Yeah, that was Kevin Kerr sprinting the length of Highmark Stadium late Saturday night, his paper-thin kit and soccer shorts doing little to fend off temps that had tumbled to 26 degrees with whipping winds and relentless rain that eventually, cruelly morphed to snow. Equally cruel, the Riverhounds' 2016 season opener had just faded into a 1-0 flat-liner of a loss to defending USL champion Rochester.
But duty called. And the franchise's new captain, honoring tradition, spanned the pitch to thank the Steel Army supporters section for their singing, chanting, shouting and drumming, not to mention their hardy tolerance for the elements.
"No fun out here," the man was telling me moments later, magnificently rolling the rhotic 'R' true to his native Scottish. "I mean, we did some good things. But you can't have 89 minutes of quality. You've got to have it from the first minute to the 90th."
The Hounds didn't, of course. A quirky goal by Rochester's Christian Volesky in the seventh minute, resulting from the ball skipping over the foot of defender Sergio Campbell and keeper Hunter Gilstrap's subsequent freeze, was plenty enough for the USL's longstanding doppelganger for the NHL's New Jersey Devils. The Rhinos score once, rev up the team bus, park it in front of the net and burn the clock.
"They've played that way forever," Kerr would say with a sigh. "But it wins championships, and they showed that last year. It works for them."
And that's where the real sigh arises on this occasion.
See, the Hounds aren't the Rhinos. They aren't built on defense, and they never will be under Mark Steffens, a disciple of the Dutch brand that promotes team-wide aggressiveness on the ground. This coach is all about the attack, and he proved that all through his long USL career and by guiding the Hounds in 2015, his first season here, to an 11-9-3 record, a playoff berth and 53 goals, second-most in the league.
But that was then, with Robbie Vincent, and this is now, without.
Much as everyone associated with the Hounds is trying to move on from Vincent, who landed a job with D.C. United of Major League Soccer last month after leading the Hounds with 18 goals last season, that's not going to be easy. It's not impossible, either. As Kerr pointed out, "We had to move on from Jose, too," referring to Jose Angulo, the USL's MVP the previous season with the Hounds. And he's right. Vincent and Kerr made everyone forget Angulo by about, oh, Week 2 or 3 of 2015.
Now, it's yet another push of the reset button. And it might be the most challenging of all, in light of the fact that Angulo and Vincent were primarily finishers. Angulo had Matt Dallman on service, and Vincent had Kerr, though the latter two were far more interchangeable in this context.
Now, Kerr has to finish without elite service, or pass to people who aren't running.
That's what I saw in this match, and this seems as good a time as any to not pull punches. Because the most fruitful run Kerr made all night was that visit to the Steel Army. In the first half, he ran and ran and ran, as ever, only to come up empty and retrace his steps when nothing would come his way. And in the second half, when gifted but hamstrung midfield Lebo Moloto had to be replaced, it was Kerr who took one for the team and slid back to his pre-Vincent position at center-mid.
The Rhinos had to have loved that, watching the Hounds' top threat slide that far back.
That's not to blame Steffens or certainly Moloto, and even Kerr acknowledged it might have been right for this situation had there been better running, especially up the right side. As it was, there was next to none. Drew Russell had one good burst up that side that resulted in a sharp cross. Otherwise, Russell was embarrassingly flat-footed. So were most of the rest.
I asked Steffens about what's up front:
That's not going to cut it. Kerr doesn't have Angulo's ability to create in the box or Vincent's ability from distance. He's going to make the most of service from others, and he'll do plenty of setting up. But that's going to take a full cast, and that in and of itself is a different dynamic than this team will have had for quite some time.
Marshall Hollingsworth, a loanee from the Hounds' new MLS partner, the Columbus Crew, showed promise in his Pittsburgh debut. So did Corey Hertzog, the Penn State alum making his debut and nearly nailing the equalizer in the second half but for a sprawling save by Rochester's Adam Grinwis. Hertzog's had a bum ankle all through training, and "he hadn't been kicking at all," Kerr said, which could explain his lack of elevation. Better times would appear to lie ahead for all.
But a running start is infinitely more likely with No. 10 doing real running.