Garth Lagerwey had hardly begun his career as Real Salt Lake’s General Manager & Vice President when Dave Checketts, the club’s then-owner, pulled him into his office.
Lagerwey was fresh off a stint as an associate in the Corporate Department at Latham & Watkins, a multi-billion dollar law firm with offices dotting the globe. He’d just accepted a senior position in Real Salt Lake’s front office, which allowed him to dive back into a league he was apart of on the ground floor from the league’s first season as a player in 1996. His move from Washington D.C. to Utah, a place he’d spent a single day in his life, was a fresh concept when Lagerwey sat down across from Checketts.
After some pleasantries, Checketts asked Lagerwey if he knew the one thing he couldn’t forgive in his current position. Lagerwey didn’t.
“You pretending that you know what you’re doing,” Checketts said. “Because you don’t.”
Checketts knew from experience the power of asking questions. At 28, he’d become the youngest President and General Manager in NBA history with the Utah Jazz. Years later, he spent four years as the president of the New York Knicks in the 90’s and presided over their most successful run in the last 25 years. And the one thing he wanted Lagerwey to know right away was that asking questions to answers you don’t know isn’t a weakness. It’s a sign you’re learning.
That lesson followed Lagerwey, from his groundbreaking seven-year stretch at Real Salt Lake to Sounders FC, where he just concluded his first summer window as General Manager & President of Soccer with a record-breaking four international signings in six weeks. Those words in particular informed his entire front office career.
“I thought that that was the most empowering thing anybody had ever told me,” Lagerwey said.
Past and present collide for Lagerwey this weekend as resurgent Sounders FC road trips to Sandy, Utah to square off against Western Conference rival Real Salt Lake on Saturday night. While Sounders FC hunts a playoff spot in the densely packed West, RSL is decidedly on the outside looking in at the postseason. With just seven wins from 25 games this season, RSL is currently six points behind Seattle for the final playoff spot with nine games to go.
As far as RSL is concerned, most of the team and front office already looks different from Lagerwey’s time there, when the team won an MLS Cup in 2009 and made the final of the CONCACAF Champions League two years later. The main front office trio of Lagerwey, Head Coach Jason Kreis and President Bill Manning, who left the club just this week, has all dispersed.
But memories of his time in Utah, which included myriad trophies and the establishment of one of the league’s most powerful youth academies, still linger.
“I’ve got a lot of friends still there,” Lagerwey said. “I had a great time at Salt Lake. I really loved my time there. There are a lot of people I hope to see. I’m taking the family back with me. We haven’t been back since I left, so I think it’ll be a fun experience for my kids, for my wife, for me to see folks we spent in some cases seven to eight years with.”
Lagerwey helped turn RSL from what was, in 2007, as the worst team in the league into a powerhouse that hasn’t missed the postseason in seven years. Through shrewd scouting, value-added contracts and continuity, RSL grew organically as a team capable of playing myriad styles and pushing clubs with considerably higher payrolls. Lagerwey’s transactions with Seattle this summer certainly echo those ideals. Sounders FC didn’t bring in a massive money Designated Player getting on in years like Steven Gerrard, instead opting to pull in a larger number of top quality players who fit directly into the scheme.
It’s already paying dividends. In his first match, recent signee Nelson Valdez scored off a soaring header in a rambunctious 4-0 win over Orlando City. Meanwhile, centerback Román Torres started in that match and then played a vital role off the bench in a 2-1 win over CD Olimpia in Champions League play. And Erik Friberg, who the club brought back from Sweden for a second stint earlier in the summer, is already establishing himself as an immediate first team option at center mid.
Lagerwey’s approach has consistently been to give his coach as many quality options as possible at positions of need. To see several of his signings already making waves is the ultimate payoff for a GM.
“I was fortunate that my predecessor in Adrian Hanauer had left the cupboard full of resources if I wanted to change things, via the allocation money from the [DeAndre] Yedlin sale,” Lagerwey said. “I was willing to be patient. No GM ever wants to do anything to his team, because if you’re not doing anything then probably your team’s doing pretty well. But we had the struggles we did in the summer, and I think it was important to change something, and fortunately I had the resources to be able to do that.”
Lagerwey is insistent that this weekend is a business trip from a soccer perspective. Sounders FC is still looking to improve its league positioning before the postseason arrives in order to secure a better seed, which would aid its hunt for a first MLS Cup trophy. And all that’s certainly in play. But it’s hard to overlook Lagerwey’s return to the place where one of the most impactful - and busiest - general managers in MLS had his front office beginnings.
“To me, professionally it’s another game,” Lagerwey said. “I’m in Seattle and I love it here. I’m happy to be here, lucky to be here, and it’s a game we’ve got to win. At the end of the day, when it’s this time of year, there’s not a lot of philosophical things that go into it beyond just that it’s a game we’ve got to win.”
