How a New Jersey Boy Became Houston’s Most Beloved Soccer Commentator
1984 was a special year for Glenn Davis. The Jacksonville native made his Major League Baseball debut for the Houston Astros and emerged as an indispensable figure at first base, finishing in the top ten in the National League MVP ballot three times and leading them to the 1986 National League Conference Series. 35 years after leaving for the Baltimore Orioles, ‘The Big Bopper’ still ranks in the Astros’ all-time top 10 players for slugging percentage (48.3%) and home runs (166). Just as he was coming to grips with the professional game and making the move from the University of Georgia to Houston, there was a different Glenn Davis who was also planting the seeds of a new adventure in Space City.
Davis was born in 1960, the same year that Glenn ‘Jeep’ Davis won two Olympic gold medals at the Rome Games in the 400m hurdles and 4x400m relay, adding to his 1956 gold in hurdles, before enjoying success as a wide receiver for the Detroit Lions. Jeep was often confused with Glenn ‘Mr. Outside’ Davis, a halfback who won three national championships with Army and who played professionally for the Los Angeles Rams in 1950 and 1951, winning the title in 1951, with the two occasionally receiving each other’s mail by mistake. That’s not even mentioning Glen ‘Big Baby’ Davis, who played in the NBA from 2007 to 2015.
It hasn’t been easy for Glenn Davis to stake out his name in a crowded field, but he’s done just that ever since making the move to Texas four decades ago. Born and raised in Chatham Township, New Jersey, Davis honed his soccer skills in the NYC suburbs under the tutelage of Scottish coach Tom MacDonald before playing prep soccer at Chatham Township High School, guiding them to a 22-0 record and the Group I state championship in 1977. Following in the footsteps of his older brother Conn, an All-American goalkeeper at Davis & Elkins College, he started playing collegiate ball at Boston University before heading to West Virginia. He enrolled at Davis & Elkins College, where he was a two-time All-WVIAC selection and a NAIA All-American for the Senators – little did he know it, but he’d return a quarter-century later and earn a Lifetime Achievement Award from Davis and Elkins College in 2006.
Playing in the Wild West of American Soccer
Similar to other players like Janusz Michallik, Davis entered a professional soccer landscape that was quickly unravelling, with the North American Soccer League shutting its doors and Major League Soccer still a decade away from arriving. He commenced his professional career as a center back for the Pennsylvania Stoners of the American Soccer League, reaching the 1983 American Soccer League Final in his rookie season and being named ‘Defensive Player of the Game’ in Game 1, only to end up losing in three games to the Jacksonville Tea Men. Davis then packed his bags for Houston, leading the Dynamos to the 1984 championship, only to end up losing on penalties to the Fort Lauderdale Sun. After picking up All-League honors in 1984, Davis would captain Houston against renowned teams like Sheffield United, Middlesbrough, and Olympiacos, and spearhead the team to a 1-0 victory against the U.S. men’s national team.
“I got to the American Soccer League Final with a team that has probably the greatest name in soccer history: the Pennsylvania Stoners,” stated Davis in an exclusive R.Org interview. “The owners came to us before the final and said, ‘We don’t have the money to pay you.’ The team captain said that we had to take a vote, and whereas most of the veterans said, ‘We’re not playing,’ the young guys like me, who were all ambitious to get started, we all wanted to play, and we ended up winning by one vote. We played the three-game series and ended up losing in the Gator Bowl to Jacksonville, and then, the team broke up. The assistant coach of the Stoners got the job in Houston and carried a few of us down there with them after we disbanded.”
Davis would enjoy playing spells in indoor and outdoor soccer in Columbus, Albany and Fort Lauderdale before hanging up his boots. Still, he remained actively interested in the beautiful game by earning his USSF A coaching license and establishing the Houston Hurricanes Youth Soccer Club, which has produced future MLS stars like Josh Gardner (LA Galaxy), Willis Forko (Real Salt Lake), Sam Forko (Metrostars), Chris Gbandi (FC Dallas), and Alex Woods (FC Dallas), including five players who won the 2000 National Championship with UConn. He also fostered cooperative exchange programs with Atlas in Guadalajara and Monterrey in Mexico that allowed Mexican players the chance to live with an American family and train in the USA, and that has allowed his youth teams to compete in front of 30,000 fans in Mexico.
