On Wednesday evening before Sporting Kansas City faces off against Seattle Sounders FC at Children's Mercy Park, Kansas City Wizards legend Mo Johnston will be inducted as the newest member of the Sporting Legends hall of honor. Johnston starred for the Wizards from 1996-2001, recording 32 goals and 31 assists in 170 appearances for the club. During his six-year stay, Johnston was a three-time MLS All-Star from 1996-1998 and helped lead Kansas City to a historic MLS Cup and MLS Supporters’ Shield double in 2000.
We caught up with MoJo at training earlier this week to discuss his favorite Kansas City memories and the growth of Sporting KC and Major League Soccer.
What does it mean for you to be named a Sporting Legend, 16 years after leaving Kansas City?
“I think when you leave your home country and you receive an award, no matter what it is, I think it’s a special achievement. I was inducted into the Scottish Hall of Fame in 2013 and coming here and receiving this award, it’s a great honor, but there’s a couple of things you need to say when you get the award because once you receive something like that, it’s all your coaches that’s coached you, all your ex-players that you’ve had – without them you don’t stand here. So I owe a lot of gratitude to them.”
What made you want to come to Kansas City when you first arrived in 1996?
“I had a house in Orlando from 1989. We came here yearly, we loved America. Once I knew the league was starting up, I wanted to be part of it. I nearly went to Tampa Bay to play for Thomas Rongen and then I got a phone call one Saturday night, saying ‘is there any way you can be on a flight, we have a game on Wednesday, it’s a trial.’ I was like, ‘yeah, no problem, I’ll be on the flight.’ I scored two goals and they wanted to sign me after the game, so it was fairly basic and easy.”
What’s your favorite memory of playing for the Wizards?
“Obviously winning the championship. In Overland Park, my three children were born there – it’s a special place for me. I do believe it’s sometimes home, because they were born here, I played here and then to cap it off, you get an award which is gratifying in terms of what you achieved over here in America. It wasn’t for nothing.”
What do you remember about your series-winning assist to Miklos Molnar in the 2000 Western Conference Championship?
“I remember it like yesterday because obviously I caught a bad one! I remember Danny Califf looked to chest it down, and I knew I had that little four or five yard burst that I knew I could get in between them. At a point, what does it cost? At the end of the day, if it’s costing you a broken nose and 19 stitches, who cares? At the end of the day you’ve got to put your head in. Once he chested it, it actually went higher than what I thought it would, so I believe I can get myself in between, the whole time I see Miklos with an open goal and I’ve came in and got the full brunt of the cleat. Again, at the end of the day, you’re back up again because the adrenaline of getting to Washington – that was our goal when we started in February, all the way through in preseason that was our goal in terms of us achieving championship status.”
What did it mean to be part of the team that won the first Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup trophy for this club?
“It’s obviously satisfying, when you start preseason you have a goal. What’s your goal? It’s to win a championship, to win a Supporters’ Shield. Had we done any of that? No. That part was disappointing because, I’ll tell you what, in ’96 and ’97 we had a hell of a team. We had good teams. Ron (Newman) had built up his little program in terms of what we’re trying to achieve. Bob Gansler came in, he implemented a different style, he brought in some different players, he drafted well and the rest is history to be honest with you. I believe the 2000 year – we never let a lot of goals in, we defended well, we attacked well, we had a purpose. It’s sometimes sad because when you have ’96, ’97, ’98, ’99 – a four year period – without winning anything and you had good teams, that’s the part that I disliked because sometimes you need to dig deep to win championships, you’ve got to dig within the group. Sometimes you don’t get it, but in 2000 we had it. We had it from Tony (Meola), we had it from our defense and we had it all the way up through our attack.”
How much has Sporting Kansas City changed from when you were a player?
“It’s magnificent. The ownership group, Class A. When you look at the stadium, when you look at the facility, when you look at something that you’re building for the next generation (NTCDC), which is tremendous. They’ve put everything into moving this franchise forward, it’s absolutely fantastic in terms of what they’ve achieved and what they’ve done. For this to happen in Kansas City is perfect.”
What have you missed the most about Kansas City since you’ve left?
“A lot of friends, I’ve got a ton of friends here. Chiefs games. Barbecue. Arrowhead. It was a big part of us growing up as the Wizards back then. I like the seasons, that part was great. Everyone that came, everyone loved the Midwest. It’s a little gem, people don’t realize how great Kansas City is. In terms of the soccer side, you can’t get any better than this within MLS.”
Where do you see MLS and Sporting KC in 10 years?
“Moving forward in the right direction in every way. With the ownership group, you have a direction, you have a way of doing things and that’s what you want. You want strong backing, you want strong ownership, and you want great coaches. You have that in Peter (Vermes), and then you have your other coaches, then you have your B team, then you’ve got your Academy. For the kids growing up, it’s something that they should strive for to play for Sporting Kansas City – that’s what you want. I’ve got my two boys here who are 16, they’re sitting here watching saying ‘love this, this is great.’ When you bring kids to something like this, it opens their eyes and that’s the gratifying part in terms of me personally because in ’96 we had nothing like this. We had a shed around back, we had to pee around the corner up against the big tree. We had one field which was lumpy and bumpy and no parking space. If you got in early you got a parking space, if not, you were screwed.
This, for me, this is the state of the art, this is tremendous. That’s the part that’s growing, it’s like a baby, you see the growing steps and when you have an ownership group that came in and just taking it by the balls, says what they’re going to do, transforms the stadium switch from the ballpark all the way into the brand new stadium, which is unbelievable. You build in stages. At the end of the day, no one could be unhappy here because it’s great for the players. If you bring a foreign player here and there’s someone else interested, he’s going to choose here because where your team is sitting, you’ve got the monkey off your back – you’ve won a championship, you’ve won a cup – that’s the part for me that’s good because it’s not the Wizards anymore, Sporting KC have their own identity. That’s the part I like about it because at the end of the day, the Wizards are gone – it’ll never die because there’s a lot of Wizards fans that still come to the games – but Sporting Kansas City, the support and money that the ownership group’s put into it, they must love that.
I came to the stadium in 2014, Peter and Kerry gave me the tour, it was pleasing to see something that’s growing. We started something here with the Wizards, so you’re trying to finish it. When you look at the growth, that’s when you know something’s alive and it’s prosperous. It’s like a flower – it grows, and it’s beautiful. You see the guys, everyone has a smile on their face, when we used to come to training honestly it was like ‘what’s happening here?’ I don’t mean that in a bad way, it was ’96, it was starting, no one really had anything like this. We were taking three and four flights to get to one destination, it was like a camel ride. Now you have something that you can call home, and call it home with a smile.”
