Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greg Dalby


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. This was pretty tough, admittedly. Those that felt it should be deleted cited him having no professional experience, while those who wanted it kept cited some amateur experience. While his amateur exp. did push him above the "obviously non-notable level", I felt that the consensus leaned towards delete, with no prejudice to recreation should he play in a professional game. Wizardman 16:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Greg Dalby

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Player has not sufficiently satisfied WP:ATHLETE. Furthermore, the player fails the notability criteria for football players as determined by WikiProject on Football GauchoDude (talk) 18:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football related deletions. GauchoDude (talk) 18:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - He has played for 1 professional team, his current one, but has not made any appearances. His latest team stats can be noted on Player History, which shows no appearances. GauchoDude (talk) 18:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - fails WP:ATHLETE Nfitz (talk) 18:46, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm withdrawing my deletion recommendation as although he hasn't played professionally, given the media attention paid to his amateur status, I'm not convinced that he is not notable. Nfitz (talk) 22:32, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Question - can any subscriber tell us what the American team he made an appearance with was? matt91486 (talk) 19:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete unless notability is established (and concerns in this AFD are attended to swiftly). Fails several inclusion criteria such as WP:N and WP:ATHLETE. -- Mizu onna sango15 / Discuss 20:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Question. How do we determine "highest level of amateur sport" in terms of football. I'm pondering the "he was also named captain of the U.S. Men's under-20 National Team" statement. Nfitz (talk) 21:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Answer: We don't - American soccer is not amateur, and therefore this doesn't apply one iota.
 * This is a common argument and never been one that is really valid. There are amateur and professional aspects of American soccer.  For you to say that it is not is just simply not true. There is obviously a significant, high-level amateur presence in American soccer. matt91486 (talk) 22:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Fails WP:ATHLETE and consensus is that youth caps do not confer notability. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  21:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, US high school player of the year and college All-American. Note: He has signed with the Colorado Rapids, but hasn't played with them yet. Corvus cornix  talk  21:45, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete as the above reason states, he has yet to play in a fully-pro league/competition. Keeping it on this basis would be crystal ballery. --Jimbo[online] 21:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My comments are not based on crystal ballery, but on past accomplishments and awards.  Corvus cornix  talk  22:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. The requirements for an athlete to be notable are listed as "Competitors who have competed in a fully professional league".  He has done that.  He is on the SC Charleroi team which has been around for more than a century, and is a major professional league in Belgium.  He also meant the requirement for notability by being named the 2002 men's national "High School Player of the Year" of both Gatorade and Parade magazine.  A quick use of Google shows him to have received significant media attention. Dream Focus (talk) 22:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Has he actually played a game for Charleroi? I had a search and couldn't find any evidence of him turning out for them. Google hits do not confer notability either. --Jimbo[online] 13:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:ATHLETE; being contracted to a fully professional team is not enough, he must play a competitive game in order to be considered notable. --Angelo (talk) 22:51, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My keep criteria are based upon the awards he received as an amateur.  Corvus cornix  talk  21:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * However football is not an amateur sport in both the US and Belgium. I won a couple of amateur coaching awards as well when at university, but I don't think this makes me notable. --Angelo (talk) 11:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, it's been decided that college football players are notable, therefore, why aren't college soccer players? Especially the top high school player of the year, and an all-american?   Corvus cornix  talk  15:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes this is a point I will never understand - the only reason American soccer players don't play professionally before the age of 22 is because the culture dictates they must go to college, and NCAA rules state that players cannot receive compensation, monetary or otherwise, in order to remain NCAA eligible. Yet it's common sense that Michael Beasley and Derrick Rose are undoubtedly more notable than about 80% of current NBA players, despite technically failing WP:ATHLETE due to the fact that they've never played a minute of professional basketball - why? Because of their college performances. The problem is that instead of holding a set of standards to professional sports in a single country, we attempt to apply a single set of guidelines for a sport in every single country. This results in the most idiotic discriminations possible, including giving Spanish reserve team players precedence over reserve teamers in other countries because Spanish reserves are eligible to play in professional leagues... giving countries with smaller leagues (smaller in terms of # of teams) precedence over bigger ones, because mathematically it's more likely to have a fully professional league of 10 teams than it is to have one of 20 teams, all other things being equal... giving precedence to all other players over American ones (who generally attend college before playing professionally) or Brazilian ones (because they spend half the season playing in a "non-notable" state competition)... strange stuff. ugen64 (talk) 21:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Freddy Adu played for MLS at the age of 14.  Corvus cornix  talk  21:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know that - Claudio Reyna and Landon Donovan started their careers in Europe, Jozy Altidore and Clint Mathis (or maybe it was Bobby Convey, I'm too lazy to check) also entered MLS directly from high school. That's why I said "generally" American players attend college before playing professionally, which as a logical statement I'm sure you cannot deny. ugen64 (talk) 02:18, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. GiantSnowman 16:29, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:ATHLETE. Although he fails the professional test, his amateur achievements appear to be at the highest level. Nfitz (talk) 22:43, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Except that soccer isn't an amateur sport, it's professional. Doesn't count.  GauchoDude (talk) 23:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Soccer is often played as an amateur sport, and his awards were for playing as an amateur. Nfitz (talk) 23:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Yes, soccer is often played as an amateur sport. However, the fact that is played professionally makes that the highest level and negates the amateur status for notability.  Hope that clears it up for you.  GauchoDude (talk) 01:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - hang on. So if one leaves the sport after being in University then they may have been notable? So if someone is notable as an amateur we have to delete their article when they first become professional? Nfitz (talk) 02:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - No, as a rule of thumb, only professional soccer players that play in games are considered notable. University soccer players should not have articles as it is not the highest level of soccer that they could be playing, nor should U-age team players unless they play in the Olympics (as stated in the notability criterion formulated by the wiki project on football.  GauchoDude (talk) 11:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - If we were talking just football players, then we should be using WP:FOOTYN and this would be a non-issue, however I've been told by you all time and time again that we can't use WP:FOOTYN because it doesn't have wider consensus, and therefore we must use WP:ATHLETE from which it appears he is notable by his amateur status. Nfitz (talk) 07:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Yes, but soccer is not an amateur sport, it's a professional one, end of discussion. It is played professionally.  Just because it can be played as an amateur sport, doesn't make it one.  68.6.116.109 (talk) 09:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Soccer is an amateur sport. It's primarily an amateur sport, millions (billions?) play the sport, but only a few are professional. There's no provision in WP:ATHLETE to exempt Football from the amateur provision. Nfitz (talk) 16:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Dalby isn't "auto-notable" under WP:ATHLETE today, but enough non-trivial WP:RSes about him come up in a Gnews search that I believe the subject passes general notability requirements (based on media attention to his career thus far) without needing to fall back on the Athlete criteria. Yes, the article needs better sourcing, but that's fixable. Townlake (talk) 15:35, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep - captain of the US U-20 team is a claim to notability --T-rex 18:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Whilst generally not in favour of keeping most articles on people who most have never heard of, saying Football is a pro sport therefore there can never be an amateur included unless he subsequently turns pro is frankly silly. By that token anyone that ever won the Rugby Union Premiership pre Professionalism would not make the grade as it is now a pro sport. And equally whoever won the world amateur cup in football could not make it. There's no part of WP:ATHLETE that says this. BigHairRef | Talk 05:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * "world amateur cup in football"? What's that?? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 06:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.