Soccer fanatic and Fox News host Brian Kilmeade has helped launched a semi-professional team on Long Island — with it nicknamed the “Fighting Tomcats” in a nod to the “Top Gun” F-14 built locally.
Kilmeade, 61, and his brother Jim, 63 — both former local college soccer players — are spearheading the group.
“We want to put Long Island, New York metro players back on top again as the epicenter of American soccer — about 90% of the team is local,” said Jim, a longtime front-office sports executive, to The Post on Monday.
“We believe that we can identify and launch players into European careers,” said Jim, the general manager and a managing partner of the team, which started playing in the National Premier Soccer League by way of Nassau County in May.
The Massapequa-born brothers said the team’s name is in honor of the locally manufactured, Grumman-built F-14 “Tomcat” fighter jet that Tom Cruise’s character flew in the 1980s Hollywood Hit “Top Gun.”
Brian said he couldn’t be more confident in Jim’s leadership — not because they’re family but because of what he did with the Long Island Rough Riders club in the 1990s.
“Nobody knew any of those players. Within five years, they were all playing at the top level,” Brian said.
“I could see the same thing happening again” with the Tomcats.
The Tomcats’ matches are at Hofstra University, the same school Jim played at just before Brian cleated up for nearby Long Island University.
The team, known formally as The American Soccer Club, faces tri-state area opponents from Queens, Connecticut and the Albany area.
“A lot of times with these new leagues, you see a lot of drop-off, you see uneven play. I couldn’t believe the quality of play I’m seeing,” Brian said. “Every player is hungry; they’re playing for the right to keep playing.”
Although the season began in May, the Tomcats — originally meant to kick off in 2020 but derailed by COVID — haven’t reached cruising altitude yet, with larger developments on the horizon, the brothers said.
“Right now, youth soccer is a very expensive sport to play. We will be launching a youth academy over the next 12 months — and it will cost families nothing,” Jim said.
“We want to support all the youth clubs across Long Island. We want the aspiration, we want the top players regardless of socioeconomic status.”
Jim, who said there is already a local “band of brothers and sisters” investing in the club, wants the team to produce new local big names to carry the torch from current Long Island legends.
He set the bar high by naming National Soccer Hall of Fame player and former St. Anthony’s High School coach Chris Armas as someone to aspire to, as well as Joe Scally, a 22-year-old player from Lake Grove who has enjoyed success in the German Bundesliga, with the US National Team and with NYCFC of the MLS.
“That’s our aim, and we know the next generation is here,” Jim said.
A bigger goal
The Kilmeades’ father, James, greatly fostered his boys’ love for the game from a young age. He tragically passed away in a 1979 car accident when his sons were teens getting ready for collegiate careers.
“He didn’t know anything about it at all, but he loved that we were involved in it very little, and he fell for the game right away,” Jim said of their father and soccer.
Brian then urged his dad, an immigrant from Ireland, to start coaching his boys in the Massapequa Soccer Club, but their father — who began spending his time at the local library to learn the game — did way more than that.
“He helped write the bylaws and constitution of the Massapequa Soccer Club,” Jim said.
“He was lining fields at seven, eight o’clock in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays, and our life revolved around three, four, five practices a week.”
After James passed away, Jim’s coaching career was jump-started when he was granted special dispensation to take over Brian’s team as a 17-year-old high school senior.
“I think for him to see Jim is taking it to the next level would mean everything,” Brian said of the Tomcats.
“And this is just the beginning.”
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