Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes calls this the greatest soccer gift Dad ever gave him

With Father’s Day nearing, Sporting Kansas City coach Peter Vermes reflected this week on not the best gift he’s ever given his dad, but the best soccer-related gift his dad ever gave to him.

It’s a gift that led to the famous “Sporting Fit” mentality by which Vermes swears, and it all started when he was 14 years old.

A child of Hungarian immigrants, Vermes spent much of the summer of 1981 in the landlocked Central European country, arriving for his freshman year of high school in New Jersey a week after the semester had begun.

Vermes, it should come as no surprise, was a soccer-crazed youngster, so one of his first priorities in the States was to join the school team at Delran High.

On a Monday, the day of a scrimmage, he was asked to train with the freshman team.

His contribution?

“I’ll give you that I scored four goals and had four assists,” Vermes said, smirking.

The following day, a Tuesday, he was asked to scrimmage with the JV team. And there it was again: four goals and four assists.

By Wednesday he was practicing with the varsity squad.

He dropped back down to train with the freshman on Thursday ahead of a Friday season opener against the rival school.

Vermes put the ninth-grade team on his back, scoring both goals in a 2-1 Delran victory.

After that game, the freshman coach approached Vermes and a teammate and informed them that the varsity coach wanted them to suit up for the varsity game later that night.

“Does this guy not know we just played in another match?” the young Vermes thought to himself.

Rushing home angry, Vermes hurriedly ate and complained about the situation to his mother. His father, former pro soccer player Michael Vermes, overheard him and cut him off.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Michael growled in his thick, Hungarian accent.

“I don’t get this guy,” Peter spat back. “I’ve just played 90 minutes and now he wants me to go out and sit on the bench there tonight and then throw me in the game!”

Michael took a long, hard look at his son before replying.

“What the hell are you complaining about? The worst thing is you’re going to become fitter,” he said in Vermes’ retelling. “And that’s what’s good for you as a player: You need to be the fittest you possibly can.”

That moment sticks with Peter even now, 40 years later. It wasn’t a literal gift, but it certainly was a gifted mentality — one that he retains today.

“He never gave me any room. He never gave me any slack,” Vermes said. “And so I never thought any different.”

Later, when Vermes became a player at the pro and international levels, he would often train as many as three times a day. He figured the worst thing that could happen was that he would become all the more fit — fitter.

And that, for Father’s Day, is the story of “Sporting Fit” — the greatest soccer gift that Peter Vermes ever received from his dad.

“I can handle it,” Vermes said, repeating three words he’s no doubt told himself hundreds (if not thousands) of times in his life by now. “Just because it’s a mentality.”

This story was originally published June 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes calls this the greatest soccer gift Dad ever gave him."