Dalesandro out mowing the grass on the morning of a gameday, a cloud of dust kicked up around his noisy machine, has become part of club lore. He never tires of telling the stories, like when he was helping spray weed-killer on the field before realizing he needed to be across town, at the restaurant he owns, Dalensandro’s, in an apron “on the line grilling swordfish.”
Like any good restaurateur, there’s a generous dash of the hustler about Dalesandro. Sprinkled with a good helping of charm, though, you don’t mind being led on a merry dance by the man whose major concern is making a “blueprint for smaller clubs in smaller communities” and “being a club that helps grow the game.”
“You won’t see too many team owners out there cutting the grass on the field so it’s ready to go for game time,” said the soft-spoken Titus Grant, a talented Tulsa Athletic midfielder out of Seattle Pacific University who, at the time of the big FC Tulsa Cupset, taught at a school for adults with disabilities.
The Big Game – A Tale of Two Tulsas
When FC Tulsa’s players arrived at Hicks Park for their Open Cup Second Rounder in 2023, it was just another game. They’re paid pros after all. But for Athletic’s players, it was something more. It was a do-over. They’d been beaten by that same team in the previous year’s Open Cup and admitted to being, as Ugbah described it: “intimidated by the fireworks and a little star-struck” in the 2-1 loss.
Grant described the 2023 rematch as “ a chance to show them what we’re about.”
And where they live too.
When the final whistle went on an historic 1-0 win for the amateurs, sending them into the Open Cup’s Third Round against MLS’ Sporting Kansas City, the smiles of the fans and players, family and friends and fellows in a cause, were the kind that never truly wash off.
Something will hang there forever, in the air over Hicks Park.
