Player of the Tournament

Awarding the TheCup.us Player of the Tournament honors to the top goalscorer on the team that wins the US Open Cup would seem cliche. However, Rob Ukrop of the 1995 US Open Cup champion Richmond Kickers did more than just score goals for the amateur side from the USISL Premier League.

The former national player of the year at Davidson College also drew a foul that led to game-winning penalty kick in the Semifinals. He also drew a foul that led to a crucial red card in the Final; scored his penalty kick in the championship game’s shootout; and put his health — and potentially his career — at risk in a way that few players would. Some would call it reckless, but the risk paid off with a US Open Cup title, and a USISL Premier League championship the week after that.  

Ukrop’s team-leading three goals (one in each game he started), and his consistent presence as an offensive threat throughout the tournament, led him to being voted TheCup.us Player of the Tournament for the 1995 US Open Cup.

The award is voted on by a select panel among the staff from TheCup.us. 

Other finalists for the award included Ukrop’s teammate Ben Crawley and El Paso Patriots captain Gabino Amparan.

Crawley assisted on both goals in the Kickers’ 2-1 upset of the Atlanta Ruckus in the Quarterfinals, scored the game-winning PK in the 89th minute against the Chicago Stingers in the Semifinals and played all 120 minutes and converted his PK in the championship game shootout that helped Richmond lift the trophy.

Amparan, a defender, led the Patriots defense to a road shutout of the defending A-League champion Colorado Foxes, then scored the game-winning goal in a 1-0 shutout of the high-powered Seattle Sounders and scored a late equalizer in the Final and a PK in the shootout before El Paso ultimately fell short.

Ukrop and the Kickers’ journey began in the First Round by hosting fellow amateur side, Spartans SC. 

Ukrop scored a second-half goal in a one-sided 5-2 home win over the Spartans. However, that result was wiped away when a replay was ordered after the US Soccer Federation ruled that the Kickers did not give the visitors enough notice for a kickoff time change.

When they played again about three weeks later, the game was even more lopsided and Ukrop was also involved. He scored a first-half equalizer and had a shot that produced a rebound goal by Richie Williams in a 6-1 win over Spartans SC, who played the game without any substitutes.

In the Quarterfinals, the Kickers faced a significant challenge when they hosted the A-League’s Atlanta Ruckus. 

After Crawley assisted on Ukrop’s opening goal in the 13th minute, Ukrop exited the game just after halftime. 

With just three minutes elapsed in the second half, Ukrop collided with Atlanta’s John Doyle while going after the ball, and Doyle’s elbow struck Ukrop in the face.

While some of the media reports described the elbow as an accident, the man who absorbed the elbow into his face had a slightly different view. 

“I mean, I’m sure he wasn’t trying to break my cheekbone,” Ukrop said. “But I think he was trying to knock me down.”

Ukrop, who always chewed gum during games, spit the bloody piece of gum out into his hand and threw it in frustration. 

“Two years later, some kid comes up to me and says ‘I still have the gum from when you got your cheekbone broken,” Ukrop recalled, who said the popular opinion of those who witnessed the foul was that the object that went flying was a tooth.

“I don’t think it’s worth losing Robby Ukrop. I’m not a doctor but you could see his cheekbone was totally depressed. It’s a tragedy. He’s really been playing great, better than ever the past few games,” Kickers head coach Dennis Viollet told the Richmond Times-Dispatch after the game. 

It was the second facial injury Ukrop had suffered in his career. In 1992, he suffered a broken jaw while playing indoor soccer for the Baltimore Blast after being struck in the face.

When Ukrop went to the hospital, the doctor estimated that he was going to be sidelined anywhere between two to three months.

Ukrop returned to St. Mary’s Hospital the next day hoping to get a different opinion and, if he was lucky, to possibly get surgery. So he asked the doctor what his options were. 

“So I told (the doctor), ‘We’ve got a game in two weeks that I would like to play in. This is a great team and I want to be a part of this.”

The doctor replied: “I can do the surgery this afternoon.”

Ukrop had planned ahead. He hadn’t eaten anything that morning on the off chance that they could do the surgery the same day. 

The doctor explained that he would be out a minimum of 10 days, which would mean he could potentially play in the Kickers’ Semifinal match against the Chicago Stingers on Aug. 4. But made it very clear to Ukrop and his family that he was taking a risk. 

“(After 10 days), if you get elbowed or hit there again, there’s a chance you could do some serious damage,’ Ukrop recalled the doctor telling him. “‘You could push in (your cheekbone) and you could lose your eyesight.’”

