Taylor
Twellman
Twellman was born in Minneapolis — where his father Tim Twellman was playing for the Minnesota Kicks in the NASL — but grew up in St. Louis. Tim Twellman was himself a St. Louis product who went on to play for the St. Louis Stars, St. Louis Steamers, and other professional clubs, making soccer a family tradition before Taylor ever touched a ball competitively.
Taylor attended SLUH as a four-sport standout, setting a school record with 115 career goals and earning back-to-back Parade All-American honors. He received the inaugural Keough Award in 2004, given annually to the outstanding male soccer player from the St. Louis area, and was later inducted into the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame.
On the field, Twellman built one of the most decorated careers in MLS history. He won the league MVP and Golden Boot in 2005, was named to the MLS Best XI twice, and made five All-Star appearances. His 101 goals in 174 matches made him the youngest player ever to reach 100 MLS goals. With the Revolution he won the U.S. Open Cup in 2007 and the North American SuperLiga, and with the USMNT he was part of the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup-winning squad. The one trophy that eluded him was the MLS Cup — he reached four finals and came away without a title each time.
That career was cut short by concussions. He suffered at least seven during his professional life, with the most serious coming in August 2008 from a mid-air collision with LA Galaxy goalkeeper Steve Cronin. He played out the remainder of that season, but managed only two appearances in 2009 and none in 2010. After two years of failed recovery attempts, Twellman officially retired in November 2010 at age 30.
Within a year of retiring, he joined ESPN as a soccer analyst — a transition that quickly established him as one of the most recognizable voices in American soccer broadcasting. He became the network's lead color commentator for USMNT matches and MLS coverage, known for his direct, opinionated on-air style and willingness to be critical of American soccer when he felt it was warranted. His most memorable on-air moment came in October 2017, when the USMNT failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup after losing to Trinidad & Tobago. Twellman's live reaction — a passionate, plainspoken rebuke of U.S. Soccer culminating in "WHAT ARE WE DOING?!" — went viral and became one of the defining moments in American soccer media. Over his 11 years at ESPN, he covered three FIFA World Cups, three UEFA European Championships, eight MLS Cup finals, twelve U.S. Open Cup finals, and five FA Cup finals. In January 2023, he departed ESPN and joined Apple TV as a match analyst for MLS Season Pass, continuing to call marquee matches on Sunday Night Soccer.
He also founded ThinkTaylor in 2011, a nonprofit dedicated to changing the culture around traumatic brain injuries in sports — pushing back against the instinct to "shake it off" and treating concussions with the same seriousness as any other injury. The foundation's #TTpledge campaign reached more than four million youth athletes, asking players, parents, and coaches to commit to recognizing concussion symptoms and keeping players out of competition until medically cleared. ThinkTaylor partnered with U.S. Soccer for Concussion Awareness Week in 2019 and backed the Concussion Legacy Foundation's Safer Soccer campaign to eliminate heading for players below high school age. Those advocacy efforts contributed to real policy changes: U.S. Soccer now bans heading entirely for players 10 and under and limits it during training for players ages 11 to 13. As recently as February 2026, Twellman was publicly calling on FIFA to adopt universal concussion substitution protocols for the 2026 World Cup, citing the risk posed by inconsistent medical standards across the 48 competing nations.