Feature Story: Jimmy Conrad- An illustrious soccer career to content creation and future endeavors

Boston, MA– From a memorable MLS & USMNT career to a 400k+ follower influencer role with Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, TikTok, & YouTube, Jimmy Conrad has been a part of the soccer world for the past decade.

Jimmy was born February 12th, 1977, to his parents (father) Kim and (mother) Pam Conrad in Arcadia, California. 

Jimmy began playing soccer at the age of 5 years old and attributed a lot of his passion for the game being passed onto him through his grandfather. ” I initially kicked the ball around with my grandfather who was Danish. Born and raised in Denmark and he’s the one who planted the seed of what was cool about the game… You could tell he was super passionate about it and as a kid, you gravitated toward that… I think he also had ideas of being a pro one day and maybe didn’t get to live out the dream he wanted and passed away shortly after that photo was taken… so he never got to see me do anything.”

His grandfather was very critical of his game growing up prior to passing. Jimmy stated, “When I was 7 or 8, I just dominated… averaged 3-4 goals a game and was crushing it. The next year I got pushed up when I was playing against older kids, and I wasn’t as dominant, and he told my dad I had lost it.” which followed a plethora of laughs amongst us. Jimmy stated, “He was very serious about how I was performing, and I knew it mattered to him and obviously I think he’d be pretty proud of what I have accomplished.”.

In regard to playing club soccer, Jimmy stated that from age 6 to 11 he played for AYSO and made a number of all-star teams (shoutout Region 98 & Live Oak Park). “We had a very good all-star team. We won the area tournament and the sectionals.”.

Ultimately, Jimmy went from AYSO to club from 11-19 to playing club soccer. His last achievement at the club level was winning the U20 National Championship with the San Diego Surf.

“I played in high school as well and, to talk about high school soccer very quickly, a lot of people dismiss high school and that experience now.” Then in reference to what parents and kids are thinking nowadays, Jimmy stated, “Oh, we have these academies…and I don’t want my kid to play in high school because the level is not high enough or I don’t want them to get hurt…and I think it’s crap.

“If you’re an academy player, you’re on a team where everyone is close in level but when you’re in high school, you have to raise the game of the players who don’t play as well as you do so how do you do that? You have to learn these skills, which isn’t just ability on the ball, it’s also in how you talk to somebody that isn’t as good as you. Do you talk down to them? Do you build them up? You have to learn these interpersonal skills and, not only on the field but off of it, too, because you don’t want these players to feel like they’re lesser than you. So they can be very delicate relationships, but I promise that they’re going to help each player in these situations to go on to become better leaders because of it and I think that gets lost in the academy system sometimes.”

Along with that Jimmy spoke on the pride of playing for a high school program. Jimmy stated, “Playing for your school hits differently than it does when you’re just playing for an academy team that most people don’t pay attention to. In high school, if you don’t perform well against a rival, there’s more pressure that you can’t replicate in an academy. I know things will change, but there is a place for high school where these players can not only grow as players but as leaders and human beings.”.

Following his youth upbringing, Conrad attended Temple City High School, in Temple City, California from 1989-1993. He was a four-year letter winner in soccer.

“I never won the league in high school! Which, sadly, is the only significant trophy I have never won. I won a national championship in club and college, I won MLS Cup, I won the Open Cup, I won the Gold Cup but in high school – NOTHING!”

Following his high school career, Conrad was looking to play in college and kept falling through the cracks at every corner. He was denied by his dream school UCLA and was searching for alternative routes to prove that he had what it takes.

“My coach, Ron, called some schools on my behalf and managed to get on the phone with Sigi Schmid, the legendary coach of UCLA, and Sigi said, “All right, tell me about this kid.” And Ron told him that I’d be TWICE the player that UCLA All-American defender, Mike Lapper, ever was and Sigi laughed and said that wasn’t going to happen. Though we could argue in hindsight that it was true!”

“Anyway, Ron got ahold of San Diego State coach, Chuck Clegg, and was so persuasive about how I was going to help the program, Coach Clegg gave me a partial scholarship without ever seeing me play!”

Conrad accepted and attended San Diego State University from 1994-95. He played there for his freshman and sophomore seasons in 1994 and 1995 respectively for the Aztecs. 

“I played pretty well during pre-season of my freshman year in the holding midfield spot but then, in the first game of the season, Coach Clegg put me as a striker because he didn’t trust freshmen in important parts of the field so, after two years of that type of coaching logic, I wanted to get out.”

Conrad played his last two years of college with the Bruins and helped them win a national championship his senior year in 1997, which was really a full-circle moment for him – from not being wanted out of high school by UCLA to starting in the final four years later and helping them win a coveted trophy!

Following his collegiate career, Jimmy looked to continue his soccer career professionally. With his sights set on Major League Soccer, Jimmy exited college with zero offers or interest from MLS Clubs. Due to this, Jimmy was given a trial at Los Angeles Galaxy which was deemed unsuccessful. Following this, the Galaxy coaching staff recommended that he should take his talents to the San Diego Flash of the National Premier Soccer League.

