“It’s the memories you make, the ones you hold onto, that make the Open Cup so special,” said midfielder Ian Harkes, in the midst of a run to the 2025 Quarterfinals with MLS side San Jose Earthquakes. “There’s a magic to it. A different flavor that’s hard to describe."
This isn’t the same-old canned patter you get from some pro athletes, schooled in the arts of PR Smooth. The memories he’s talking about are the kind that drift through generations, over oceans, like the smell of home cooking. Tales of dad, John Harkes, and Granddad, Jim. And all those old timers – the ones still living and those who’ve gone – of the Scots American Club of Kearny, New Jersey.
Ian Harkes was barely a year old when his father, John, won the 1996 Open Cup with D.C. United in Major League Soccer’s founding year. The victory was part of an MLS and Cup double for that first dynasty – arguably the best, even to this day – in league history.
“I was pretty young when my dad won the Open Cup,” chuckled Ian, who was born in England in 1995 while his dad was playing for Derby County. “But I remember seeing all the pictures of him lifting the Cup, and videos of the games early on when I was a kid.”
“My son grew up with a full appreciation for the Open Cup, without a doubt, the way it was talked about in our house,” confirmed John Harkes, the U.S. soccer legend who helped define MLS’ early years and captained the Stars and Stripes in two FIFA World Cups (1990 and 1994). “We raised him to appreciate those special moments.”
John’s own dad, Jim Harkes, came to this country from Scotland in the 1960s. He played for the Scots American Club of New Jersey. The soccer team was part of a larger social club, dating back to the 19th century, and a massive force in that immigrant community. Young John soaked it all in early, just a kid propped up at a folding table with a soda and a bag of chips.
And though Ian grew up overseas, in D.C., Boston and Columbus, Ohio, the son of a famous footballing father, the lessons of that old barroom, and the love of the game that suffused it, were absorbed early.
“When we’d get up there to Kearny to visit my grandfather, the old guys would hold on to their stories. Their moment when they won a trophy or got to play in the Open Cup against a bigger team,” Ian remembered of his boyhood trips back to his ancestral home near Newark. It was there where his father, and his high school teammates Tony Meola and Tab Ramos, received a masters-level soccer education before going on to form the core of the 1990s U.S. Men’s National Team.
“I’d be there with my dad and my granddad, and maybe there'd be a drink or two,” said Ian, as quick with a smile as he is covering the up-and-down miles between penalty boxes for the Quakes. “You were surrounded by pictures of the old Scots-American teams and the guys from the old days.”
The Kearny Scots, founded in 1894, never won an Open Cup (first contested in 1913 as the National Challenge Cup). But the club’s history goes way back, with a Quarterfinal debut in 1915. The Scots-Americans were the first club Archie Stark played for. He’d later become a legend and a multiple Open Cup winner with Bethlehem Steel – where he scored 240 goals in 221 appearances before his induction in the National Soccer Hall of Fame. The Scots reached an Open Cup Semifinal in 1935, won five ASL titles between 1937 and 1941 and sent two USA players, Jimmy Douglas and goalkeeper Tom Florie, to the inaugural World Cup in 1930.
Ian’s pro career, seemingly pre-ordained given his lineage, began in 2017. After winning the Hermann Trophy, the college MVP honor given out annually and won by his dad in 1987, he signed for his dad’s old club, D.C. United.
“I remember getting to D.C., and playing at RFK Stadium,” said Ian, following in the footsteps of his four-time MLS All-Star father, who won two MLS Cups in the capital. “I’d see my dad’s championship banners on the walls. All the history and the lore.”
There’s a danger that Ian might have been swallowed up in all that lore, and the expectations that come with a famous name. But he’s carved out his own path, with three seasons and a Scottish Championship crown in his grandfather’s birth country with Dundee United. Now, with the San Jose Earthquakes – an underachiever club in MLS in recent years – he’s part of a major revival.
The NorCal-based Quakes, founded in 1974 in the original NASL, are three wins away from a first-ever Open Cup crown (two away from a debut Final appearance) and facing a Quarterfinal date at home against fellow MLS side Austin FC on July 8 (on Paramount+ and the CBS Sports Golazo Network).
But you can never quite escape your past when you're Ian Harkes. His coach in San Jose is none other than Bruce Arena, who coached his dad through four years of college play at the University of Virginia, to that 1996 Open Cup-winning run with D.C. United and, later, with the USMNT.
“He [Arena] lived really close to us in D.C. when I was a kid,” laughed Ian, now 30 and a solid veteran of the pro ranks. “I was so young, but there were a lot of stories and my dad told me a lot. I was really excited, buzzing about getting a chance to work with him.”
Arena first signed Ian for a stint at the New England Revolution (where his dad also played). When he started coaching in San Jose in 2024, Ian was one of Arena’s first signings there too. And while a run to the MLS playoffs is a distinct possibility for this talented San Jose side, with known attacking talent like Josef Martinez and Chicho Arango in the mix, the Open Cup offers the most direct route to a 2025 title.
“The Open Cup is magic – but you need a little bit of everything to happen for you,” said Ian, after his Quakes knocked out Cinderella Division II side Sacramento Republic and the Portland Timbers to reach the Last Eight. “It doesn’t have to be pretty, but you just have to give yourself a chance to move on.”
It’s no surprise, given his personal history, that the Open Cup – with its unique format and underdog drama – holds a special place in Ian’s heart. “There’s romance – and you don’t get that with the Leagues Cup, or some of the more modern stuff,” said this son of a 1993 FA Cup Runner-up with Sheffield Wednesday. “You’ve got to fight against underdogs, and they’re so hungry and looking to knock you off. You’ve got to match them.
“You have to honor the traditions and the opportunities,” he added. “I love the Cup.”
“For some of the guys, the ones in the lower leagues, it’s the highlight of their career to play against a team from MLS,” said Ian, a reverent hush in his voice. “You need to know what that means.”
The desire to carve out your moment, to make your own memories, lives deep down in the marrow of the whole Harkes Family. And while Ian’s thousands of miles away from Kearny, New Jersey, the lessons learned and earned there live on. “That pride, when the old-timers would talk about their moment, the day they did it in the Cup, there’s nothing else like that,” said the latest in a long, proud line. “You’re lucky to be part of that.”
Fontela is editor-in-chief of ussoccer.com/us-open-cup. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.