An Interview With Slashers

Please say briefly who you are IRL :-)

My name is Kevin Shook. I am 21 yrs old, and live in Kansas City Missouri. I recently graduated from the University of DeVry in Kansas City with a degree in Accounting, and am currently working in a retail store, looking for better work.

I have played Hattrick for over three years now (since October 2000), and was the first human team in the USA.

I am a huge fan of baseball (St Louis Cardinals), American football (Kansas City Chiefs), and college basketball (Missouri Tigers). What is really funny, is that I am not a very big soccer/football fan at all?. I have gotten more into it in the past few years watching the MLS here in the United States, but soccer still lags behind the others as my favorite sports.

You manage a Major League team, Slashers FC. Please describe your club's most memorable match. What is your biggest success as club manager?

I have had a lot of memorable matches with my club, but I would have to say my best match was the final match of Season 15. It was the first season that eight active teams were in the Major League, as well as the first time I had been in a full series. I finished that season 13-1, capped by a 5-3 win over Kansas City Wizards to clinch the title. I jumped out to a 4-0 lead than had to weather a late charge to win the title. Even though I had already won a Major League title, and would win another and a Cup title, that season was my biggest success with my club.

Is there any special reason why you picked Virginia as your Hattrick region?

I was born in Virginia, when my dad was stationed there in the Navy. It was also before derbies, so there was no advantage to being in Missouri with everyone else. If I had to choose now, I would choose Missouri so I could get derbies with Wizards and Cyclones.

What's your strongest point as a national team manager (I mean yourself, not the team), and what do you think might be worth improving?

I think my strongest point is finding players for the squad, and fielding lineups that give us the best chance to win.

I need to improve how I handle Team Spirit. It is so much more important to National teams than for clubs and if I had a better grasp on it during the last World Cup USA would have advanced farther.

What do you look for in a National team player, and how is the team you pull a player from compensated and or helped?

I just look for who will be the best players when the World Cup comes around. If that means I pass over a better player now for one who is younger and will be better in two seasons then I will do it. As far as compensation, the players get huge amounts of experience from playing in National games and they get a 1/3 salary break, which is huge since several of our players have over $100,000 US in wages per week. Also, I give the user assurances that his player will play as often or as little as they want them too.

Interesting? have you seen many users *not* want their player to appear on the pitch?

It's usually users who have a big league game coming up and they don't want their star player getting hurt and cost them a league game. It's been tough balancing that, especially since 5 players play on league rival teams. I have to try to make sure that I don't play their players more than others, and make sure that I don't play their players the week that we play, or I know people will accuse me of trying to damage the other team. I know that the rival owners wouldn't, but the public perception would be that way...

You were also talking about salary breaks for national team players. You own the English defender Robert Bull, would you be able to pay him the $60,000 if he failed to appear in the national team's line-up for a long time?

Yeah I would. Bull is a key component of my club team so I would definitely find a way to pay his salary. It's the other salaries I wouldn't be able to pay (like the $300,000 per week to my starting midfielders...)

What about the famous keeper Jude Sutherland, who was sold to the Major League's Tombstone Titans for a mere $15m recently? Is he still going to get trained? Jude is a rich guy, and getting richer...

No, unfortunately he isn't? but he is still the best keeper in the USA and will still be our starter for a long, long time, and it's gonna be harder in the league now having both Sutherland and Steven Richardson to go up against.

How much research goes into learning your opponents? Do you just play to your team's strengths, or do you play to opponent's weaknesses as well?

I briefly look at our opponents, to see if they have any glaring weaknesses or tendencies, and if I see something I think I can take advantage of then I do. Otherwise I usually just play to our strengths knowing that that gives us a very good chance to win normally.

Do you watch your club's matches live? The national team's?

If I am home during the match times I try to watch my matches live. Unfortunately, I am very rarely online when the matches are being played. I really like the new HT live feature, its one of the HT teams best developments.

Most people would say that the phenomenon of arranged double PICing takes away an important aspect of Hattrick. The thing is, some think it's immoral to double-PIC, or just say "I'll never do it", while others believe that there's nothing wrong about double-PICing, only the game engine could be changed. What's your opinion?

There is not one thing wrong with ?double PICing' in my opinion. If both teams PIC, then they are staying on the same level and the best team will still win. Now, I very rarely double PIC with my club team, because of the risk of the other team not PICing, but in National team matches I try to double PIC as often as possible because all of us know that team spirit is so important to the teams and because of that there is very little risk of someone backing out of an agreement.

I think as long as we have the option to PIC games, there is nothing we can do to stop double PICing, and I do not see how it is harmful to the game in anyway.

Do you receive pressure from your fellow countrymen to double-PIC or not to double-PIC, or both?

