Magee to help write Timbers’ history

By steve brandon

The Portland Tribune, Apr 21, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

MAGEE

If going into the season with 17 new players (and counting) wasn’t enough, the Portland Timbers also have a new right-hand man for coach/General Manager Gavin Wilkinson.

Amos Magee, a 37-year-old former player and head coach of league foe Minnesota, is the Timbers’ lead assistant coach and director of soccer development.

Magee, the son of two scientists, earned a degree in medieval European history from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Then he became the Minnesota Thunder’s all-time leading scorer during a 13-year career that included parts of three seasons in Major League Soccer. A few months ago, he was inducted into the United Soccer Leagues Hall of Fame.

Magee finds studying history rewarding because “you can either make sense of what happened, or enjoy it as a story, or reflect on what was and what will be.”

All three are ways for the Timbers to assess where they’ve been as a franchise, where they were last year (when they plummeted to a tie for last place in the USL First Division) and where they may be going –with an MLS expansion team expected to begin play in 2011 and a Premier Development League team kicking off this year with prospects 23 and younger.

Magee, born in St. Paul, Minn., has always been as Minnesota as a lake. He stepped down as Thunder coach midway through last season because he felt it was what the struggling club needed.

He retreated to a cabin in northern Minnesota, with no cell phone service, and took a month to take stock. When he returned to civilization, a message from Wilkinson was waiting for him. Would he like to visit Portland and chat?

There was mutual respect between Magee, who had been an attacking player, and Wilkinson, who had tried to stop him as a Timber defender. Their conversation turned into a job interview.

“Amos gave everything to Minnesota,” Wilkinson says. “I wanted to make sure things would be the same if he came here.”

Magee replaces Rod Underwood, now head coach at Cleveland. Magee’s first priority will be the USL Timbers, but he’ll also oversee the PDL squad and youth camps and coaching clinics.

“There’s a freedom in leaving a community where you know everybody and are insulated,” he says.

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