GRAHAM COUCH

Couch: Sampson's bold napkin idea, Lansing United, forges into Year 3

Former TV anchor Jeremy Sampson has created a soccer gem for the Lansing community

Graham Couch
Lansing State Journal
Lansing United President and CEO Jeremy Sampson  sits at the East Lansing Soccer Complex on Friday. Sampson and LanU are beginning their third season, a dizzying ride that began with an idea on a napkin.

LANSING – If Jeremy Sampson ever gets a big head over the success of his creation, the Lansing United soccer franchise, he’ll find humility within hours of every game in his laundry room.

There, LanU’s big-time owner, innovator, president, CEO and maestro of the bar napkin dream is immersed in filth, sweat and stench.

Sampson and his wife, Gena, still do the team’s laundry. He prefers it this way. Trusts his talent with OxiClean and their weekend turnaround time more than he does a laundry service.

“My wife despises reaching into the socks,” Sampson said. “She makes me reach into the socks and pull them out the right way, which I fully understand.”

I love sitting down to chat with Sampson. We did so this week over lunch at a downtown bar. His passion for Lansing United reverberates from his salad fork. It’s fun to be in the presence of someone who had a crazy idea one day and followed through.

United began its third season with an exhibition Saturday night against Ann Arbor FC, four years after Sampson and a friend came up with the idea of Lansing United on a trip to see the U.S. National Team in Philadelphia. The friend dropped out, as most of us do with napkin plans. Sampson went on to create a gem in the Lansing community.

Lansing United is no longer in “survival mode,” Sampson said. This year, though, is another gauge of Sampson’s ever-evolving business acumen, of a community’s consistent appetite for a high-level soccer experience, for the sustainability of an enterprise that comes and goes in so many markets.

“Year 1 was storybook, there’s no question,” Sampson said of 2014. “You could not have penned a better script. I think Year 2 was a little bit more of what reality looks like. But our fan support didn’t really waver.”

LanU won big that first season, making it all the way to the National Premier Soccer League semifinals. United might have won there, too, but it had lost its best player to MLS’ Toronto FC. There was rarely a cloud in the sky for home games that season, as fans discovered a festive atmosphere — led by the drums and chants of the Sons of Ransom supporters group — with plenty of room for kids to roam at the East Lansing Soccer Complex.

Lansing United owner and president Jeremy Sampson (center) gets a hug from his wife, Gena, and daughter, Grace, after United won the NPSL Midwest Regional in 2014. Running a soccer club has been a family endeavor.

Last season, though, was hindered by too many early season home games, with cold weather and school activities still in play. Even so, United drew better than 8,000 fans over the course of a 10-game home slate, after nearly 10,000 checked out LanU in 2014.

Sampson is hoping to beat the attendance marks of two years ago as word spreads and sponsorship grows — even if ticket prices did slightly, too.

“I know some fans questioned that,” Sampson said. “But the reality is, it was going to be difficult to make this thing go in the long term at $5 a ticket.”

It’s still a modest price, no more than a lawn seat at a Lugnuts baseball game — $8 online, $10 at the gate; $5 and $7 for children 12-under.

“I don’t see (the increases) continuing,” Sampson said.

The cost of doing business is fairly stagnant thanks to a payroll of one — head coach and general manager Nate Miller, who is also the head coach at Spring Arbor University.

Everyone else — friends, in-laws, interns, a roster of more than 30 players — is there for the experience or the opportunity or both. Or because they like Sampson. Or they’re married to him.

“We run a lean operation,” Sampson said, laughing.

“When you come to our games, you’re going to run into either my mom or my mother-in-law at the ticket booth. When you get a program, you’re going to run into my father or you’re going to run into my father-in-law. And then we have some family friends who have been very generous with their time helping out and doing whatever we need them to do.”

There are also four volunteer assistant coaches and 20 interns, most from Michigan State University — in either community relations, soccer operations, media relations and marketing. More than half are in marketing, each responsible for developing and implementing a plan for two of United’s 24 sponsors. That’s up from 19 sponsors last year and seven in 2014.

Success at this level is not in wealth. It is in knowing there will be a next year. Sampson, a former television sports reporter at WILX in Lansing, won’t be quitting his day job as a communication specialist for the state’s treasury department anytime soon.

But he appears to have figured out how to make the United go.

This season, he had to replace the only coach and GM he’d ever hired — Eric Rudland, who took over AFC Ann Arbor (not to be confused with Ann Arbor FC). Rudland brought in the soccer talent. It was his connections that lured players from colleges near and far and gave the team an international flair.

In a competitive landscape — there are now six NPSL teams in Michigan — the wrong coaching hire can quickly bring about a club’s demise. I’ve seen it happen in Kalamazoo, which this year is trying again with an expansion team in the NPSL.

“I wasn’t nervous,” Sampson said. “I got some really good counsel when we hired Eric. When I met with him, we really gelled. That made that one an easy decision. This one was a little different. I had made more contacts within the soccer community. So I thought it brought more people into play in the initial part of the process. But once you start doing a little bit more homework and digging in, it was clear Nate was the guy who was going to lead us. And he’s been super. He gets it from so many different levels — from the talent acquisition part, to local players, to the community aspect, the media relations aspect. He gets it.

“What happens (at this level) is the college coaches make 90 percent of the decisions (about where players go). They decide what fit is best for that player, so they can improve for the next year — where they'll get playing time, what coach won’t overtrain them. One of the big things when we looked for a new coach was relationships with college coaches in the state of Michigan. And Nate certainly checked all those boxes.”

The Lansing United and owner Jeremy Sampson enjoyed a near perfect inaugural season in 2014 - winning big, drawing big crowds and sending a player to MLS.

Sampson’s long-term hopes for LanU can be seen in his approach. He listens to his team of people, interns included, seeks their ideas and opinions. “I know I’m not the smartest guy in the room,” he says. And he tries to make the player experience — an unpaid summer on the soccer field — a pleasant one.

For example, eight out-of-state players needed housing this year. Sampson struck a deal for two furnished summer leases at The Village at Chandler Crossing.

“I picked up a player from the airport the other day and we were talking about some of his past experiences and he was asking me about this setup,” Sampson said. “I said, ‘We have two units, one four-bedroom, four-bath. One’s a four-bedroom, two-bath. So each of you have your own room.’ He said, ‘I’ve got my own room?’ Last year, he was one of seven guys in a two-bedroom, one-bath. And that’s not uncommon at this level.

“Those little things you can do to make their experience better, little things you can do to set your club apart when coaching staffs and players are thinking, 'I can go here or go here.'”

Sampson takes everything personally with Lansing United. It’s his baby. He was nervous about the uniform change this year. “What if someone doesn’t like them?” he said.

It’s a labor of love for him. He wants people to feel that coming from him, to be as excited as he is three days before the first game. He’s been surprised that so many seem to be.

“You’re looking at people’s Facebook pages that say, ‘I can’t wait for Saturday,’” he said. “I’m exactly the same way.

“It’s something I take a lot of pride in because it’s mine. You want it to go perfectly.”

Including having perfectly clean jerseys.

“I’m a little anal about it,” Sampson said. “The jersey represents the club. If there’s a little smudge, I’m working on it. I’m trying to make sure we look as good as we can.”

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

Upcoming games

Lansing United at Dayton, 7 p.m. Friday

Lansing United at Kalamazoo, 6 p.m. May 15

Michigan Stars at Lansing, 5 p.m. May 22