Brown, a four-time Open Cup Champion, isn’t the only House connection to the glories of the Open Cup. Peter Wilt, owner and CEO, won four as the Fire’s President and GM and he calls the competition the “greatest sporting event in the country – maybe the whole world.”
Being tapped for the job by an icon of Chicago soccer like Wilt, helped Seymour when the time came to cross over officially from player to coach.
“This is a man who’s worked with top managers in the country for decades,” Seymour said of Wilt, who gave former USMNT boss Bob Bradley his first professional head-coaching post. “I know this is a hot seat, and there were some nerves at first, but I believe in myself.
“I have the edge of being a player,” he added.
Ready (Just About) for the Next Step
“I miss it. I miss playing,” said Seymour, whose parents, immigrants from the Bahamas, introduced him to the game at the age of four, and who talks about it with a kind of hushed devotion. “There’s the banter during warm-ups and catching up with the guys about their weeks.
“It all happened pretty fast,” he said about crossing the line dividing player from coach. He still gets out on the field now and when he has to “remind some of the younger guys what I’m about.” And what that was, and is, is someone attuned to the small details and “the little things that are easy to miss.”
