TUKWILA, Wash. – Seattle Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid and former Seattle and US national team goalkeeper Kasey Keller already boasted two of the most impressive resumes in American soccer history.
Now, they can each lay claim to one more accolade: Schmid and Keller were each announced as new inductees to the National Soccer Hall of Fame on Wednesday, with Keller getting the nod in his first year of eligibility.
For Schmid, who was elected on the Builder Ballot, it’s yet another milestone in a coaching career that started at UCLA in 1980. The coach with the most wins MLS history discussed his reaction to the accomplishment with reporters following his team’s Wednesday practice, saying that he never could have predicted the legendary path his career ended up taking.
“It’s pretty overwhelming,” Schmid said. “It’s nothing that I ever went into the sport to try and achieve. It’s just something that’s happened. … When I was 21, 22, 23, I never thought coaching would be the end-all for me. Even when I was 28, I didn’t think my full-time profession would be to be a coach.”
Keller, who has 102 career caps for the US national team and closed out his career playing for the Sounders from 2009-11, highlighted the growth he has seen in the sport over the course of his career as one of the most rewarding aspects of his journey to the Hall.
“I think the cool part for me is just really trying to be one of the first Americans to experience different things,” Keller said. “To play in the top flight in Spain, one of the first to really establish myself in England, to captain a team in Germany. Then there’s all of the fun times with the national team, then have the opportunity to come home and finish my career with the Sounders. … I look where soccer was when I left in 1991, to where it is now, it’s an amazing growth rate. It’s cool to think that I had a part in that.”
Sounders goalkeeper coach Tom Dutra, who has been with the club since its expansion season in 2009, credited Keller’s presence during the team’s early MLS days as crucial in pushing Seattle to become one of the country’s top markets for the sport.
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“He set the standard from day one,” Dutra said. “When he started out at training camp in ’09, he came out and he wanted to make a case for himself but also the fact he wanted to set the standard for everyone else. … I’ve never been around a player or goalkeeper who was as mentally strong as him. I mean, he was unbelievable.”
Schmid, who was originally an accountant before taking the UCLA job full-time, added that the most rewarding part of coaching for him is maintaining friendships and relationships that go deeper than the game.
“Being able to carry on those relationships and having former players who have become friends is probably the thing that I cherish the most out of the whole experience,” Schmid said. “Yeah, the wins and the accomplishments and the awards, all those things are nice. But those can all go away. The meat and potatoes are those relationships and the memories that you have.”
