Dawn of a new era
Chandler Hoffman’s heart starts to pound when he thinks about March 9.
Years ago, as a kid with outsized aspirations, he dreamed of playing professional soccer. He now gets to do it in his hometown.
On the second Saturday in March, Hoffman, a Birmingham-area native, will take the pitch with his Birmingham Legion FC teammates as the club kicks off its inaugural season in the United Soccer League.
The team will play all 17 of its home games at the renovated BBVA Compass Field on the UAB campus.
“For me, it’s such a unique and amazing opportunity, and something I’m so excited about,” said Hoffman, 28. “It still doesn’t seem real. I kind of have to pinch myself that this is a reality.”
He’s not the only one.
When Morgan Copes helped start the Birmingham Hammers, the city’s former semi-pro soccer team, in 2015, he called it a “labor of love.” He worked a full-time job at Regions Bank and on the side devoted countless hours toward establishing the club.
The Hammers played their home games in Vestavia Hills at Sicard Hollow Athletic Complex, where lawn chairs lined the sidelines of playing fields on quiet summer nights. Copes hoped to one day bring a pro team to Birmingham.
Now, he is the director of business operations for Legion FC. He was the team’s first employee when the club launched in 2017 and has helped build it from the ground up.
“I still consider myself one of the luckiest guys in the world to have chased this dream and finally caught the carrot on the end of the stick,” Copes said. “I think it’s a neat story that just proves if you work really hard and catch a couple breaks here and there, dreams can be caught.”
An investment group led by three local businessmen — Lee Styslinger III, James Outland and Jeff Logan — sparked Copes’ rise from impassioned visionary to front office executive. In 2017, all four stood on a dais at Good People Brewing Company with USL President Jake Edwards and former Birmingham Mayor William Bell to announce the formation of the city’s flagship pro soccer team.
To say Copes, 33, has been busy since then would be an understatement. At the time, the club did not have a name, logo, stadium, staff or permanent office space.
“Day by day, little things happen that make it feel a little bit more real,” Copes said. “But I don’t think it’s really going to hit me until we actually line up for the first time and are out there actually playing.”
In the club’s infancy, hiring Jay Heaps as president and general manager ranked among Legion FC’s most important transactions.
Heaps coached the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer for six years before he was let go near the end of the 2017 season. He turned down multiple opportunities in MLS to come to Birmingham.
“I loved the vision of the ownership group. I loved the idea of building something from scratch,” said Heaps, 42. “It’s been really challenging but also as exciting as anything I’ve ever done.”
Heaps, Copes and others in the front office have steered the club as it has prepared for its first season. They have overseen the 4,000-seat addition to BBVA Compass Stadium and assembled a staff for both on- and off-field positions. Much excitement has centered around Hoffman, who in July 2018 became the club’s first signing. Hoffman graduated from Oak Mountain High School, played collegiately at UCLA and has emerged in recent seasons as one of the USL’s most prolific scorers during stints in Louisville and Salt Lake City.
He signed a three-year deal to become the cornerstone of his hometown team.
“I feel like I’m in the prime of my career, and it’s a new opportunity and challenge,” Hoffman said. “Now, I feel like I’m ready to be established, to be a part of the community and be part of the fiber of the club.”
A couple weeks after Legion FC signed Hoffman, it named Tom Soehn as head coach. Soehn served as Heaps’ assistant in New England and has been working to build a roster that will be competitive in the USL’s 18-team Eastern Conference.
Key personnel additions include Mikey Lopez, a midfielder with extensive MLS experience, and Marcel Appiah, a veteran defender from Germany.
At the start of preseason training camp in January, Legion FC had signed around a dozen players, with plans of adding up to a dozen more before the season opener against Bethlehem Steel FC.
“We feel strongly about our core, but we’re a few pieces short,” Heaps said. “To say we’re the best in the league would be irresponsible on our end, but the idea is that we build a team that gets better and better and can compete from day one.”
No matter how it fares in its 34-game regular season, from March to October, Legion FC will draw encouragement from its official supporters’ group, the Magic City Brigade.
The Brigade’s roots trace back to the Hammers’ earliest days of existence. During Legion FC home matches, members like Simon Iles will lead chants and wave flags as they cheer on their team.
“Our goal is really to create the fun atmosphere in the stadium,” said Iles, an England native. “We want people to see us and see how much fun we’re having and want to join in.”
That’s what key stakeholders at Legion FC, including Hoffman, want too.
Hoffman has envisioned the first regular season match many times over. Thoughts of walking onto the pitch before a hometown crowd bedecked in black and gold send chills through his body.
A new era will dawn at the sound of the whistle.
“It’s amazing,” Hoffman said. “There’s really no other way to put it.”