They just want me to have as high team spirit as possible. They leave individual match tactics up to me, which is the way it should be in my opinion. I discuss long-term and short-term strategies with other users but I make almost all of the individual game decisions such as who to play, where to play, and whether to PIC or not. I don't ?arrange' double PICs but when I set up a match with a team I let them know that I will be PICing and most of the times they say they will PIC as well. I think all the National coaches know how important TS is to succeeding in the World Cup, and they are more than willing to PIC games before then to get team spirit up.

You once said in an interview that you didn't write a lot in the conferences. Do you think the American HT community is informed about what's going on in the national team? How much does the community want to be informed?

That is true, I don't post a lot in the conferences. I have however, gotten a lot better at than during my term as national coach. I try to keep the community as informed as possible, we have a wonderful message board set up by user darqflare were we have very good discussions about the national team. Those who want to be informed visit the site and give their input, those who have less interest probably do nothing more than just look at match results.

It's widely known that you and GM-George are brothers. Has George, also a former national coach, given you any specific advice on being national team manager? Would you reveal anything he said? ;-)

Not really. He did not need to give me much advice, because I helped him a lot when he was the National team coach, so I learned a lot from then. Plus I have more knowledge than he does about Hattrick, so there is very little I could learn from him anyway. ;-)

Did he support you as a candidate for national team manager's position?

I think he did vote for me? but I'm not really sure? I voted for him when he ran so I assume he voted for me :-)

What's the best, and what's the worst thing about being a national team manager?

The best part is the enjoyment of representing the USA in the Hattrick world. Plus, I like that it is a new challenge, completely apart from your club teams success.

The worst part is that it is very time consuming and has take some of my focus away from my club team in the past few seasons.

As much as I have enjoyed being National coach, I will be glad when I only have to worry about one team each week. :-)

What makes a country's national team strong, apart from the skills of the manager?

The users, and having a good training program set up. Without knowledgeable users, who know how to train players, your national team is nothing. There is only so much a coach can do to improve the national team, we are completely reliant on others to provide and train the players, so it is more important to get good players than to have a good coach.

Which aspect of Hattrick, if any, would you like to see more developed?

I would like to see more supporter options added. When supporter first started there were all kinds of extra team and player stats that were later removed for server load. I understand that was necessary, but if they could bring those back or other cool supporter features I would really enjoy it. I also would like to see more features out of supporting a team, or the ability to support more teams.

You support?

?The Wolfpack (my younger brother Adam), Cyclones (my older brother George), The Torps (Pacific Premier League), Rude Boys (Div IV, Sweden), and Kester County (English Premiership).

Could you name some of the now-gone team and player stats that you enjoyed so much?

Yeah, there were lists on how many goals a player had scored for your team (you could include friendlies or leave them out), you could see more team stats? I think they can do a lot more with supporter to make it more exciting/interesting but i also understand they don't want the non-supporters to fall behind.

Any comments or good experience on the new tactics? I've seen you try 4-3-3 and CA in a friendly.

Well I've tried those tactics in friendlies just go get a feel of them (and to train extra defenders), and so far I don't know if they are making that big of a difference. Some games counter attacks has worked and sometimes it hasn't. Still, overall giving us extra tactics will improve game play and make it more challenging and exciting (even though the change in tactics is relatively small so far).

Speaking about training defenders... you bought the Polish anticlown Marcin (also well known for not having a second name, just like the legendary national team defender Stanislaw) last season. Is he the team leader of Slashers?

The main reason I bought Marcin was because of the one name thing, I didn't realize till after i purchased him that he was nasty with solid leadership.

edit: Marcin was born in my team... quite a coincidence, huh? (Jerzy)

Ouch!

But fortunately, I haven't had any weird team spirit effects since I bought him, so I don't think he is my team leader. I have several other solid leaders so I think they counter each other ;-)
And I'm hoping that if he gets good enough Marcin can play next to Stanislaw on the Polish National team.

Stanislaw was a notorious alcoholic whose form went through the floor during the World Cup, he's close to being retired and anything but a national team player right now :-)

Sorry to hear about that. In that case you need another one name prodigy to replace him, so you can go ahead and add Marcin to the National team now if you guys want?

Not during my U20 term... unless the national manager jerzy makes him a Polish Homer Simpson ;-) OK, were you the one who voted for HT-Bjorn in the last U20 election in the USA? He was forced to decline, they say...

No, I voted for TargetPractice. I think that he will do a wonderful job for the USA U20 team. I think that HT-Bjorn would do a great job as well, but I understand why he declined.

The US is facing Sweden tonight. Any predictions as to the score? Any surprises you're preparing?
edit: unfortunately, I was unable to publish this interview before the game (jerzy)

I don't like predicting scores (usually cause I am wrong?). No surprises today either, I'm just gonna go with the standard 3-5-2 play counter attacks and hope we get a cheap goal or two. The big surprises will be in the World Cup...

Good luck then, thanks very much for your time, and may Wizards be dethroned one day, perhaps by the Shook family :-)

edit 20.02.2007 - story written by Kajet.