DKCU president John Hall: ‘We’ve got very grand plans for things we want to do’

The DeKalb County United wrapped up its fifth season Saturday, topping Rockford 5-0 and finishing fifth in the Midwest Premier League’s 11-team Heartland Conference.

It was a big season for the club, in its sixth year of existence – the team did not play a 2020 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2018, team president John Hall said he’s been happy with how the team has grown and become part of the community.

DKCU set a single-game attendance record this year, and Hall estimated that the team is in the top 3 in attendance in the MWPL.

After Saturday’s win, the Daily Chronicle had the chance to talk to Hall about the team’s growth on and off the field and what the plans are for the future.

The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

DC: Well, year 5, how would you say it went for you guys?

JH: I was extremely pleased with the community support. I think our staff did an amazing job of trying to build a bigger event out of every home match. And the crowds kind of showed that they appreciated that and enjoyed their time out here. The weather cooperated this year for the first time, I think ever, where it was mostly nice every night. I think it was a big step forward, another step forward. It’s only five years of a who knows how long story. So we’ll see where we go.

DC: What are the expectations for next year?

JH: I let the coaches and the technical staff deal with the players, recruiting, results on the field. Obviously, we are superfans, but our objectives as a staff are the people walking in the gates and the bleachers.

And what we really wanted to do for the next three years, starting this year, was grow ... everything by 30%, which was a little ambitious. But I thought if we could grow 30 by 30 by 30 over the next three years, it positions us for more things. The more that people show up and buy tickets, the more that we can do and have bounce houses and have bands play. We’ve got very grand plans for things we want to do.

Ultimately, we are going to react. We’re going to grow at the pace that the community supports, and that’s what we’re doing. So the attendance has been up. Memberships were down a little bit this year, but attendances were up anyway, so apparently that doesn’t really matter.

So we’re really just trying to figure out what the next thing is. First of all, we got to take good care of the facility. NIU is letting us play here, right? We need to be good tenants to them because this is truthfully in our league one of the nicest facilities. The ability to have alcoholic concessions and make it a semi-professional type experience. A lot of clubs don’t have that.

We also, as I’ve always said, don’t want to outkick our coverage and go bananas and spend a lot of money on fireworks shows every game and stuff because it has to be sustainable. We can’t make a community impact without being sustainable.

So that remains our thing. We did the Barb Food Mart donation thing [Saturday in the season finale]. We worked with Evolve Fitness on the Alzheimer’s fundraiser as well. We try to make every match mean something to the community beyond 11 players on the pitch.

DC: What were some of the highlights of this year, and what are the lessons you take out of those for next year?

JH: As much as I say that the on-the-field stuff, doesn’t matter, we actually had some historic victories at home. This year, we beat RWB Adria, which is a 65-year-old Chicago club that we’ve never beaten. We beat them at home in front of a whole lot of fans. We beat Chicago House, which is a former professional club. ... We tied the Bavarians, who we’ve never got a result against.

So the home games were fantastic, and then it was more fantastic because we had big crowds, we had 408 tonight. We had an all-time record of 619 back in June. So we’re having some really good results with a lot of people here to see it so it makes it fun.

I told the guys, we’re a big club with everything but big trophies. We do everything else the right way, and we do everything else and fill the stands and do all these things, impactful things in the community. So the last piece now is winning. And I’ll let them continue to deal with that, and we’ll continue to deal with off-the-field community engagement stuff.