Ukrop’s mother, who was with him at the consultation with the doctor, was “freaking out,” as he described it. But in the end, Ukrop’s response to the doctor’s warnings was: “That’s cool, just whatever we can do so I can play.” 

Spoken like an invincible 25-year-old who was just two wins away from an improbable US Open Cup championship and also two more wins away from winning the USISL Premier League title. He couldn’t resist the opportunity to win two trophies.

The injury was no small inconvenience off the field. Ukrop had to sleep with a piece of metal over the top of his face to avoid his cheekbone from getting pushed back in.

Twenty-three days after breaking his cheekbone, and after being as careful as possible, Ukrop was on the bench for the Kickers’ US Open Cup Semifinal against the USISL Pro League’s Chicago Stingers at University of Richmond Stadium. 

Richmond head coach and former Manchester United star Dennis Viollet was extremely reluctant to put his injured star player on the field. In the first half, the Kickers had taken the lead twice only to see the Stingers equalize both times. With the score tied at 2-2, Scott Snyder gave the Kickers the lead for the third time in the 69th minute. That was the moment that Viollet decided he was going to call on Ukrop to help close out the game.

No mask. No protective equipment of any kind. Just strict instructions to protect himself at all times. The prevailing thought was if Ukrop wore a mask and got hit in the face, the mask would do little to prevent damage to a cheekbone that had not fully healed. 

In the 88th minute, Chicago’s Don D’Ambra tied the game for the third time and it seemed like the game was heading to extra time. 

Less than a minute later, Ukrop received a pass deep in the Stingers’ end of the field, and was brought down in the penalty area by Stingers netminder John Howard. Surprisingly, Ukrop, the team’s top scorer and a player who had scored in each of the last two Open Cup games, did not take the penalty kick. Crawley stepped forward and scored the penalty kick in the 89th minute to send the amateur Kickers to the Final by the score of 4-3.    

Twenty-three days later, the Kickers traveled to El Paso where they took on another USISL Pro League side in the 83rd US Open Cup Final. The El Paso Patriots hosted the game with temperatures in the 90s at kickoff. Ukrop’s cheekbone still wasn’t fully healed, but with a little more than three weeks of healing under his belt, he was in much better shape than the Semifinal win over the Chicago Stingers.

Ukrop returned to the starting lineup and made his presence felt 20 minutes into the game. He connected on a free kick but headed it just wide of the target. After picking up a yellow card in the first half, he scored the game’s first goal early in the second half. In the 49th minute, Leigh Cowlishaw took the ball to the touch line and played the ball back to the middle of the box. There he found a wide open Ukrop who put the ball into the empty net before the defense could converge on him.

Just a couple minutes later, Richmond’s Kevin Scott was shown a red card to put the underdogs down to 10 men with most of the second half left to play.

“Right after I scored (in the 49th minute), Kevin got the red card and the momentum went their way,” Ukrop said. “They were more aggressive and had us down a man. But then things evened up when their guy fouled me.”

The foul Ukrop referenced was a big one. The Patriots tied the game with a goal by Gabino Amparan in the 81st minute, but, just like the Kickers, they were handed a serious blow. Ukrop found himself on a breakaway but before he could get a chance to beat the goalkeeper to give his team the lead, El Paso’s Hector Cervantes fouled him. Referee Arturo Angeles showed Cervantes a straight red card to put the game back level at 10 players a piece.

After a scoreless extra time, the tournament was decided by a penalty kick shootout. Ukrop started the shootout for Richmond and blasted his attempt into the upper right corner. El Paso goalkeeper Jake Arrambide guessed correctly but the ball was out of reach.

The Kickers won the shootout 4-2 to become the first Virginia-based club to lift the trophy in the tournament’s 83-year history.

Ukrop loved the way that his teammates picked him up during a difficult time.

“That’s the kind of team that it was,” Ukrop said. “I was hurt but the guys supported me. I fought my way to get back in because you never want to miss playing with your guys. There was just a willingness from the guys. They just wanted to be together and play together. It was such a great group of fellas and we had good leadership and some crazy stuff happened throughout the season.”

For many of the amateurs on the Richmond Kickers’ roster that season, it was the launching pad to playing at the professional level. In fact, the entire starting lineup for the Kickers in the 1995 US Open Cup Final all moved on to play at the pro level.   

“It was a really terrific team,” Ukrop recalled. “A lot of guys had that war mentality. It was fun to play with all those guys and I felt like my game improved, and I hope all their games improved as they launched their pro careers. It was fun.”