Thank You Peter Vermes

I don’t know soccer in Kansas City without Peter Vermes.

What I do know is my story with Sporting Kansas City is likely different than many of yours.

I did not grow up in Kansas City. I do not have nostalgic memories of the Kansas City Wizards and games at Arrowhead Stadium. Hell, I have not seen Sporting KC win an MLS Cup in the time I have been a fan.

Yet somehow Sporting Kansas City as a club means more to me than I can adequately put into words. Peter Vermes is no small part of that.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Despite living in LA while the Galaxy won four MLS Cups and through the David Beckham years, my experience with Major League Soccer in LA was tangential at best. I was vaguely aware Major League Soccer existed, but it was not something I paid any attention to.

That changed when I moved to Kansas City in January 2014. Sporting Kansas City had just won MLS Cup weeks before in a freezing cold game against Real Salt Lake on penalty kicks. Many of you were there, I’m sure. Peter Vermes had just accomplished what nobody else had done in the history of the league, and what nobody has done since: win an MLS Cup as both a player and a manager with the same club.

I didn’t dislike soccer before moving to KC, it just wasn’t something I was raised with. Nobody in my family was a soccer fan. My familiarity with the game extended as far as old video games I played as a kid.

Sporting Kansas City changed that. I went to my first Sporting KC game on June 24, 2014. It was a bad 3-1 loss to the Portland Timbers as part of the US Open Cup. Soony Saad scored the lone goal for Sporting KC. Andy Gruenebaum was the goalkeeper. It was an objectively poor game. I was hooked.

The atmosphere was unlike anything I had ever felt at a sporting event, and it wasn’t even a regular season MLS game. The KC Cauldron was popping. It felt like a constant party. I knew this was something I wanted to be a part of.

From then on, the rest, as they say, is history. I became a dedicated Sporting KC fan. I went to any fan event the club put on. I attended every season kickoff party. I volunteered as a Sporting Victor in 2015 with The Victory Project (where I met my friend and No Other Pod co-host Daniel Kooser). I wanted any and every excuse to be around Sporting Kansas City.

I met Peter Vermes a few times in those early years of my fandom. He was always very gracious and kind to me. It did not matter that I couldn’t begin to tell you what a 4-3-3 was. He made me feel as welcome in the Sporting KC community as I could be.

As my fandom grew, my passion for the game evolved. I learned enough to begin covering Sporting KC for a series of different MLS websites before eventually starting No Other Pod with Dan in 2017, the week after we watched Sporting KC defeat the New York Red Bulls to win their fourth US Open Cup. My journey eventually led me to what was then The Blue Testament, now the KC Soccer Journal.

My relationship with Sporting KC necessarily changed as I began covering the club as credentialed media. I was given my first credential in August 2016. I have been a credentialed member of the media every year since. My knowledge of both soccer and SKC has grown exponentially since then, but one thing remained constant: Peter Vermes was the manager and face of Sporting KC.

Until March 31, 2025.

Sporting KC parted ways with manager and Chief Soccer Officer Peter Vermes after almost 20 years of running the club in some capacity. It was shocking to some. For others, it was too late.

For me, it was probably inevitable. For many reasons that are too long to get into, this seemed the unavoidable end to one of the greatest managerial runs in the history of American soccer. I’m not going to opine here and now as to why this was or wasn’t the right move at this time. Plenty of others are doing that.

Instead, I simply want to say this: Thank you Peter Vermes.

When I moved to Kansas City in 2014, Sporting Kansas City helped me find a new passion and group of people that made this city feel like home. I found a sense of belonging in a new city. As I’ve navigated major life changes in the past 11 years, the one constant in my life was Sporting KC. Peter Vermes tolerated me with grace and professionalism (and the occasional prickly response) as I learned to cover the team as media and how to ask questions in a post-game presser.

I can honestly say I’m not sure I would still be living in Kansas City today were it not for Sporting KC. I can honestly say Sporting KC would not have had that immeasurable impact on my life were it not for Peter Vermes.

So, as we move forward, Sporting Kansas City enters new, uncharted territory. We do not know what the next years will bring. We can’t predict how successful the club will be. But we can look back and, despite the understandably frustrating results over the past few years, appreciate the unbelievable contributions of Peter Vermes to this club, this city, and American soccer in general.

One day I believe Peter Vermes will be welcomed back to Children’s Mercy Park with the standing ovation a Sporting Legend like him deserves.

Today is not that day, but I will forever be grateful for his impact on this club, this city, and myself.

So, for one final time, thank you Peter Vermes.

Jimmy Mack takes a picture with Peter Vermes at a fan event before the 2016 season.