“Octavio Zambrano, the Head Coach of the Galaxy was going to take me to Florida for their proper preseason camp. I was stoked, I had the #28, the travel bag, and the polo, and everyone in the locker room was excited for me… So, Matt Reis was my teammate at UCLA, and we were still living on campus, and we had left in separate cars that day and Reis had left early to go back to UCLA and while I was sticking around filling out paperwork, Octavio told me to leave his bag as they don’t know if they’d take me.”

Jimmy said that when he went back to campus, everybody was giving him high-fives and coming to his apartment to congratulate him because Matt had told everybody that he was going, and he was stressing over what the coach had told him. “Zambrano said he’d call me at six that night and six comes and goes. Nothing. I’m like “oh my god” and I’m sweating bricks over here so I called him at seven and he picked up and goes, ” yeah yeah yeah yeah ….. we can’t take you and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.” and hung up.

Jimmy stated, ” I thought I was good enough and went back out and trained with them when they got back and started training well and they didn’t want to sign me, and LA Galaxy assistant coach Ralph Perez called a couple of teams and set me up with the Flash.”

Following one season with the Flash, on February 11th, 1999, one day before Jimmy’s 22nd birthday, San Jose Clash head coach Brian Quinn signed Jimmy Conrad to a contract under recommendation from his former teammate and Jimmy’s current head coach at the Flash, Ralf Wilhelms. Conrad ended up playing four seasons for the Clash (later rebranded as the San Jose Earthquakes) from 1999-2003. While on the Clash in 1999, Jimmy was also loaned out to Polish side Kolejowy Klub Sportowy Lech Poznań S.A (Lech Poznan) where he made 14 appearances for the Polish side.

“When I went on loan for Lech Poznan, they did not think Americans could play.” Jimmy stated that he remembers a lot of things from his time in Poland. “I played really well in two closed-door friendlies and actually received interest from Bundesliga sides, and it was cool to get that validation and I think it paved the way for me to get to the heights I did”.

After his return from Lech Poznan, Jimmy helped the San Jose squad to a 2001 MLS Cup Final Championship where they beat the Los Angeles Galaxy 2-1 in extra time via golden goal. For the club, Jimmy made 84 appearances in which he scored two goals and tallied two assists.

Entering the 2003 season, Jimmy was traded to the Kansas City Wizards (later rebranded as Sporting Kansas City) for a second-round pick in the MLS SuperDraft.

“I found out the day of the MLS draft in the morning and I was in shock. I had good offseason talks with the coaches and thought I was a part of their plans and to get traded was a bit unfortunate, but it ended up being the best thing that could’ve happened to me personally… I had never lived outside of California. I had played in Kansas City, but I didn’t know Kansas City.”

Jimmy went on to play seven seasons for the club from 2003-2010 where he would register 204 appearances. Jimmy went on to score 17 total goals (four in his first season for the club) and tallied four assists. In 2004, Jimmy helped the squad to a U.S. Open Cup Championship victory and an MLS Cup Final appearance. In 2005, Jimmy won the MLS Defender of the Year trophy. He was runner-up in the Defender of the Year award in 2004 and 2006 respectively. To date, Jimmy is the only player to win MLS Defender of the Year after not being drafted to an MLS club. Along with the Defender of the Year honor, Jimmy was named to the MLS Best XI squad four times, in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008 respectively. In 2009, he was named MLS Humanitarian of the Year.

“I won the Defender of the Year award in 2005 when I probably deserved it more in 2004. The 2004 Kansas City team isn’t talked about a lot in terms of the greatest teams when it should be… That 04 team was tied on points for the supporter’s shield and lost it because the Columbus Crew had scored 2 more goals than us. We won the Open Cup and we got to the MLS Cup Final and lost 3-2. We were 3 goals away from being the first and only team to win at treble in MLS History and we are never talked about. From all of this, I knew that if I wanted to make the national team or all-star teams, I knew I had to be on the best defense in the league, and that attributed to our success.”

During his MLS Defender of the Year season, Jimmy made his first United States Men’s National team appearance on July 7th, 2005, in a Gold Cup match. During his call-up, Jimmy stayed and helped the USMNT to win the 2005 Gold Cup. Following the Gold Cup, Jimmy was selected by USMNT coach Bruce Arena to appear on their roster for the 2006 World Cup. Conrad went on to make 25 appearances for the USMNT scoring one goal in a friendly against Mexico. Conrad also captained the squad a handful of times.

“Entering the 2006 World Cup, we walked into the tournament ranked #3 overall by FIFA in the FIFA rankings. We knew we were overrated going in with a target on our back following our success in qualifying, the Gold Cup, and the 2002 run and we drew the group of death.”

