Bruce Savage

Infobox Football biography
playername= Bruce Savage
fullname = William Bruce Savage
nickname = Shadow


dateofbirth = birth date and age|1960|12|21
cityofbirth =
countryofbirth = United States
height =
currentclub =
clubnumber =
position = Defender
youthyears =
youthclubs = Miami-Dade North Junior College
years = 1980-1981
1982
1983
1981-1992
clubs = Atlanta Chiefs
Fort Lauderdale Strikers
Team America
Baltimore Blast ("indoor")
caps(goals) =
29 (0)
nationalyears = 1983-1992
nationalteam = United States
nationalcaps(goals) = 16 (0)
manageryears =
managerclubs = Gulf Breeze High School
pcupdate =
ntupdate =

William Bruce Savage is a retired U.S. soccer defender. He played four seasons in the North American Soccer League and eleven in Major Indoor Soccer League. He currently coaches youth soccer in Florida.

Player

Outdoor

Savage grew up in Florida and attended Miami-Dade North Junior College. He joined the Atlanta Chiefs of the North American Soccer League in 1980 and played two seasons with the team. The Chiefs folded at the end of the 1981 season and the Portland Timbers purchased Savage’s contract from the Chiefs. ^{[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E0DD1439F931A1575AC0A967948260]} However, the Timbers traded Savage to the Fort Lauderdale Strikers where he played the 1982 season. In 1983, the U.S. Soccer Federation attempted to create a more successful U.S. national team by entering the team into the NASL as a franchise. USSF held several tryouts for U.S. players in the NASL, MISL and American Soccer League. Savage left the Strikers and signed with Team America. However, the team stumbled to a 10-20 record and the bottom of the league standings in 1983 and USSF pulled it from the NASL at the end of the year.

Indoor

By this time, Savage had established himself as a top indoor player with the Baltimore Blast of Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL). Savage joined the Blast for their second season in the league and remained with the team through the 1991-1992 season when the MISL folded and the Blast moved to the National Professional Soccer League. Since Savage joined the Blast in 1981, he bounced between the outdoor NASL and indoor MISL until the end of the 1983 season when he devoted himself to the indoor game. Savage became a regular in the All Star games, being named the 1986-1987 MISL Defender of the Year and was a first team MISL All Star in 1986-1987 and 1988-1989. In February 2005, the Baltimore Blast inducted Savage into the team’s Hall of Fame.

National team

In 1983, Savage earned his first cap with the national team in the team’s only game that year, a 2-0 victory over Haiti. In 1984, Savage was an integral part of the U.S. Olympic team which competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He played all three games as the team ran to a 1-1-1 record and failed to qualify for the second round. In 1991, Bora Milutinović, recently hired as the national team coach, called Savage back into the team for the first time since 1984. Savage then played most of the national team games through the end of 1992. He earned a total of 16 caps.

Coach

He coaches the Gulf Breeze High School boys team. In February 2008, Savage led Gulf Breeze to the FHSAA State Final Four for the fifth time in the school's history. In the semi-finals the Dolphins defeated top-ranked Meritt Island 1-0 in overtime, marking the first time GBHS has ever played in a state championship game. In the finals, they lost to Nease (Ponte Vedra Beach) 2-1. This 4A state-runner up team produced three all-state players from the Class of 2008. He is also a coach at Bayside Soccer Club.