Signed at the age of 19, a native product of the St. Louis soccer scene, goalkeeper David Brcic joined the Cosmos as they were reaching the peak of their popularity — just after the 1977 Soccer Bowl win — and he remained with the club until it suspended league play in 1985, winning three NASL titles during his time in New York. He played another five years indoor with the Wichita Wings, Pittsburgh Spirit, Los Angeles Lazers and Kansas City Comets, finishing his career in his hometown with the St. Louis Storm in 1990.  Recently nominated to the ballot for induction into the National Soccer Hall of Fame, David Brcic recently took time to chat with Club Historian Dr. David Kilpatrick about his career.

Dr. David Kilpatrick (DK): Making that leap of faith after your freshman year at St. Louis University, then going to the Cosmos at the time – even though you’re coming out of St. Louis, a town with such a great soccer tradition – was that considered an obvious or a daring move, giving up a college education for a career in professional soccer?

David Brcic (DB): Well, you have to understand it was a multi-faceted opportunity because Ricky [Davis] and I were both a part of the Olympic program at the time. Part of the deal, per se, was that we would both be … I believe we were both -- you’d have to ask him directly -- I think we both signed with Atlantic Records. So we actually worked for Atlantic Records and retained our amateur status. So we both spent a tremendous amount of time traveling with the Olympic team, preparing for the 1980 Olympics, which, of course, we went ahead and qualified for, but then it was boycotted, which was so odd.

Then we turned professional, but then they changed the rules for 1984 and we wound up playing in the ’84 Olympics as professionals. So that was part of the deal. We weren’t going to just go there and start our first year, obviously, but getting the chance to also train with the Olympic team was part of the deal, so it wasn’t a hard decision.

DK: I didn’t realize that Atlantic Records signed Led Zeppelin, Yes and David Brcic.

DB: Yes, we need to make that more known.

DK: I always thought it was just an amateur contract. I never knew Atlantic Records ever became involved contractually.

DB: Part of it was that they would pay for our education up to five years after we retired from soccer. We were fortunate because of the whole amateur thing, my original contract was written by Atlantic Records and I graduated 20 years after I started college, all paid for by Atlantic Records.

I was just fortunate. I started college in 1976. Ten years later, I started going back, and graduated 10 years after that, so 20 years.

There was a gentleman then, there at Atlantic, who was associated with the Cosmos loosely, and I contacted him and he said, “Listen, we wrote this contract and we will honor it, so long as I am here.” Even before he retired, he contacted me and told me, “I’m retiring but I’m going to pass this over to another person and we’re going to make sure we fulfill it to the end.” And they did.

DK: The Ertegun brothers’ involvement with the club has always fascinated me.

DB: They were kind of, at least in the public eye, put to the side when Steve Ross became so prominent with the club, but they were really the heart and soul. It would always put a smile on my face when I would watch the Grammys and people would thank Neshui Ertegun or Ahmet Ertegun. It always put a smile on my face when I saw them being recognized.

DK: Was there really a constant rock-and-roll presence in terms of the interaction between Atlantic Records artists and the Cosmos?

DB: Oh yeah. They traipsed Mick Jagger and everyone else in the locker room all the time. But it wasn’t just Atlantic Records. It was Warner Brothers movies, too. You always had people coming through from the movies and record division. It was always Ahmet or Neshui Ertegun who would escort them into the locker room and introduce them to Franz [Beckenbauer], Giorgio [Chinaglia], Carlos [Alberto] and whoever.

DK: In the midst of that, how did you wind up in Scotland with Greenock Morton?

DB: I went on a tour with the U.S. National Team in the winter of ’79 and we played the Under-23 Scottish National Team up in Aberdeen. When I returned home I just got the call from Eddie Firmani that there was a club in Scotland interested in my for the winter time. I went over there and it was a part-time club. It was their first year for Greenock Morton in the Premier League in Scotland, so in the daytime I trained with Celtic and in the evenings I trained with Greenock Morton.

Two weeks after I was there, they let me play in the reserve games and two weeks after that, they came to me and said I was going to start with the first team the following Saturday. I thought I was just over there to train. I had no idea! Because when I signed with the Cosmos in 1977 they sent Ricky Davis, Gary Etherington and myself over to AC Milan and all we did was train. So I really thought this was just another training regimen and I wound up playing three months for Greenock Morton in the Premier Division in Scotland.

DK: During your spell in Scotland, was it a curiosity to have an American on the roster?

DB: Oh yeah, very much so. And I got some awards there, too. It was awesome. In January 1980, I was Player of the Month in Scotland. We only lost one game while I was there. When I got there they were in seventh place in the Premier Division and when I left we were in third.  It was a pretty awesome experience. The people were incredible.
I played at Ibrox. We played Celtic at our park. Beat them 1-0. That was really a big deal. That was my first Player of the Week, and then I got it again and then I became Player of the Month for January 1980.

We lost to Rangers 2-0 at Ibrox; that’s the only game we lost while I was there. I only got to play seven or eight games in that three-month period because of the incredible cold front that had come through and the parks became frozen, so quite a few games were canceled. I didn’t get to play as many games as I’d have liked because so many were canceled. But it was a really cool experience.

DK: Rick Davis told me the time at AC Milan was really eye-opening and life changing.

DB: Oh my God! Eye opening? Yeah, that would be an understatement! I don’t think I stopped a shot for the first month.

Coming straight out of being a freshman at St. Louis University, going over there and training with the first team every morning, knowing you’ve got 20 to 25 guys out there fighting for a starting position every Saturday — their training sessions were 100 percent all the time. These guys were not messing around. So the speed of just the training sessions alone were the likes of something we’d never seen before. Like I said, I don’t think I stopped a shot the first month. It was an incredible experience.

In Part II, David Brcic discusses his time with the U.S. National and Olympic teams, the emergence of the indoor game and its influence on his career.