conference with Bob Bradley. Seco is still feeling the after effects of such a jackleg-esque move. Reports remain unconfirmed if Bradley “wakes up in the morning feeling like P-Diddy.”

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Neil W. Blackmon (Senior Writer)

Neil W. Blackmon, a US Men’s National Team follower and Sam’s Army Member since 2002, is a graduate of the University of Florida Levin College of Law. While in law school, he served on the editorial board of a law journal as well as research assistant to two professors and as Senior Research Assistant to the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations. He currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

In his spare time, he coaches debate and does social justice work, attends college football games, watches major league baseball, plays golf and soccer and does freelance sports and political writing. His favorite club soccer teams are England’s Everton FC and Serie A side Juventus. He has a healthy obsession with Golden Tee Golf and a slightly unhealthy crush on Anne Hathaway.

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Jon Levy (Senior Writer/Managing Editor)

Jon Levy is an avid soccer fan who has been an active member of the sports media for approximately ten years. He most recently served as the Sports Director at WUFT-FM in Gainesville, Florida. Jon is a University of Florida graduate and who finished his Masters degree in broadcast station management in December 2009. In his free time, Jon watches sports, works out, and engages in plenty of counterproductive activity in regards to the working out. Jon roots for West Ham United, Lady Gaga, and the Chicago Bears. He hates Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney and blight upon society Brett Favre.

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Raf Crowley (Senior Writer)

A Liverpool F.C. and Syracuse Orange supporter, Raf Crowley hails from Western New York. Raf is a graduate of Bucknell University and is currently finishing up his PhD in Coastal Engineering at the University of Florida. His plans after graduation include becoming a college professor, serving on the board of directors at Gator City and cooking meals that feature a lot of meat and very little else. In his free time, Raf enjoys hanging out with his girlfriend and wearing sleeveless t-shirts. Aside from his role as a contributing writer for The Yanks Are Coming, Crowley tutors inner-city students where he is beloved by all.

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Puck (Token Pop Culture Guru)

Puck, also affectionately called “BEARD-O,” is an avid sporting fan. He is currently finishing his Master’s Degree in Environmental Engineering at the University of Florida. Upon graduation, Puck plans on continuing his studies in order to earn his PhD. As a proud graduate of the University of Richmond, Puck was a hooker for the Spiders Rugby Football Club. (It’s a position in rugby, not an actual whore.)  His interests include the New York Yankees, the Buffalo Bills and Sabres, Manchester City, and hating Bill Walton. Puck has been a formidable addition to the Golden Tee Golf team fostered by The Yanks Are Coming’s very own Neil W. Blackmon.

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Guy Bailey (Senior Writer)

Guy Bailey is a dislocated Englishman living just north of Atlanta, GA. Married to a Southerner, who managed two years in Dreary Old England until declaring “I miss the sun, we’re going home”. They arrived on February 14^th 2009 thus making sure that they will be unable to get a decent table to celebrate the anniversary of their arrival ever.

Since leaving school Guy worked as a cinema announcer, shipyard worker, advertising salesman, and student before realizing that academia was the way to go and graduated with a BA Honors in Media Studies from Manchester University in 1996. Since then Guy has worked in PR and Communications for the past 13 years for Thames Valley Police, the BBC and The Open University.  Now a freelance pen-for-hire, Guy serves a variety of clients but none nowhere near as fun as The Yanks Are Coming.

A recovering Middlesbrough and England fan, Guy sought shelter under the wings of the Atlanta Falcons and Hawks only to have his heart regularly broken all over again. He is unsuccessful at golf, too old to play Grand Theft Auto and Football Manager 2010, and really should make better use of his time than writing his blog Blessay From America about life in the US from a British perspective. He has a wife and son which are probably his only real successes, until he beats Neil Blackmon at Golden Tee.

