Joe "Joey" James (born March 12, 1961) is a retired U.S.

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

defender who played professionally in the Major Indoor Soccer League and

Western Soccer Alliance The Western Soccer Alliance was a professional soccer league featuring teams from the West Coast of the United States and Western Canada. The league began in 1985 as the Western Alliance Challenge Series. In 1986, it became the Western Soccer ...

. James, the brother of

Bernie James Bernie James (born November 25, 1958, in Coventry, England) is a former U.S. soccer player and current youth soccer coach. James spent twenty-four years as a professional, both beginning and ending his career with different versions of the Seat ...

, was born in England, but grew up in

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside (King County, Washington), Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area, and the f ...

. He graduated from

O'Dea High School O'Dea High School is a Roman Catholicism, Catholic all boys high school founded in 1923 and is located in Seattle's First Hill, Seattle, First Hill neighborhood. The school is named after Edward John O'Dea who was bishop of Seattle when the sch ...

where he was a 1979

Parade Magazine ''Parade'' was an American nationwide Sunday newspaper magazine, distributed in more than 700 newspapers nationwide in the United States until 2022. The most widely read magazine in the U.S., ''Parade'' had a circulation of 32 million and a read ...

High School Soccer All American. He then attended the

University of Tampa The University of Tampa (UTampa, UT or Tampa U) is a private university in Tampa, Florida. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. UTampa offers more than 200 programs of study, including 19 master's degrees and a br ...

where he played on the men's soccer team from 1979 to 1980. In 1981, James entered the

North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League (NASL) was the top-level major professional soccer league in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984. It is considered the first soccer league to be successful on a national scale in the ...

draft. The

Portland Timbers The Portland Timbers are an American professional Association football, soccer club based in Portland, Oregon. The Timbers compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The Timbers have p ...

selected him in the third round, but he never played for the Timbers. In the fall of 1981, he signed with the Phoenix Inferno of the Major Indoor Soccer League. The team released him after one season. In 1984, he played for F.C. Seattle in the 1984 F.C. Seattle Challenge Cup. That fall he joined the

Tacoma Stars The Tacoma Stars are an American professional indoor soccer team based in Tacoma, Washington, that competes in the Major Arena Soccer League (MASL). The franchise also operates in USL League Two, a minor outdoor league. Founded in 2003, the indo ...

of the MISL, but played only one game. In 1989, he played for the

Seattle Storm The Seattle Storm are an American professional basketball team based in Seattle. The Storm compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Western Conference (WNBA), Western Conference. The team was founded by Gi ...

of the

.1989 Seattle Storm
/ref>

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:James, Joe 1961 births Living people American men's soccer players Seattle Storm (soccer) players Major Indoor Soccer League (1978–1992) players Parade High School All-Americans (boys' soccer) Phoenix Inferno players Tacoma Stars players Western Soccer Alliance players Tampa Spartans men's soccer players Men's association football defenders 20th-century American sportsmen