As the first to enter his top youth players in adult league competition in the Houston Football Association, Davis has been regarded as a pioneer in Texas youth soccer, working with youth organizations and clubs on a consulting basis and helping to implement new programs and policies. And after initially plying his trade as a youth soccer coach, Davis got his first broadcasting opportunity in 1994 when, despite having no prior experience, he was hired by Home Sports Entertainment regional cable after a friend suggested him for the analyst role to the team’s owner. He started covering soccer matches of the Houston Hotshots, serving as the color commentator alongside future San Antonio Spurs anchor Bill Land, before transitioning after five years to play-by-play.
Making the Transition to Broadcasting
At the time, soccer was still considered a silly, foreign activity reserved for kids, but that would soon change with the onset of the 1994 FIFA World Cup. 32 years later, as the world’s biggest tournament returns to the USA, Davis has comfortably asserted himself as one of the most esteemed voices in Houston sports.
“It was exciting from a financial standpoint because I wasn’t making a lot of money being a youth soccer coach, but I was banking these incredible relationships with young kids and their families, I was involved with the game I loved, trying to become a better coach, and organizing training sessions with clubs like Rayados. We’d go down on a bus to Mexico with some fathers as chaperones, and I had mothers putting their fingers on my chest saying, ‘My son better come back safe!’ I loved innovating and doing those types of things with the youth game, and I felt like we were being cutting-edge by bringing teams from Mexico and Norway, working with Mexican coaches like Efraín Flores and Ricardo Lavolpe, and watching this bright, young generation of guys that included Pavel Pardo and Rafa Marquez. I’m watching these guys as young kids as 18, and they’re already in the first team. I’ve got my players down there plugged into their system, so these were the things that certainly made it exciting.”
“I got the opportunity to work in TV and realized I knew a little bit about soccer, but that doesn’t make you a good broadcaster. I had great mentors who encouraged me to go back to the University of Houston and take some classes to compartmentalize the whole process of being a broadcaster, as opposed to ‘Hey, I think I know about soccer, and I’m gonna yap about it.’ I think timing really helped me, too, because they were in need of broadcasters, so all of a sudden, I’m getting college games, and now MLS is coming, and then Fox Sports World comes out, and suddenly, I’m doing Italian Serie A games every weekend. At that time, it was the best league in the world, no question. It had all the talent – Ronaldo, Roberto Baggio, Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry – it had everybody. I was in the right place at the right time, and I had a lot of wonderful people and producers who really took me aside and helped me with the ABCs of being a broadcaster, working with a camera, all those things. I would credit myself for the ethic and foreshadowing a bit that I wanted to improve, and it just matriculated into something where I thought ‘I guess I could make a career out of this.”
Davis started calling Italian soccer matches in 1997, back when Serie A was the #1 league in the game, before getting the chance to other competitions like MLS, UEFA Champions League, CONCACAF Champions League, CONCACAF Gold Cup, collegiate soccer (men’s and women’s), and the US men’s and women’s national team. Whilst he’s done the majority of his work in Texas, Davis has also been privileged enough to commentate overseas, covering a USMNT friendly in Dortmund, Germany ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, traveling to Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala to cover World Cup qualifiers for the USMNT, and heading to Canada to cover the USWNT’s 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup. He’s covered three World Cups for ESPN in 2002, 2006, and 2010, in addition to the Summer Olympics with NBC in 2008 and 2012. And ever since the Houston Dynamo’s arrival in 2005, he’s spent the past two decades as Houston’s play-by-play commentator, with the Dynamo winning the MLS Cup in their first two seasons and claiming the U.S. Open Cup in 2018 and 2023.