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Tim Patterson (Staff Writer)

Tim Patterson is a sophomore student studying public health at Tulane University in New Orleans. He currently writes for his school paper and often peruses and participates in other soccer blogs and websites throughout the Internet. For future plans, he hopes to continue his studies in the wonderful field of public health and to eventually obtain his masters.

After being cut from his Dallas high school soccer team, a top 10 nationally ranked program for decades running, he promptly joined up with a local recreational club and was met with immediate success, culminating with a dramatic championship run his senior year. Take that, haters. As for now, he is the co-captain of his intramural soccer club, the Green Street Elite. Although he does not exactly support West Ham United, the G.S.E. continues to dominate the competition on and off the pitch.

With soccer not exactly fitting into the sporting scene in New Orleans, Tim has been known to perplex and annoy his suitemates by waking up at 6:30 in the morning on Saturdays to watch less than mediocre EPL matches and to gleefully jump around his room after the World Cup draw was announced in early December. They just don’t understand.

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Jamie Clary (Contributing Writer)

Clary is the author of “The First American Soccer Trivia Book” and can be found on Twitter as soccerprofessor. He is twice as old as any other member of TYAC staff. He started playing soccer when the ball was still square and the losing team’s players were cast into volcanoes to ward of leprosy. He hates France, and roots for three teams–USMNT, Everton and Hendersonville (TN) High School, where he still holds the record for consecutive games with at least one goal. He’s written for Soccer America, SportsBusiness Journal, and several publications that have little concern for soccer.

He still plays on three teams regularly, even though he has had four soccer related operations. The operations in order were ACL/MCL, ACL, cartilage, and skull reconstruction.  He’s not as ugly as you would think, though. He did recently find a wife, Louisa Hamm Clary. They live in Tennessee with their dog, Mia Hamm Clary.

Clary has attended every MLS Cup, all 14 of them.

The book is available on Amazon and through www.soccerprofessor.com.

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Doug Beard (Staff Writer)

Doug considers himself lucky to have grown up in places where soccer was properly represented, which was not easy to come by in the States in the not too distant past.  He got to see the best play without ever having to leave his hometown.  And when he says best, he means “Best”: as in Georgie.  Being a kid in San Jose, CA meant there were plenty of pro games to attend.  Doug went to them all, including the USFL’s Oakland Invaders inaugural game, but none meant as much as those trips to Spartan Stadium to see his NASL ‘Quakes.  Likewise, Fort Lauderdale meant the Strikers and San Diego meant the Sockers.

Our well traveled man went to school for Mathematics and Psychology but was too busy playing soccer to wonder what he would do with either degree.  So after graduating and spending 3 years teaching high school math, he fell back on (get this) a career in music.  Currently he is a highly sought after percussion performer and arranger in Florida.  Gigs at Epcot, Central Florida Symphony, and University of Florida did little to make him forget his first love of soccer, and he still finds time to lace ‘em up and chase ‘em down.

He has attended NASL, MLS, NCAA, US Cup, International Friendlies, World Cup, Olympic matches and far more; but none were as glorious as sitting in Borussia Dortmond’s gorgeous Westfalenstadion to see BVB battle Herta Berlin.  The game finished 1-1; or as the away supporters were singing: “ein zu schwein!”  Gotta love it.

Doug currently lives in Boca Raton with his wife and 2 cats, all three of whom suck at soccer… but at least his wife is trying!

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Keith Hickey (Contributing Writer)

Keith Hickey is a full-time soccer junkie, part-time food service peon, and occasionally, a student studying something having to do with computers. Or was it history? He was born in the cultural and soccer vacuum of central Pennsylvania, but raised in the greatest city in the world, Philadelphia, where he attended the same grade school and high school as NFL great Marvin Harrison.

Already a legend amongst soccer fans on Twitter, his work is often published on Match Fit USA. In his spare time, he watches soccer, reads about soccer, and spends time in the kind of record shops that would make Richard Branson have a coronary. If he ever writes a book, he will be willing to sign it for you, with a personal message. He can be reached via Twitter @usarsnl or through email, at usarsnl@gmail.com.