An All-American soccer success story

Hans Stierle recently excavated through the files and archives associated with a lifetime of developing soccer in the United States.

The 76-year-old Vashon Island resident created the American Youth Soccer Organization, which now attracts a million participants every year.

The history and timeliness of one picture made him pause. It was from December 1964, taken in Torrance, Calif., and featured a dozen boys – the first AYSO team in history.

The tallest 12-year-old, half a head above the rest, was Siegfried Schmid. Stierle remembered him as serious and shy, and he spoke somewhat haltingly. He was from a family of German immigrants.

“I made him goalkeeper,” Stierle said of Schmid, now head coach of the new Seattle Sounders FC soccer team. “He was friendly but really low-key and quiet. I think his dad was a disciplined sort.”

Hans’ wife Christel, the matriarch of the legions of American soccer moms to follow, brought treats and snacks for that very first team; and she watched Sigi Schmid “turn into a wonderful young man.”

Hans Stierle came to notice something else about young Sigi Schmid, a special quality.

“He was the kind of person who brought everybody together,” he said. “What do you call that? What’s the word for that, when somebody can bring people together and make them want to do things?”

Charisma?

“That’s it … exactly,” Stierle said. “Sigi Schmid has charisma. Great charisma.”

FATHER WAS P.O.W. IN ENGLAND

Fritz Schmid was just 18 when he was pulled from his rural farm life and into the German army. Around the time of the Allied invasion of Normandy, Schmid was captured and taken to a prisoner of war camp in England.

“He doesn’t talk about it a lot,” Sigi Schmid said of his father’s time in England. “Because he had grown up on a farm, he was sort of in charge of the other prisoners who helped run the farm. That’s where he learned a little English, from the farmer.”

The prisoners worked the land while the English farm lads were in the service. Until the English farmer recently died, Fritz Schmid kept up regular correspondence with him.

At home, beer flowed on both sides of Sigi Schmid’s family, which was a collection of millers and brewers. His maternal grandfather made his living as a brewmaster.

Reconstruction Germany in the early 1950s had a bleak environment, and when one of Schmid’s aunts married an American GI and emigrated to Southern California, others in the family followed.

Sigi was 3 when they arrived in 1956; his father starting out as a janitor in a mill before joining Sigi’s grandfather as a brewer for Pabst Blue Ribbon. When Pabst closed its operation in Los Angeles, they both hired on with Anheuser-Busch. Despite the family history, Schmid said he rarely drinks beer. Perhaps that’s because of his early experiences.

“This isn’t really a good story (to tell),” Schmid prefaces before repeating a bit of family lore.

His mother was a waitress when he was a baby. The story goes that when it was nap time, his pacifier would be dipped in beer before it went in his mouth. Little Sigi would drift right off to sleep.

His mother also cooked, and one of her jobs was preparing meals after games for the local German soccer club. Fritz Schmid was a player; mom was the cook, and Sigi received early exposure and immersion in the culture of soccer.

FROM UCLA PLAYER TO COACH

Sigi Schmid started four years as a midfielder on the UCLA soccer team, and earned a degree in economics and then a master’s in business from USC.

In his first season as UCLA head coach, 1980, the Bruins went 18-2-2. In 19 seasons, he won more than 80 percent of his games; it made him an icon.

“I grew up in California; it was all about going to UCLA,” said Peter Vagenas, a Sounders midfielder who played for Schmid at UCLA, and later with the L.A. Galaxy of the MLS. “He was sort of the modern-day John Wooden. And you knew if you got in there and you caught his eye, if he thought you were a good player, as young players, that was almost enough.”

Although he has won two MLS championships, and also been successful as coach of a number of national teams, Schmid still goes back to memories of his UCLA days when asked to recall his proudest moments in sports.

“From the soccer side of it, and championships aside, I’m most proud of the fact that during my time at UCLA we had more players play for the U.S. national team than any other university by far,” he said. “I always thought the measure of a good coach was how many players you prepared for the next level.”

But the “next level” was a challenge for Schmid himself. With the Galaxy, Schmid won a CONCACAF cup in 2000 and an MLS title in 2002. Still, even the rare losses ate at him.

“I deal with losses better now than I used to; it used to be that I couldn’t sleep,” he said, apparently having forsaken the beer-soaked pacifier trick. “In one year in the pros, you might lose as many games as I’d lose in four or five (years) at UCLA.”

And in 2004, with the Galaxy in first place, Schmid’s problems exceeded occasional insomnia. He was struck with the most stunning reality in any coach’s life. He was fired.

