John Terry is a name synonymous with football. For many around the world, it’s a name recognized as one of the defensive giants in Premier League and English football history.
For West Virginia University, and for the Atlanta-based United States Soccer Federation, there is another John Terry who is synonymous with what we call the game — soccer — and overseeing its events around the country.
JT, as his WVU classmates and Daily Athenaeum coworkers will forever refer to him, is a two-time graduate of WVU — receiving both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sport management — and is the vice president of events at U.S. Soccer.
WVU went to Washington, D.C. to catch up with the alumnus during a United States Women’s National Team friendly against Canada on July 2, 2025, to find out exactly what he does for the federation.
Arrival day
With the USWNT playing Canada in a friendly on July 2, Terry and his team got to Washington, D.C. on June 30 — their seventh city in 32 days.
This was also a first glimpse at a common sight on-site — Terry leading the way while talking on the phone to iron out details.
Training day
Seven cities over 32 days in an international window seems like a lot of travel (and it is) when you look at other international programs who may have a single home base or a stable of home stadiums, but it’s part of what gives U.S. Soccer its unique identity.
“We don’t have a home stadium, so we’re traveling around the country. We play in 15 to 25 different stadiums a year. And so what’s cool is our national team is actually our national team,” Terry said during an interview as the national teams took turns training in the nation’s capital.
This seventh stop was the final over that window and it was evident among the staff as they prepared for the next day’s match. They joked about who was the true “iron man” of the international window and compared “National Caps” just as broadcast teams will when highlighting a player’s number of appearances.
“There’s some months that we spend more time with each other than our families, and so we have to figure out a way to like each other,” Terry said smirking about his team.
“And we always have those moments where we have been on the road a lot and we do act like a family, but at the end of the day we get everything done and we have a bunch of really, really talented people who just want to make it happen and put on a show for our fans.”
One of the really impressive things to note here is that this traveling “circus,” as Terry joked about the way the team moves in and out of cities, is that a lot of the really hard work comes before game day.
And, indeed, the day before the game is filled with stadium walks, branding checks, meetings, phone calls and, of course, coffee.
Game day
Terry’s team negotiates and schedules these matches and handles the fan experiences like installations, activations and fireworks. They oversee ticketing, make credentials, handle the corner flags and manage officials and their equipment.
“In a perfect world, by the time the game rolls around, we’re really bored because we’ve done everything in the preparation to get to where we need to be,” he said.
So, when it’s game day, it truly, hopefully, is a chance to take a breath, watch the organized magic come to fruition and watch the, literal and figurative, fireworks.
A Mountaineer on the pitch
Terry’s journey is more than the sum of WVU and U.S. Soccer. His career started in sport management at the WVU College of Applied Human Sciences and his hard work since has led him to a vice president position at U.S. Soccer, with the United States on the verge of a joint-hosting of the 2026 World Cup — an unbelievable chance to grow soccer in this country through Terry-led events around the country, including the U.S. Open Cup.
It was at WVU that he first learned how to, and how difficult it can be, to manage people through his work with WVU Athletics and his six years at the Daily Athenaeum — real world experiences he took advantage of during his time in Morgantown that he now uses daily in his career.
And he made some of his best friends there to this day.
“[I’m] so very thankful that I happened to wander into Morgantown and attend WVU,” Terry said.
The next time you’re watching the U.S. men or women, keep an eye out for this Mountaineer on the pitch.
