| Top Ten Things I know about Swift / Jeffries regime that you don’t. |
| 1 | Trade for Armas | Last winter when Chicago needed to make cap room, Dallas tried to trade for Chris Armas. Vaca and Pareja (not necessarily at the same time) were two players mentioned in various discussions. In the end, Chicago traded Nowak to NE instead. |
| 2 | Chivas asked to be traded | As early as 2002, when the team and Chivas were playing very well, a homesick Chivas expressed to Swift and Jeffries his desire to return home via a trade to Los Angeles. |
| 3 | HSG shots | For all intents and purposes, HSG has been running the Burn since the summer of ’02, even though it was not officially announced till the Spring of ’03. So in essence it was HSG, and not Swift, that negotiated the Southlake deal and Jeffries’ second contract. |
| 4 | Ricardo Clark | In the ’03 draft Jeffries was very high on Ricardo Clark. The price to get DC’s #1, which included Vaca and a high pick, was deemed to be too steep. Bob Bradley also liked Clark and did not want to part with the #2 pick. The price for that pick would have included a player and the #4. The Burn instead traded that #4 pick to get Brad Davis. |
| 5 | Percy the Hard | Percy Olivares once put in a red card grade, leg breaking type tackle on Mike Jeffries when Mike was a neutral player during a training drill. Training ground talk said Percy did it due to lack of playing time. |
| 6 | Lazo Alavanja | In 2001 shortly before he was traded, Lazo was named to start a game. Lazo’s confidence was so low he told Jeffries he didn’t deserve to play and to start someone else. |
| 7 | Dispersal Draft | In the 2002 Dispersal Draft, the Burn were targeting Carlos Llamosa as their first choice when picking #7. When he was taken #5 by NE, the Burn opted for the #1 SuperDraft pick (Chris Gbandi). When the second Burn pick rolled around at #14, the Burn went back and forth on taking Josh Keller or the #3 SuperDraft pick, eventually deciding on Josh Keller (who of course retired two weeks later). If they had taken the #3 pick it would have been used on Brad Davis… who eventually came here with the #4 pick in 2003. |
| 8 | Pareja vs. Mayard | Following a practice altercation between Pareja and Mayard, Oscar decked Spiderman in the showers. |
| 9 | Arturo Alvarez | In 2003 SuperDraft Jeffries wanted Arturo badly. After picking Thomas at #10, staff analysis of the teams picking after Burn said Alvarez might still be around at #15, particularly in light of the unofficial local P-40 kid thing (Houston in this case). Yallop surprised everyone by taking him at #13. The Burn did try several times to acquire a pick between #10 and #15 just to be safe but were unable to do so. |
| 10 | Rhine to NE | In the 2003 preseason Bobby Rhine was a frequent topic of conversation between Dallas and New England. |
