Former fullback Steven Beitashour returns to Toronto to join coaching staff

Toronto FC defender Steven Beitashour, left, battles for the ball with Montreal Impact defender Ambroise Oyongo during first half action in the first leg of the MLS Eastern Conference final at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal on November 22, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

Toronto FC coach Robin Fraser has added former TFC fullback Steven Beitashour and former Colorado Rapids assistant Wolde Harris to his coaching staff.

While general manager Jason Hernandez first revealed the coaching additions Feb. 7 at a reception for season ticket-holders, the MLS club did not officially announce the news until Wednesday.

The two join Neil Emblen, Jase Kim, Simon Eaddy, Cesar Meylan and Peter Galindo on Fraser’s staff in Toronto. Fraser, who was an assistant coach in Toronto under Greg Vanney from 2015 to 2019 when he left to take charge of the Colorado Rapids, was appointed TFC head coach on Jan. 10.

Toronto is currently training in Florida ahead of Saturday’s MLS season opener at D.C. United,

Beitashour spent two of his 14 MLS seasons in Toronto colours, winning the MLS Cup in 2017 after finishing runner-up in 2016. He retired as a Colorado player in December 2023.

Wolde joined Fraser’s staff in Colorado in February 2021. A former Jamaican international, he started and ended his MLS playing career in Colorado, sandwiched around stints with New England and Kansas City.

Beitashour played 306 regular-season and playoff games (with 284 starts) with the San Jose Earthquakes, Vancouver Whitecaps, Toronto, Los Angeles FC and Colorado Rapids.

His first taste of MLS was as a nine-year-old ballboy with the then-San Jose Clash (now Earthquakes) in the first-ever MLS match April 6, 1996. Twenty years later, it was Beitashour’s left foot that delivered the cross that Benoit Cheyrou headed in to give Toronto a 6-5 aggregate lead in the dying seconds of the 2016 MLS Eastern Conference final.

In 2017, he survived a life-threatening on-field collision with Montreal Impact defender Kyle Fisher in the Canadian Championship final that necessitated pancreas surgery. Beitashour finished out the match but didn’t sleep that night because he couldn’t find a position that didn’t hurt.

The next day he went in early to the Toronto training centre where team officials immediately ordered him to the emergency room. Amazingly he drove the 17.5 kilometres himself, throwing up en route.

Doctors later told him it was the kind of internal damage they typically see as a result of a car crash.

Harris scored 51 goals and added 31 assists in 194 regular-season games during an eight-season MLS career with Colorado, New England and Kansas City. He was named club MVP by New England in 2000 when he career-high 15 goals and added seven assists in his first year with the Revs.

In 2003, he made headlines with a spectacular bicycle kick effort against Colorado in a 2003 league game that was not ruled as a goal although replays showed it had crossed the line after coming down off the crossbar before bouncing off the turf and out of the goal.

Harris started his coaching career in 2010 with Kingston College in Jamaica before, one year later, becoming an assistant coach at his alma mater Clemson University, which inducted him into its Athletic Hall of Fame in 2017.

Harris, who also served as both assistant coach and interim head coach of the USL’s Colorado Springs Switchbacks, made 28 appearances for Jamaica between 1995 and 2002 with seven goals.

To get Emblen, an assistant coach and Kim, a video coach, Toronto sent its first-round pick in the 2026 MLS SuperDraft to the Rapids. As part of the deal, TFC may receive US$175,000 in general allocation money and retain a sell-on percentage if the pick turns out to be one of the top three in the drafts.

They joined incumbents Simon Eaddy (goalkeeping coach), Cesar Meylan (director of performance) and Peter Galindo (performance analyst).

Jason deVos, Alex Dodgshon, Terry Dunfield, Robyn Gayle and Eric Tenllado, all part of former coach John Herdman’s staff, have left the club. Herdman stepped down in late November.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 19, 2025.