Chet North came to Kansas City to stake his fortunes to a startup franchise in an upstart league. Seventeen years later, the team, the league -- and Sporting Kansas City’s head trainer -- are going strong.
Sporting’s game on Saturday in Chicago will be the 500th league match of North’s career, all with the same club.
“I’ve only missed three games,” North told MLSsoccer.com earlier this week. “I missed one when my son was born, and that was four years ago. Then, two years ago, I let my assistant do the games in Dallas and Houston because he went to college in Texas.”
That sort of dedication is just one of the things that make North such an important part of the staff,, manager Peter Vermes said.
“I think a lot of processes that are existing on the medical side today have come through him, his knowledge and his experience,” Vermes said. “The other thing, too, is that he’s a great staff member. He’s all about the organization. He’s all about the team. He gets it, and all the guys like him.
“You can count on him every day,” Vermes added. “Seriously, I could call him any time of the day for something, any one of the players, and he’s there.”
Vermes knows North’s rapport with players firsthand, having played on the Sporting side that won MLS Cup in 2000. He also knows that North doesn’t mind a good prank now and again.
“Trainers and equipment managers, those guys know they’re going to see the jokes and maybe even be the jokes,” Vermes said. “Chet’s got a good sense of humor, and he relates to the guys well.”
As North recalls, Vermes wasn’t above giving him some good-natured trouble during his playing days. Vermes and teammate Mike Burns -- now the general manager of the New England Revolution -- had a running gag involving Advil.
“One of them wanted the round ones and one of them wanted the football-shaped ones, and they’d change which ones they wanted from week to week, and I had to be the one to give it to them,” North said. “They didn’t want anyone else to give it to them. It had to be me. They were both mental cases, but it was a lot of fun.”
Besides seeing players move into the coaching and front office ranks, North has witnessed plenty of other change in MLS since its inception.
“I think over the past five years, especially, just the players we’re bringing in and the quality of the facilities are improving so much,” he said. “It used to be that only Columbus had a stadium, and the rest of us were at the mercy of football teams, and a lot of players just moved from team to team to team.”
One thing hasn’t changed, though: North’s determination to take care of Sporting’s players.
“It’s about having a philosophy, standing by it and not wavering from it,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where these players come from, what level they’re at -- you’ve got to treat the individual.”
