The Tacoma Stars might never have happened if not for John Best.

The Stars join the rest of our soccer community locally and internationally in remembering the great work and life of Best, who passed away recently at the age of 74.

John Best formed Tacoma Indoor Soccer, Inc. back in 1982. That group brought a Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) club to Tacoma in 1983. They would call themselves the “Tacoma Stars,” evolving out of the dormant “Denver Avalanche” franchise, which Best helped transfer to the City of Destiny.

The Stars eventually would become Best’s “third moment of magic” in regional soccer. He was the first head coach of the NASL Seattle Sounders when they stole the hearts of local fans and began selling out matches back in 1974. Then Best helped a similar magic unfold in Vancouver, leading the Whitecaps as General Manager to a Soccer Bowl win in 1979. Stars magic came alive when Best found a player named Preki and dealt for a guy named Steve Zungul.

As the NASL was folding, and the Seattle Sounders along with it, Best had the vision to start something new a short drive south in Tacoma. It was indoor soccer, and along with it came plenty of naysayers and outdoor soccer snobs who “just knew for sure” that the Stars could never replace the folded Sounders. That was never Best’s intention anyway, and yet…in a few short years the Stars were indeed getting droves of fans from all over Puget Sound to watch Preki and Steve Zungul at the Tacoma Dome. Though those moments were fleeting, they were in their own right as magical as anything soccer has seen in Washington. Fans were connected to the action, the players, the entire scene.

The momentum of those few brief glory days have established a special place in local hearts for the name “Tacoma Stars.” Even as the PASL Stars were winning a national crown in 2011, and even as the Stars of today find themselves at the forefront of founding a new league in efforts to revive the local indoor scene, all involved still hold the John Best-led Stars as “sacred” in Tacoma Sports history.

Best was inducted into the Tacoma-Pierce County Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. The Stars send our thoughts out to John’s family and scores of soccer friends. Our original founder will not soon be forgotten.