The Fire, who Wilt still supports, had just won a fourth Open Cup crown in the space of eight years. After the award presentation, goalkeeper Matt Pickens, who Wilt had signed along with all the players out celebrating on the night, took his winner’s medal off and hung it around his old boss’ neck.
“I just burst out balling,” Wilt remembered of that moment, captured for the ages by a photographer from the Chicago Tribune (and displayed at the top of this article) – the very newspaper whose sports page a young Wilt used to learn how to read at the kitchen table while growing up in the city’s western suburbs. “I was just there balling my eyes out and surrounded by the fans.
“It was the high-point of my connection to the Chicago Fire,” added Wilt, who’s gone on to become a proud spokesman for the lower tiers of the U.S. Soccer pyramid. “It was so special because it was from a player who was showing appreciation for what I’d done there.”
Many Open Cup Moments to Savor
There are other moments. Too many to count. A collection of glorious and cherished frames, frozen in time, for one of American soccer’s great and colorful builders.
Hometown hero (and current Fire head coach) Frank Klopas’ dramatic golden-goal in extra-time of the 1998 Open Cup Final stands out. “How he jumped over the advertising boards,” Wilt remembered, the broadcast call of that night still echoing in his ears: The Fire Does the double. “Remarkable.”
And there’s the 2003 decider at Giants Stadium against former Fire coach Bob Bradley. That was a team that Wilt had to “rebuild from scratch” after busting the salary cap and jettisoning some of the biggest names in MLS at the time. Josh Wolff, Hristo Stoichkov and Peter Nowak were among them.
But it’s not just the medals and trophy-lifts. It’s the bottom to the top, and all the unique Open Cup spaces in between, that captured Wilt’s heart. He’s a vocal advocate of an open system for American soccer, so it makes sense.
“The Open Cup, if you think about it, exposes the opportunity and the beauty and the potential of having an open system where merit wins out,” said Wilt, whose newest experiment, Chicago House AC, had to claw and scrape through the doldrums of the Covid Years before coming to fruition.
Same Chicago, New Frontier for Wilt
Founded in 2020, House had to pull back from an initial launch as a third-division professional team in NISA (a league Wilt also helped launch with hopes of a more open system, complete with promotion and relegation). There were a series of unforeseeable incidents and obstacles.
Now playing in the amateur Midwest Premier League, and with an all-volunteer staff (himself included as CEO and president), there are more mountains to climb than expansive views to savor for House. But the prolific Wilt doesn’t start a club without a purpose in mind.
