Those of us who’ve lived in Orlando for years have seen the city transform.
Heck, one year. Six months. The construction on I-4 alone is enough to show how much this city is growing.
But in 2010, the city changed in a new way. It wasn’t a new building or new theme park; it wasn’t even that we got a new sports team.
What Orlando City SC brought to the City Beautiful was more than a fun weekend activity. It brought a new identity. Or rather, it reshaped an identity more than a century in the making.
“Becoming modern has been a big part of what it means to be Orlando. Whether it’s agriculture or aeronautics or whether it’s Walt Disney deciding to build his new amusement park here,” said Adam M. Ware, Ph.D., a historian and research librarian at the Orange County Regional History Center, in a recent interview with LionNation. “The similarity between all of these different industries of somebody coming in and answering the question: what do we do in a place that has over 300 sunny days a year? How do we spend time in paradise?”
LionNation Documentary: How a Club Defined a City
Phil and Kay Rawlins came up with a simple answer: we’ll play soccer.
“We’ve got 2.2 million people. We’ve got an average age of 34. We’ve got a very young, vibrant city. That was in a way being overlooked by the outside world,” Phil Rawlins told LionNation. “There was certainly a yearning for an identity.”
The Club has been changing lives ever since. Between the philanthropic work of the Orlando City Foundation and the weekly ritual of cheering on the Lions, Orlando City created a home in an ever-growing sea of houses.
But, like anything in life, change is inevitable. Last week, the Club’s patriarch stepped down. There will be no successor – no one can fill his place within the Club and community – but the job must be done. The show must go on.
“We are going to continue to do what we always believed, and I will honor what Phil did for this community, for the fans, for the club,” CEO Alex Leitão told the Orlando Sentinel in an exclusive interview.
Leitão will take over Phil’s day-to-day responsibilities, while Rawlins has assumed the role of Club Life-President.
“And for a pillar in the community, we have Kay. She’s not going anywhere,” Leitão said.
The Lions have been in Orlando for six years, and Leitão has been here for four of them. He’s been, not just an important piece, but also an essential component of what took Orlando City from the minor leagues to MLS. He’s helped shape Orlando City’s identity, and in doing so, the city’s itself.
We’re at the dawn of a new year and Orlando City’s offices are humming again. There’s a sense of excitement surrounding 2017. The hope of three new seasons swirls with the promise that in barely two months we’ll move into a beautiful, brand new home – one that owner Flávio Augusto da Silva, Phil and Kay Rawlins, Leitão and so many more all had a hand in building.
It’s the crescendo of a story years in the making.
“The last generation or two has been a generation of us becoming the world’s playground,” Ware said. “Now, there’s a kind of exciting experience of now what? What’s the next exciting thing we’ll do?”
The next chapter begins on March 5.
