Jesse Marsch (Racine Case) won seven trophies during his 14-year career as a hard-working midfielder in Major League Soccer with D.C. United, Chicago Fire and Chivas USA. On Tuesday, the 42-year-old earned one for his work as a coach.
Marsch, who led the New York Red Bulls to the Supporters' Shield as the league's top regular-season team in his first season, was named MLS Coach of the Year. He is the second person with Wisconsin ties to claim the award – Milwaukee's Bob Gansler was the 2000 MLS Coach of the Year for the Kansas City Wizards.
The Red Bulls and FC Dallas finished the 34-game schedule with identical 18-10-6 records, but the Red Bulls won the tiebreaker to collect the Supporters' Shield for the second time in the past three years.
Marsch received 50.9 percent of votes from MLS club officials, 64.79 percent of votes from league media members and 36.36 percent of votes from players to beat out FC Dallas' Oscar Pareja and Carl Robinson of the Vancouver Whitecaps for the award.
The Princeton graduate started his coaching career as an assistant to longtime mentor Bob Bradley with the U.S. national team from 2009 to '11, then was the first coach for the Montreal Impact when they joined MLS from the North American Soccer League. He led the expansion Impact to a 12-16-6 record in 2012, then left the club after one season by what both sides termed "mutual consent."
Marsch served as a volunteer assistant at Princeton in 2013 and '14 before taking over the Red Bulls last January.
He had a challenging start to his tenure: He was hired by new sporting director Ali Curtis to replace Mike Petke, a popular former New York player who was fired as coach after leading the Red Bulls to the Supporters' Shield in 2013 – the first trophy for the club, which was a charter member of MLS when it started in 1996.
On Twitter: @jessemarsch