Jimmy stated that hearing the national anthem for his country at a World Cup was one of the greatest moments of his career. “Man, it hits differently when you hear it at a World Cup. You know at that moment everybody at home has your back. The casuals, the people who aren’t paying attention, they still hear about it and they still want you to win and it’s such a great feeling to have.”

In 2007, following the end of his contract, Jimmy renewed his contract and was named the club captain by head coach Curt Onalfo.

Entering the 2011 season, Jimmy was out of contract and found out through a reporter that he’d not be brought back to Kansas City.

“I found out through a reporter that I wasn’t going to be brought back to Kansas City. Peter Vermes and the coaching staff didn’t have the decency to pick up the phone and call me.. It was really disappointing to learn that way. Peter and I have since worked through that and it’s fine as we respect each other but it hurt me.”

On December 10th, 2010, Jimmy entered the MLS Re-Entry Draft and was selected in stage 2 by Chivas USA. He went on to make 2 appearances for the club, scoring one goal against his former club Sporting Kansas City.

Midway through the 2011 season, struggling with injuries and the side effects of six concussions in his professional career, Jimmy retired from professional soccer on August 18, 2011.

” I got punched in the back of the head by Colorado Rapids goalkeeper Matt Pickens and I blacked out for about 10 seconds, and I had told my wife at that point that if I had another bad one, I’d just stop. We were about to have our second child and it just wasn’t worth it.”

Jimmy stated, “That first day I went back up to the car to call my wife to tell her it was over, and I couldn’t get it out. I was crying in the parking lot, and she had thought that somebody like my mom or dad or my like siblings, that somebody had died, you know, but somebody had died, my whole identity was gone it was done and it sounds pretty dramatic, but it took a whole year to really come to terms that the chapter in my life was over.”

After retiring, Conrad stayed on as an assistant coach for the 2011 season with Chivas USA.

When Jimmy first retired in 2011, he had his weekends free and hopped in with Eric Wynalda and Christopher Sullivan’s Fox Sports game of the week.

Following a few discussions with some Fox Sports representatives, Jimmy began to call Concacaf Champions League matches and a few FIFA Club World Cup Matches. Jimmy stated, “I didn’t know if color commentary was for really for me. It wasn’t the best platform to showcase my personality.”

At the end of 2011, YouTube started a new initiative that implemented $100 million dollars into 100 channels. Due to the initiative, two soccer-only channels COPA90 (London-based) and KickTV (NYC based) received the money. Jimmy stated that Brian Bedol (Who obtained the rights for KickTV) was a friend of Don Garber and they had begun collaborating with each other and that people within MLS recommended Jimmy for a role with the organization.

“I talked to my wife, and asked if we should go to New York for a year and we said screw it! It turned into a five-year adventure and KickTV got 2 million subscribers after 3 1/2 years.” Jimmy argued that “If KickTV was still around now, we’d be at 15-20 million subscribers with no problem. We had live shows, and travel shows, and we were ahead of it. Copa90 ended up buying us in the end, but we built from the ground up and it got me into new media.”

From that point, Jimmy learned how to build how Twitter and Instagram tied into each other and how emerging platforms and the new language attached to them helped grow the brand as a whole.

As of 2016, Jimmy has been making soccer-related content on his Twitter (2009-present), Instagram (2012-present), YouTube (2016-present), Twitch (2017-present), and TikTok (2020-present) channels. He has a combined total of 462,800 followers with well over 20,000,000 views. He holds one YouTube creator award for surpassing 100,000 subscribers on his channel.

While continuing his content creator work, Conrad returned to coaching in 2018 when he became the technical director and head associate coach of the San Fransisco Glens. Ahead of the 2020 season, the Glens named Jimmy as their head coach for two seasons. In 2022, Jimmy returned to his role as technical director and head associate coach for the Glens where he worked closely with head coach Gabe Saucedo.

Since 2021, Jimmy has been a correspondent for the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League for CBS Sports. He had previously done work for Fox Sports and wrote columns as a player for ESPN. Along with those, he has done a large quantity of brand ambassador work for a number of top-notch brands.

“I’ve been a brand ambassador for AT&T, Target, Heineken, Coca-Cola… I just did something with Loreal Paris which is crazy and I’m going to work on a campaign with Viori which is a clothing brand I really enjoy as well.”

Jimmy also announced that he is a co-founder working on a new app called “Work On” which is set to be released hopefully in the next 6 months. “Essentially we are looking to create a platform where kids can learn from players that have either played or currently play in how to elevate their game.”

Be sure to follow Jimmy and keep up with all of his new projects on social media below:

Twitter – Jimmy Conrad (@JimmyConrad) / Twitter

Instagram – Jimmy Conrad (@jimmyconrad) • Instagram photos and videos

TikTok – Jimmy Conrad (@jimmyconrad) Official | TikTok

YouTube – Jimmy Conrad – YouTube