I was one of five boys and grew up with my twin brother, Jon. We were both highly competitive. My mom was busy with my brothers and my dad was traveling a lot so my twin and I would compete over everything from waking up early in the morning for the best cereal to regular soccer, basketball and baseball.
Growing up we would go from sport to sport. My mom was busy taking us everywhere and anywhere. We were ski racers, we were hockey players, we were football, baseball, basketball – you name it. We were kind of on our own and it was a very fun childhood. Lots and lots of sports and through it all I just fell in love with soccer. I was always competing and playing around with Jon.
Jon played minor league baseball for 10 years. For me, he embodies the person that I want to be. He is so blue collar. His work ethic is tremendous. He is very passionate and emotional and he hates to lose. I would say he has carried that with him more than I have. He was the last person cut from spring training a couple years in a row. He really helped me appreciate all the experiences that I have gone through and made me understand how grateful I should be.
He would watch me play all the time when we were back home. He would bring his kids and they went up to Vancouver a few times and saw me play in the Northwest. Obviously, he was playing minor league baseball for a lot of my career. There was a point when he was literally playing baseball meters away from Spartan Stadium. We would have a game at the same time while he was playing minor league baseball for the Giants. That was special. Family is everything. When you are younger you do not realize it and I wish I would have. Being on the road and knowing how games are when your family and friends aren’t there is why I have always been so appreciative about playing at home.
My dad is a musician and actually did the national anthem for my first home game with the Quakes. His advice was to follow your dream. All of my brothers did that. My youngest brother was a professional skateboarder, my other younger brother was an All-American water polo player and Jon played minor league baseball. My dad was the reason for us to take less traveled paths in terms of following our dreams. He was very adamant about that. My dad is very free spirited and that is where we all get our crazy personalities.
The one person that really influenced my soccer career is my former youth coach Alberto Montoya. He was my coach for 10 years. Like every good coach, he had points about not just the game, but about life. He was a mentor before I even knew what a mentor was. He was someone I looked up to incredibly and was very engaging, personable and he connected well with me. I was a very driven. He was one of those coaches that you either loved or hated. He was very polarizing like that. I still look up to him to this day.
Even now at the current Earthquakes organization Tim Hanley is a guy that took me under his wing when I first joined. He really would do his best to make you feel that you were part of a family. He would have barbeques with his family and invite all the goalies and would have lunch with us. He helped me at a difficult time. When I was younger, I had different opinions about the world and Tim was a guy that not only accepted them, but he helped me embrace that about myself.
I love being a goalie and I still embrace it to this day. It is difficult in a world where you have reports and direct reports and you have to answer to people because being a goalkeeper is opposite of that. It is about being unique and a free spirit and I think that is one of the reasons that we goalies bond with each other. They call it the “GK Union.” Other people call it crazy, but I just think it is bravery and courage.
Goalkeepers spend so much time by themselves so their thoughts and their mental capacities are so important. If you looked at a break down of physical, technical and mental, the mental side for a goalkeeper is so huge because of all the self-talk.
In my career, the biggest challenges initially were overcoming my inconsistences. I wasn’t very professional. It took influences like Jeff Agoos, Landon Donovan and my friends Jimmy Conrad and Ricky Mulrooney, we were a tight little group, to help that. Jeff was the first guy who told me to slow down. He didn’t really say it, but showed me through his actions. Frank Yallop was the same way. If it were not for that 2001 year, my career would have been a lot shorter.
Winning MLS Cup in 2001 was like achieving a life’s dream way too early. Winning the cup from Dwayne’s shot - the whole place was just pandemonium. I just can’t explain it. It was by far, the best moment in my soccer career. We were in last place when we started that year and something just happened and we got on a roll. All the pieces just seemed to gel and it was very special.
It was funny because before that, on a personal level, I thought of myself as Saint Joe and I was what San Jose needed. I thought, “I’m coming home and I am going to win a championship for them. That is my ultimate goal.” And then all of a sudden it happened and I was 26 years old. I was just bewildered. After that I was almost too content. I was kind of satisfied with where I was. It took a couple of rough patches in early 2002 to get me back into the mindset of “Hey, you’ve got a job to do. That was not your goal. Your goal is to try to make this a career.”
The Earthquakes and MVLA are the two soccer brands that are the biggest in my life and I am fiercely loyal to both. I knew the Quakes history growing up and I went to the inaugural game. Currently, I am the executive director for MVLA, which is the youth club I grew up playing for.
Throughout my career I always wanted to win individually and initially, I didn’t see the bigger team concept. I always struggled with that in my career. It has taken me to be a leader of an organization to see how important buy-in is. At MVLA we are very lucky because all the coaches are so committed and dedicated. Coaches in general are like that.
I take coaching, teaching and being a mentor very seriously. It is very fulfilling for me to help mold the next generation of goalkeepers. I work with a lot of young kids. Goalkeepers come in all different types. I have met some incredibly talented ones that are just normal guys off the field. You do see ones where the coaches will come up to you and say, “Yeah, he’s a little different.” I get a bit more excited about those because that was me.
I have worked with several who are in academies already and I have only been here a couple of years. It is so great to see these young kids not know they want to be a goalkeeper, and because of what I can communicate with them, they develop a passion.
Joey will be with me on Hall of Fame night. In the past I would carry Jon’s children on the field like they were my own. This time, it will be with my own little guy. I love being a dad. I wish it happened earlier, but I met the right person later on in my career. You don’t know what life is about until you’re a parent. I was single my whole life and I had this concept of what everyone cared about and I look back and I realize that I did not know anything. I think a lot of people with children think that. Having Joey has encouraged me to be more of a mentor and to be a better person. This night will mean that he can walk into the stadium and see that legacy that he couldn’t see in person. That means a lot to me.
It is going to be an emotional night. I don’t reflect much. I do not have a lot of time for self-reflection. I am looking forward to sharing it with a lot of friends, family and the community at large. There are a lot of fans out there that have supported me in so many ways. I wish I had a million hours in the day to say thanks to all of them. I think that night is just going to be special because I am going to be surrounded by the people I love, with an organization that I love and it is an honor that makes my reality really feel like a dream.
