Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/564353
t m c ยป p u l s e | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 5 26 Q | Let's start from your childhood. Can you tell us what it was like growing up in Stone Mountain, Georgia? A | My dad was an accountant. My mom was a librarian. I have an older brother and an older sister. My brother, probably, was as instrumental as anyone in instilling a competitive spirit in me. He was four years older than me and I always wanted to beat him in whatever we were doing. He was a football player and then became a soccer player. My dad coached soccer. He hadn't played before. He just picked it up and said, 'I want to play. I want to coach.' He coached me for a period of time, and coached my brother for a period of time. I started playing soccer maybe in first or second grade. My brother started when he was in high school. It was kind of like this wave of soccer came through with the North American Soccer League and the Atlanta Chiefs. I was swept up in that wave of Pele and the Cosmos. I did play football and baseball earlier, but maybe because my dad was involved, or maybe because I was playing at school, soccer just clicked for me. It seemed like a sport that I could excel at. I played all over the field, depending on the team I played on, but I usually played as a forward or a mid-fielder. It was interesting going from Atlanta playing as a striker to playing in the National Team pool where I was asked to play back, because of all the great players I was competing with at that level. My goal was always just to get on the field. If I played striker, that was great. If I had to play in left back or even in goal, that was fine. I just wanted to be on the field. I played on recreational teams to begin with, and then I saw a flyer at school regarding select team tryouts. I brought it home to my mom and said, 'Hey, JAMEY ROOTES, PRESIDENT OF THE HOUSTON TEXANS, REMEMBERS WELL THE UNEXPECTED PHONE CALL THAT CHANGED HIS CAREER PATH AND MARKED THE EARLY DAYS OF THE NFL'S RETURN TO HOUSTON. ROOTES SAT DOWN WITH WILLIAM F. McKEON, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF STRATEGY AND OPERATING OFFICER OF THE TEXAS MEDICAL CENTER, TO LOOK BACK AT THOSE EARLY DAYS, AND WHAT HE SEES TODAY AS THE TEXANS' RESPONSIBILITY TO THE FANS AND THE COMMUNITY. they are having tryouts, would you mind driving me there on Saturday?' She did and I tried out and made the team. And it all just really progressed from there. I kept getting new opportunities. And then as I got older, I just stair-stepped up into the more prestigious teams. Datagraphic was a premier club in Atlanta at the time. They didn't go all the way down to the under-14 level, but as soon as I could, I got on a Datagraphic team. You had your club team that you played for, your school team, and then it seemed like tryouts all the time for select teams, and then you had regional camp and national pool games. I even played for a representative team from the USA South against West Germany. We played the West German national team here in Houston. And that was really my first exposure to Houston. I was probably 17 at the time. SPOTLIGHT