The whole notion of becoming a professional athlete is becoming such a hot topic these days. And by that I mean the back-end stuff to the profession outside the life on the field we see. There are some staggering statistics that talk of how broke and poor some of these dudes that played in the world’s biggest leagues are following retirement. Life coaches are something that are quickly entering the mix and teaching rookies how to stay away from the temptations and potential investment scams that await them at every corner haha.

I assume your life lessons were greatly magnified on the basis that you couldn’t ball out of control like some of these other guys. Money for better or worse is a big part of life and helps things progress but difficulty and adversity make you the person you are. But I too notice I have some OCD-type tendencies, whether it be how I stack my chips at a game table to how I make sure I eat all the same foods for breakfast in the same order every day haha. But in terms of your life post-MLS, what options were you looking at? Not everybody can go into coaching and not everybody can go into sports broadcasting like you did among starting a website and clothing brand.

It is crazy to think about the amount of athletes that just blow money like it’s Monopoly money. With so many television shows (I’m looking at you Cribs…) pushing this “lifestyle”, it’s easy to see how these young kids blow through crazy amounts and the regrets they have after the sport isn’t paying them anymore. If MC Hammer wasn’t enough motivation to lock your shit up, I’m not sure what is. There’s not one player that I can think of that has retired from the money they made in MLS, pre-David Beckham. If I was to guess, I’d say Landon Donovan will be the only MLS based player that could possibly kick his feet up after it’s all said and done, but then again he’s made great choices with his money (Nike and Gatorade included). And I hear you about the OCD thing… I still have plenty.

Post playing life, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do and never really wanted to think about it. It sounds very karma-ish, but I always looked at the game in terms of “if you commit to something that you were extremely serious about, you had to give everything to it.” I’m not sure if it’s the Cali in me, but I never really worried about it. But I never wanted to coach and never wanted to work a 9 – 5 which is funny though since I probably work more than that anyways.

The broadcasting side actually started the week after my career ended. My wife’s (who at that time was my fiancee) father was terminally sick and although I had offers on the table from multiple German and Swedish teams, I couldn’t take her away from her family again. At that point I felt like I’d had a good run and although I’m positive I could have continued for a few more years, the decision to walk away from the playing side and allow my wife to spend the next 9 months with her father was much more important to me. We moved back to Salt Lake City (Utah) where she’s from and where I met her while playing for Real Salt Lake and the first Saturday we were there, the team had a home game. I came across a radio show that was doing RSL’s pre-game show and thought to myself that I could do a pretty good job breaking down upcoming opponents.This trait of mine was something that had actually pissed off former US National Team coach Steve Sampson when he was our coach at the LA Galaxy.. He asked the team a loaded question while being a dick, I answered and went into depth… the team was laughing cause I stuck it back to him. He didn’t know how to react and then said that at least now I was earning my money. When I was released about a month later, dude didn’t even have the balls to call me and let me know. Guess he showed me! But doing radio for both pre-game shows and color commentary during the game is how I cut my teeth and learned some very valuable lessons.

We’re entering an interesting point in the future of the micro and macroeconomics of soccer on a global stage. With clubs drawing debts like it’s going out of style, I’m sure the lavish spending ways beyond what pop culture already feeds our youth will have a large impact on creating unsustainable “baller” lifestyles. I can’t imagine the difficulty some MLS players may encounter post-career. I read up on the psychological issues some athletes may encounter based on Olympic athletes who essentially went from somebody to nobody, knowing only one skill most of their lives and that was their sport. Maybe it does make me re-think my previous comment regarding school can weight.

That’s an admirable move to stick around and take care of business first with your fiance’s father. I don’t assume that you can or will have any regrets about your decision about hanging up the boots prematurely. The Steve Sampson side story seems interesting, I’ve always wondered if a successful coaching style required an authoritarian approach which seems to be Sampson’s angle.

Don’t get me wrong, kid’s are still trying to represent… just on a different level. The power of television is still an incredible animal, regardless if it’s just “soccer”.

But the coaching angle has been an interesting conversation topic within American soccer, especially as youth soccer players will typically have coaches of English, Brazilian, Dutch and American backgrounds among other nationalities as they push through the ranks. The initial success of coaches in the early days of MLS were highly successful college coaches (think the UVA’s and UCLA’s). But as we’re now seeing more and more ex-MLS players making their way into the coaching sector, the understanding of what it takes to be successful in this league is now producing championships in the league. Add those ex-players in US Soccer, youth soccer and college soccer, that’s an incredibly positive direction this young league is heading.

Although countries like the United States and Canada are as you’ve just highlighted, extremely multi-cultural, it never dawned on me that this cultural melting pot would have an effect in coaching. But I guess that’s the case when you don’t have a fundamental style that American coaching can call it’s own. Correct me if I’m wrong, but last year you gave birth to your first child. I’ve always wondered, from an ex-Pro’s perspective, to what effect do you think soccer will play a role in your child’s life?

My wife and I did just have our first child last August, a boy we named Shia. The game will probably play a pretty decent role in his early life with the amount of travel I’ll be doing, but as far as pushing him into the sports world, I’m open to whatever he wants to do. My wife was never exposed to the game before she met me, but she’s coming around now that she’s immersed into it because of everything that I do.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7