June 28, 1994

That summer the U.S. hosted the World Cup, which meant that all the games were played during convenient daytime hours for those of us in this part of the world. Unfortunately, most of these games were on cable, so I could not watch at home. However, we worked around that. Fellow grad Brian (from Scotland) and I got together pretty much every day to watch the early and late games. The early game was usually at the Island, a Chinese restaurant/bar near campus. We'd order the daily special (which was usually not that special) and a few beers and watch the game. Sometimes Armen joined us. The alternate location, especially for the late afternoon games, was the Cellar, where the food options were fewer, but the beer was fine. (sometimes soft drinks if we decided we needed a short break from alcohol) My notes for this day say that the U.S. team advanced to the next round, for the first time in many decades. Records show that we didn't play this day, so maybe it was the result of another team in our group losing that got us our elimination round spot.