Sigi Schmid

Lore & Background

Schmid was born in Tübingen, West Germany, on March 20, 1953. At age four, he moved with his family to the United States; they took up residence in Torrance, California, in 1962. His father, Fritz, worked at Pabst Brewing; his mother, Doris, ran a German deli. Schmid's family spoke German at home. He began school with little understanding of English and a stuttering speech disorder he did not overcome until high school. In his youth, he visited Germany every summer, playing soccer with local children. In 1964, Schmid played for one of the inaugural American Youth Soccer Organization teams, and was inducted into the AYSO Hall of Fame in 1996. He enrolled at UCLA in 1972 and was a starting midfielder from 1972 to 1975. He received his Bachelor of Economics degree in 1976 before earning an MBA from the University of Southern California. Between 1978 and 1984, he worked eight months of the year as a CPA.

In Their Own Story

The November air at Qwest Field in 2009 was sharp enough to sting the lungs. The final whistle in Columbus had gone three weeks earlier, and the city was still processing the near-miss. But tonight was a different kind of night—a late-season match under the stadium lights, the kind where the crowd of 30,000 feels like 300,000 because every voice is pitched at the same frequency. On the sideline, a small figure in a dark tracksuit and thin-rimmed glasses stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching a 20-year-old midfielder make a run into the box. Schmid didn't call for the substitution. He didn't wave his arms. He just tilted his head two degrees to the left, as if recalibrating a lens, and waited. The midfielder slotted it home. The stands detonated. Schmid raised one fist, barely above shoulder height, and let it fall. He walked back to the bench, pulled a small notebook from his jacket, and wrote a single line. The fans would never know what it said. They didn't need to. They knew the next match would be the same: patient, compact, and quietly, stubbornly, theirs.

Reader's Guide

After winning the MLS Cup with Columbus in 2008, Schmid was hired by the expansion Seattle Sounders as their first head coach. From 2009 to 2016, Schmid led the Sounders to seven playoff appearances, four Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup titles, and an MLS Supporters' Shield in 2014. After lackluster performances in the playoffs and missteps during the first half of the 2016 season, Schmid left the club on mutual terms. He again coached LA Galaxy from 2017 to 2018, dying later that year. The source does not mention Schmid serving as an assistant coach or special advisor for the Sounders in 2016, nor does it mention any indoor championship.

Did You Know?

• Schmid led UCLA to national championships in 1985, 1990, and 1997.
• He was the recipient of the MLS Coach of the Year Award in 1999 and 2008.
• Schmid never played soccer at a professional level.
• He was inducted into the UCLA Hall of Fame in 2004.