“It was a special thing to get the club and MLS to Houston. At the time, I was writing two columns per week for the Houston Chronicle for a large portion of seven years, and I rewrote the article about MLS’s move to Houston about 40 times, explaining why we needed to have this sport in Houston. I was fully entrenched in the youth community; I’d been there as a player, and I was a big believer in both Houston and MLS. I felt that we were percolating at the right moment, and that if it came back, it would be a great success. We had the gift of the San Jose Earthquakes failing to find a soccer-specific stadium, ceasing operations, and transferring its personnel to Houston. I’m on the radio, going, ‘I’m not sure you know what’s coming here…we’re picking off one of the best teams in the league, don’t be surprised if we win a couple of titles here right off the bat. It was absolutely pure excitement that it was coming back… it was the missing link in Houston. This can play off the youth community and soccer fans, and we’re going to make it happen; it happened in the early years and then began to dissipate.”
Laying Down Roots in Houston
Davis hasn’t just made a name for himself as a television pundit, but as a radio jock and a journalist. He’s hosted Dynamo All Access, a Dynamo post-game radio show held at the stadium, and Soccer Matters on ESPN 97.5 FM, and he’s written columns for the Houston Chronicle, ESPN, and Fox Sports Houston. Despite not making the move to Apple TV, Davis has continued to work with Orange Crush by broadcasting all Houston home matches throughout the 2025 season, with fans accessing his play-by-play call through the local home radio option via MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.
After spending the first two years of his radio career on National Public Radio, Davis has spent the next two decades buying his own airtime and discussing both the Houston Dynamo and other global soccer topics with esteemed guests such as Ruud Gullit, Brian McClair, and Norman Whiteside. From playing soccer to coaching soccer to commentating soccer, Davis has made his mark in more ways than one in Houston, including charity. Each December, Davis organizes a three-day Kick Cancer soccer camp, with all proceeds going to cancer research and benefitting the Texas Children’s Hospital through the 501 C Charity Curing Children’s Cancer Fund, whilst he also sits on the board of Curing Children’s Cancer Fund.
“I think we’re all supposed to give back in some shape or fashion to our neighbors, to people who need a little bit of help. I think it should be a part of the makeup of any person, at whatever level you can afford to do it. I got involved in Texas Children’s Hospital about 20 years ago, and the idea was to set up these different camps around the city over the course of three days. We had one at Houston Baptist University, which was a fundraiser, but which was equally important in creating awareness, and then we started making hospital visits and handing out soccer balls. My sister, who’s in cancer research, and her husband, who’s an oncologist, moved me into this line of work.”
“I had a couple of cancer survivors joining me on those trips to the hospital, which was magical, because they started very timid and then grew into being there and taking over, and I’d talk to the parents, which affected me deeply. I learned so much going into those rooms, because there were people who really wanted someone to talk to outside of a doctor or a nurse, but sometimes people didn’t want to talk, so you gently put the ball down and say, ‘Have a nice day,’ you get out of the room and give them their privacy. I’ve become friends with a lot of those families. I’ve been around families when they’ve lost their 17-year-old child…this is the stuff that grips your heart and hits you hard. I was just trying to do a little bit to create awareness for childhood cancer with the help of a lot of other people.”
It’s a balmy morning in the U.S. Virgin Islands as Davis reflects on his career whilst wearing an ‘Okinawa’ shirt, a nod to his father, who fought there in addition to a number of other World War II battles. At 65, Glenn Davis has done just about everything there is to do in the soccer broadcasting industry, having covered seven FIFA World Cups over the past three decades, but one thing that he hasn’t done yet is cover a (men’s) World Cup in person. He’ll be looking to change that this summer as Houston gets set to host seven matches in the 2026 FIFA World Cup, including games between Germany vs. Curaçao, Portugal vs. Uzbekistan, and Cape Verde vs. Saudi Arabia.
“The dynamics have changed for a lot of reasons, which has led to fewer and fewer opportunities as I get towards the end of my career, but the sad thing is that I think I’m at the height of my powers when it comes to calling a game based on my experience. I’ve always been a meritocracy guy, and I think there are some wonderful commentators out there…you always need youth coming through. I don’t know how much guidance and preparation they get; some of them need someone to put an arm around them and help them out, like people did for me, which can open a new frontier. Nothing’s meant to last, but I’ve got other ways to make an impact, like three hours of soccer talk on the radio at 6 o’clock, which is primetime for commuters driving back home to work. I’ve also got some other projects I’m working on, but it does kind of make you think about being out of the mix a little bit more and deciding how much more of this do I want to do at this stage?”