Player Profile: Brian Kamler

By Sean Donahue

The New England Revolution’s biggest surprise of this season has been left midfielder, Brian Kamler. Kamler, A.K.A. “Kam”, has scored 5 goals this season and is second on the Revs in scoring, 9th in the league, but before this year his career high was 3 goals in 2002. Kam scored 53 goals in college and says he was “a forward/attacking midfielder”. This season, he says, “the coaches have really encouraged me to get forward. For most of the year up until about the playoffs I still had the mentality of playing a left back. This year I tried to get forward a little bit more and I just happened to be in the right spots at the right time.” Kam came to the Revs in a 6 player trade with the Metrostars last year. Kam says, “last year was a roller coaster ride for me because I was with D.C. then got traded to New York, then after 2 or 3 months with them I got traded here, so I really didn’t know what was going to happen, but for me it’s provided a lot of confidence and actually let me play what I think is my normal position which is left midfield in this league. The coaches have been great and there is great support around. Not only has just the move been great, but the guys that I’m playing with have made me a better player as well.” Kamler was thinking of retiring when he was traded to the Metrostars last year and if it wasn’t for his wife Suzanne, he probably would’ve. “She said, look New York’s not that far away, when I got traded to New York. Play this year out and if you still want to retire after this year we’ll do that, but she stayed down in D.C. When I got traded to Boston it was a whole other story, but SouthWest Airlines came to the rescue with their ultra low fares out of Baltimore to Providence, so it ended up being about the same thing. She’s really been the backbone as far as every thing that's happened to me over the past two years because she’s traveled to difference places, she’s moved to different places so without her things might not be where they are right now.”

Kam has played on four teams during his M.L.S. career and says his best experiences as a pro were “Playing in the final last year. [It was] the largest crowd in a MLS final. That was actually the first [MLS] cup final that I got to play in. I’d say the second most was winning the CONCACAF Champions Cup with D.C. and I played in that cup as well. With D.C. we won a lot of championships and I learned from the the guys that I played with down there.”

Kam, also, played baseball until his freshman year at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, but stuck with soccer because he says “I just liked soccer better. Nothing against baseball, but I enjoyed it a little bit more, it made me a little happier. I got a little bored with baseball, I got that ADD thing going.”

Kamler grew up in St. Louis, Missouri near the Revs’ Steve Ralston, Taylor Twellman and Pat Noonan. “I knew Stevie Ralston before coming to the Revs and I knew of Taylor Twellman, but I didn’t know Pat Noonan and we grew up like 5 minutes apart in St. Louis, so we’re always joking around about things that happened in St. Louis, different restaurants that are specific to there, and obviously we’re all big St. Louis Cardinals fans, St. Louis Rams and St. Louis Blues fans. We were pretty pumped up when the Cardinals came to play the Red Sox.” Kam has an extensive Disney collection. “Most of the stuff I actually have has been gifts from different people. I haven’t really bought a lot of the collectible stuff. In high school, my senior year, my sister had the video of the Little Mermaid. I popped it in after going out with some friends that night, I had my Oreo cookies and milk downstairs and just started watching it. I was just amazed that somebody could draw something like that and make it come to life. I liked Disney classics before, but you know you get into high school and your not supposed to talk to your parents and it’s not cool to do this and it’s not cool to do that. I started getting more into it as time went on. I really take it to a ridiculous level. It’s a sickness.” Kamler, 31, has been in M.L.S. since the beginning in 1996.