Peter Vermes, one of the great agents of change in Kansas City sports history, arrived to the Midwest two decades ago. As award-winning Kansas City Star columnist Sam Mellinger writes, soccer in this city has not been the same since.
Mellinger's latest feature story casts the spotlight on Vermes, the 12th-year manager of Sporting Kansas City and one of the winningest coaches in Major League Soccer. No individual has played a larger role in the club's rise from MLS afterthought to model franchise than Vermes, who has led the team to four major championships and marshaled several other transformational breakthroughs—among them the development of the Sporting KC Academy and the world-class Compass Minerals National Development Center.
Click here to read Mellinger's column, which harkens back to Vermes' first days in Kansas City as a player, the immediate impact he made putting the club on the map, and a brilliant story about Vermes serving as the underneath mechanic in the East Coast’s No. 1-performing Jiffy Lube bay.
Additionally, the Kansas City Star has released a new episode of Mellinger Minutes For Your Ears, which treats listeners to a segment of Mellinger's interviews with Vermes and longtime assistant coach Kerry Zavagnin. Listen to the podcast below.
