Earthquakes are personified by Chris Wondolofsky. Can he help redefine them in retirement?

Legend retired this month. A player associated with one team for the greater part of his career. An athlete defines his privilege.

This is correct. I’m talking about Chris Wondolowski.

Although his retirement has received a lot less ink than a certain hunter had three days ago, Wondolowski’s departure from the San Jose Earthquakes also leaves a huge void.

For more than a decade, “Wondo” has identified earthquakes. The hapless franchise franchise has little identity other than being home to the top scorer in Major League Soccer – Wondolowski, 38, is retiring with 171 career goals, the final of which came to him at the end of the season last Sunday. He announced his retirement to the fans after the match.

Unfortunately, unlike the Pussy Buster of the Giants, he didn’t get another chance in the post-season. The Earthquakes have not won a playoff game since 2012, have only qualified for the post-season twice since then and have had eight coaches in the past nine seasons.

“We know that change is needed,” Wondolofsky said in a phone interview this week. “We can’t keep doing the same things over and over again. But it can provide a great spark to get some fresh blood.”

We’ll see about that. Some “new blood” will have to fill the huge gap left by Wondolowski’s retirement, and it’s hard to imagine anyone could bring the same tireless work ethic and insane competitiveness that he has brought in day after day, season after season. Few would be able to match the passion of native Danville, who played high school football at De La Salle, for the organization.

But Wondolofsky, who has expressed frustration in recent years about coaching the team, will have a hand in trying to bring about change. He will be a “special assistant” to the team’s new general manager, former teammate Chris Leach, who has been with the organization for 13 years.

“We share a vision that we’ve talked about over the years,” Wondolowski said. “We’ve seen where we’ve failed and what it takes to succeed.”

The unspecified role would allow Wondolowski to participate in many aspects of the team, being a kind of liaison between the locker room and the front office. Wondolowski will also work with the Earthquakes Academy, part of the organization that produces results, and develops players who play on youth national teams.

“I want to help identify the players, nurture and guide them, with both the physical plan for how to be a professional, as well as the mentality,” Wondolofsky said.

There can be no better teacher or example of how hard work beats meager odds. Wondolowski was named to the Chico State’s “complementary player” draft in 2005, by Earthquakes, the 89th player that year. When the Earthquakes moved to Houston and became a dynamo, Wondolowski went with them. This is where he started to understand what it takes to be a professional. He was brought back to the reborn San Jose Earthquakes in 2009, where one year later he started his own scoring pace.

From 2010 through 2019, he scored 10 or more goals each season, for a total of 159 goals in that decade. In the process he broke and surpassed Landon Donovan’s record.

No active player is within 50 of Wondolowski’s total of 171 goals, but he expects someone to break his record. Always self-critical, he said at his retirement press conference, that whoever does it, “it’s going to be annoying to him because he’s going to get past Chris Wondolovsky,” while he had to pass on American legend Donovan.

But Wondolowski forged his own legend, during a fun time in American football. He has never pursued a career in Europe, and is part of a group of American players who are content to stay at home and play in the MLS. However, he became one of the favorites of the former coach of the national team Jürgen Klinsmann, and for a while, he became a key player in the national team, and was named to the 2014 World Cup squad.

Finding himself in the crosshairs of a pivotal moment in Brazilian football history, he missed a kick-off against Belgium that would have won the match and would have put the US team in the quarter-finals for only the second time in history. Wondolovsky was destroyed by Miss.

His chance turned out to be American football’s last best chance for men. The team missed the World Cup finals in 2018. A U-23 team has not participated in an Olympics since 2008. The United States is trying to qualify for 2022, and hosts Mexico on Friday in Cincinnati.

Wondolowski will be watching the young team with interest.

“It will be a great test,” he said of the Mexico match. “One match, against Honduras, I summed it up. They looked terrible in the first half, made some adjustments and came back to win 4-1. They looked like two different teams. The consistency would be a big thing.”

The United States, as one of the hosts along with Mexico and Canada, would not have to qualify for the 2026 World Cup. Wondolowski was not asked to participate in the local host city bid, which seems like a terrible oversight for the people involved in Levi’s bid. He has played important international matches for Levi’s, a locally raised football legend, and wants to see the game continue to grow.

“I like to do anything and everything,” said Wondolowski, who remembers peeking through the fence in Santa Clara in 1994 to watch Brazil train the last time the World Cup was held in the United States. “Levi would be a perfect place – we have a cultural melting pot here, with great knowledge of football.”

Without the difficulty of an MLS season, Wondolowski will find things to fill his time, between his new assignments with the Earthquakes and his family.

He admits there is a “competitive problem” and will now have to take that impulse on the golf course, softball court and mini basketball with his buddies. He will also train his two daughters, Emerson, 7, and Brinley, 5, in any sport except the one he makes a living from.

He said, “I want to make sure they enjoy it, and not be in the coach’s shadow.”

Wondolowski casts a long shadow on earthquakes. Now, off the field, he will try to help the team change direction.

Ann Killion is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: annkillion

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