For Nashville SC General Manager and President of Soccer Operations Mike Jacobs, it was hard not to fall in love with soccer early. 

Growing up in New York in the 1970s, he first came across the beautiful game when he signed up for a local soccer team, coached by a school friend’s father who had come from Italy. 

“Most of the kids in my class were playing, so I just hopped in playing with them,” he said with a smile. “My father immediately, being a junior high basketball coach, took me to the shopping mall, got me a pair of cleats, bought a book, had me in the driveway, dribbling around like garbage pails, simulating basketball drills. He never played soccer himself … he was just happy I was doing something I enjoyed.”

Jacobs was hooked immediately. He consumed soccer whenever and wherever he could find it. Watching Serie A and Bundesliga games on a black and white TV in his basement, going over to his neighbor and New York Times’ Cosmos beat writer Alex Yannis’ house and perusing old match programs, or serving as a ball boy for the Cosmos and getting a front row seat to watch Pele and Franz Beckenbauer, Jacobs was obsessed. He also gained crucial insight, a look into the game that would shape his future.

“Because of my father being a coach, because of my interest in basketball, because growing up in New York, you know, the number of daily newspapers, sports talk radio, it was so easy to analyze not only how teams or players are doing, but to see how coaches and general managers are doing,” he says. “It was really easy to follow decisions being made by people who weren’t necessarily playing.”

During his Cosmos ballboy days, Mike Jacobs (back row, third from right) and Co., with the Cosmos’ Paraguayan star Roberto Cabañas.

All the while, Jacobs continued his playing career, eventually as a goalkeeper at DIII Pace University. He credits coaches like Bob Walkley, Al Pastore, John Rennie and Fred Schmalz for developing his understanding of tactics and creating a team culture, both as a player and later as a coach at the college ranks. 

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