LoTemplio: Pele sighting a treasure

Dec. 29—Like most everyone else, I was greatly saddened to hear of the death of Pelé, the world's greatest soccer player ever.

It brought to mind the time I saw him play in 1977 in Rochester when he was part of the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League.

The Cosmos came to Rochester, my hometown, that summer to play the host Rochester Lancers in a playoff match.

The game was held at the former Holleder Stadium on the city's west side. The stadium had been built in 1949 as a football stadium for Aquinas Institute, a high school football power in the region.

It was an old concrete bowl in a horseshoe shape with rickety worn out wooden bleachers.

Holleder was the home of the Lancers, a small market, but good team, at the time.

Their games drew decent crowds, but nothing that we were to experience that August day in 1977 when Pelé came to town.

It was a big game and there was a lot of hype leading up to it. The first "Star Wars" movie came out at about the same time and a local radio station used the movie theme song to promote the game.

Pelé, of course, was a name all of us 15-year-olds knew, and the chance to see him live was one we didn't want to miss.

My mother worked at Eastman Kodak at the time (as did everybody else in Rochester) and she was able to get tickets for myself and a few of my friends from someone at work.

We were thrilled because the game quickly sold out.

On game day, we got there real early so we could maybe catch a glimpse of Pelé getting ready.

Pelé wasn't the only soccer star on the Cosmos we wanted to see. They had Giorgio Chinaglia, the Italian star, and Franz Beckenbauer, the German General. But Pelé was the main man we came for.

When we got to the stadium, our teenage reconnaissance contacts alerted us that the Cosmos' bus was pulling in and headed towards the visitor's locker room area.

We quickly scooted down to the locker room spot which was blocked off by a temporary snow fence. Still, we were able to get less than 10 feet from where the bus pulled in.

One by one the Cosmos players exited the bus and headed to the locker room. They were all decked out in colorful suits and ties and most them had rock star hair. It was the mid-1970s, mind you.

Watching them disembark was exciting for sure, but we wanted to see the King of Soccer.

Soon enough, he sauntered down the bus steps into our view. He wasn't wearing a suit like his teammates. He was dressed in all brown. A nice shirt with a dark brown collar and impeccable tan slacks with shiny brown shoes.

He had gold chains around his neck and big rings on his fingers.

He was carrying a small child, presumably his own.

I remember thinking how little Pelé was compared to the other players, which surprised me.

It also seemed a bit odd that the greatest soccer player ever was playing in this middling crusty stadium in a small town when he was used to starring before 100,000 or so at Wembley in London or Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.

At first he didn't look our way, but when fans started shouting and calling to him, he stopped, turned and gave us that famous smile that millions around the world had seen for decades, and a nice little wave.

How cool was that?

The attendance for that game was a record 20,005, which certainly can be attributed to Pelé's appearance.

The Cosmos won the game 2 to 1.

Pelé did not score, but he did get a yellow card for mildly complaining to the referee about a call. The crowd went wild when that happened.

The Cosmos went on to win the NASL title that year and Pelé soon retired.

In the decades since, we have seen soccer grow immensely in this country, which has been a delight for boys and girls, and we have to believe that Pelé had a lot to do with that.

There have been many great soccer players since Pelé ruled the pitch, some of them we just saw in Qatar in World Cup 2022, and for sure there will be many more to come.

But there will always only be one Pelé, the King of Soccer.

May he rest in peace.

E-mail: jlotemplio@pressrepublican.com

Twitter: @jlotemplio

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