FRISCO, Texas—Don Garber has presided over two decades of dramatic growth and progress as Major League Soccer’s Commissioner, efforts that earned him induction into the National Soccer Hall of Fame on Saturday evening as part of a five-member 2018 class.
Yet that same journey opened with a somewhat rocky start.
Arriving at his current post as a bright young executive from the NFL, Garber weathered a tough reception from the soccer media upon his 1999 introduction, as he wryly recounted after the induction ceremony at Toyota Stadium.
“I just was totally captivated with the challenge of building a new sports league and I believed in the shifting demographics in our country. I coached my kids in youth soccer, I grew up in New York and New Jersey, I was around the [NASL’s New York] Cosmos back in the day. And then I come to this press conference and I had [Soccer America’s] Paul Gardner ripping me apart, Grahame Jones writing a horribly nasty headline, and I got home that night and said, ‘Man, what did I do?’”
'Garber as MLS Commissioner a Bad Choice in Any Language,' blared the aforementioned Los Angeles Times headline, under which Jones criticized Garber’s lack of Spanish-language skills, while the famously crusty Gardner did not hold back in expressing his disapproval of the league hiring a chief executive who wasn’t considered a “soccer guy.”
The ensuing 19 years have shown why MLS’s owners moved forward then, and in the time since. And Garber has learned plenty about the beautiful game along the way, too.
“I have always believed that some people succeed because they are destined to. And some succeed because they are determined to,” Garber said in his induction speech. “My past was in no way an indication of a career in sports, let alone a career in soccer.
“But I fell in love with this sport almost 20 years ago – and I was determined to do everything in my power to succeed – and to help make MLS a league that the entire soccer community could be proud of. It wasn’t always easy, and we didn’t always get everything right. But now, almost 20 years later, this game and this league is a part of me. And my role leading MLS has in many ways defined my life.”
Garber would soon discover that some tough media coverage was small potatoes compared to the dark days at the turn of the century, when the league racked up significant financial losses and edged perilously close to collapse.
“The year after I had taken the job, I said, ‘You know, we’re going to be OK,’” Garber told reporters on Saturday. “And then we were hit with incredible losses at the end of ‘99 and 2000. The owners said, ‘You better put together a plan, because we’re not going forward unless you have a way out.’ And that was that infamous meeting at Phil Anschutz’s ranch where Mark Abbott and I put together a plan that is the blueprint that has basically driven MLS to what it is today: build stadiums, expand the league, invest in players, secure media partners that will ultimately believe in US soccer and believe in MLS. We knew we had to build a commercial business with Soccer United Marketing that would give us some strength and some energy. And here we are.”
Crediting the doggedness and dedication of the league’s owner/investors, Garber spoke of standing on the shoulders of those who’d come before him, and the MLS owners and employees who stood beside him and helped build the league we now know today.
“When I reflect on it all, I think maybe the most important thing I have learned from our owners over the past two decades is that failure isn’t fatal, and success isn’t final,” he said in his speech. “It is the courage to continue – with an unwavering focus and commitment to the future – that counts.”
Giving a nod to the pioneers of the North American Soccer League who are gathered here in Frisco to mark that league’s 50th anniversary, he urged his audience to remember and revere the history that the brand-new Hall of Fame celebrates. And he made clear that there’s plenty of work still to come.
“I never think about legacy. It’s hard to think about that when you’re still working. That’s why it’s kind of odd to be in a hall of fame when you’re still doing the job,” said Garber, who this week alone traveled from New York to Washington to attend Wednesday’s 1-0 D.C. United victory over Toronto FC, moved on to Frisco for Saturday’s events and will catch the first half of Sunday’s FC Dallas vs. Sporting KC game before jetting to Los Angeles to meet with LAFC’s ownership and take part in a Soccer United Marketing sponsor summit on Monday.
“We’re going to continue to do everything we can to build the sport and to make MLS more successful. We have a CBA that’s going to expire next year, we have a television deal that’s going to conclude in 2022, and we have a World Cup coming in ‘26. Those are the things that we’re going to be really focused on.”