“I was devastated at the time, there’s no other way to describe it,” he said. “In a certain respect, I had lived a sheltered life as a coach. That was the first time in my life somebody said, ‘That’s not good enough.’ Sure, that’s a little bit of a blow to the ego.”

Word was that management didn’t care for his team’s style of play; Schmid said there were contributing factors behind the scenes.

But he was easily employable, and in his third season coaching the Columbus Crew, he won another MLS title and, in December, he was hired away to shape the nascent Sounders.

To that end, he takes an interesting approach. Soccer, he said, needs to be “serious fun.” He attributes the line to another coach, but it captures his technique.

During practices with the Sounders, he often stands in the middle of the action, shouting instructions. Afterward, he makes his way off the field very slowly, weaving among any players still working on things, stopping to offer individual instruction, seemingly unwilling to pass up an opportunity to coach something … anything.

“The beauty of coaching, to me, is in the interpersonal relationships with the players … seeing them grow and develop,” he said. “You work together and you work hard, and then you see your results (in the game). It’s like studying and having a test every week.”

Schmid doesn’t like to characterize the style of play he coaches. It needs to be too fluid and adaptable to easily define it. “It’s not always finding good players, but finding players to complement them, then you try to make a style fit the talent you have. It all has to allow for the individuality of the player. Soccer lets you have that creativity in the game, and you can’t take that away from the player because then that might take away the joy of the game.”

Joy of the game? From the outside, this guy looks like a taskmaster unconcerned with anybody’s joy. Goalkeeper Kasey Keller, a 39-year-old and veteran of international soccer, recognizes the dimensions in Schmid’s approach.

“You know he’s demanding of people, but he’s not a dictator,” Keller said. “You can talk to him; he’s not a guy running around screaming at people. You can tell it all comes from a good place.”

Sounders assistant Ezra Hendrickson played for Schmid for parts of eight seasons. Schmid’s success, he said, is rooted in hard work. The hard work begets respect and that creates a contagiously competitive environment.

“Nobody works harder,” Hendrickson said. “He’s always breaking down tapes … he’s in the office at 7 in the morning and is in there until 7 at night. He wants to make sure there’s no stones unturned so that when the team gets in a situation in the match, they’ll be ready. When you see your coach working that hard, you never want to let him down. He commands a great deal of respect.”

TOUGH COVER, SWEET CENTER

Area fans took years to understand that Mike Holmgren wasn’t just the growling menace they saw on the Seahawks’ sideline; and Lou Piniella was far more thoughtful than the slavering madman erupting from the Mariners’ dugout to bump bellies with unlucky umpires.

And so they’ll come to recognize Sigi Schmid as a man of greater depth than the burly, stern-faced leader he may seem while coaching the Sounders.

The personality will show in his interviews, although his responses may not translate as well to the broadcast media as print. The man does not deal in sound bites; he offers verbal buffets.

The food analogy is intentional, because his speech is peppered with them. When asked about building a roster, he compared it to inviting guests to a pot-luck dinner: “Everybody can’t bring salads, somebody has to bring meat, and somebody has to bring …”

“Germans always use food to describe things,” he explained. “When people say ‘starting from scratch,’ Germans will say ‘first, you have to boil the water.’ ”

So, in regards to Schmid, it may be said that you can’t judge the sweetness of a strudel by its crust.

But he is used to the perception of him as slightly dour. He recalls hearing friends of his future wife repeatedly quizzing her: “Valerie, why are you going out with this guy? He can’t be much fun.”

When asked if there was anything he hoped the public might learn about him, it was this: “I’m more sensitive than people think. I may have this hard look about me, but I’m more sensitive than what shows through. I know more jokes and have a good sense of humor, more than people would think. And with my players, it’s not necessarily what you would call ‘tough love’ but I care an awful lot for them. They’re very important to me.”

Let’s not expect him to be the next great Teutonic comic, or the first one, for that matter, but the sensitivity was obvious from the day he reached Seattle.

When Schmid was introduced by the Sounders in December, he grew emotional at several points in the press conference. He was moved that he would be geographically united with his younger brother, Roland, who lives in the area. And he was stunned that the abundant gathering of media suggested that soccer was on its way to being treated like a major sport in America.

“All those people were there … Why? I’m not David Beckham,” he said. “Are they here to see me?”

Two other special people were at the press conference: Hans and Christel Stierle. They were proud of the man who had been that tall, quiet kid in the picture taken 43 years ago. He was so successful and well-spoken, and, he had so much … what is the word for that?

Oh, yes, charisma.

Dave Boling: 253-597-8440

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