Your trusty weekend footy fix on the FM dial was conceived by longtime FC Dallas attacking stalwart Bobby Rhine well before its official launch in early June 2011. As a proud steward of The Beautiful Game, Rhine was determined to land a weekly soccer show on local radio that would cover the game with a wide lens stretching far beyond North Texas, motivated simply by the idea that his beloved club
could only benefit if the airwaves were infused with more soccer talk. After the inevitable initial resistance, Rhine finally succeeded with his vision. With the help of former FCD executive Kelly Weller, he convinced ESPN Radio in Dallas (103.3 FM) to launch Soccer Today. ESPN's Marc Stein and ESPN Deportes' Luis Perez were quickly drafted in as Rhine's sidekicks ... Stein as the only station regular known to have covered soccer before becoming a full-time NBA reporter and Perez to provide an experienced radio voice in the hosting chair. Barely three months into the project and not even three years removed from the end of his successful on-field career, Rhine was tragically snatched away from us, stricken by a heart attack at the unspeakably young age of 35 just as he was starting to gain nationwide recognition for his broadcasting promise as the rare player turned TV play-by-play man. Yet it was Bevan Rhine -- Bobby's indomitable rock of a wife and mother to their two beautiful children Jake and Miller -- who insisted that the show carry on in Bobby's honor. There could be no replacing Bobby, but Stein knew he had to try. So he asked his longtime Dallas Morning News colleague Steve Davis -- one of the deans of American soccer writing who had also become a good friend of Rhine's after covering his career closely -- to join him in keeping Soccer Today on the American footy map. The plan from the start was to do a show that naturally covered Major League Soccer and England's Premier League closely, but with American soccer matters -- be it the men's or women's national team or Americans Abroad or MLS itself -- always at the forefront. Pursuing marquee guests, both domestically and abroad, has also been a show priority from Day 1. And to this day, Steeno and Stevie Ray like to think of Soccer Today as The Bobby Rhine Soccer Hour. They've since recruited the young mind of Tyler Kern to provide assistance and exuberance in the group's ongoing quest to do a weekly soccer talk show that would make BR19 proud.
