As a longtime American soccer executive, Curt Johnson is relishing a career first with his new gig: A clean slate.
Johnson, 56, was officially named the first general manager of Denver’s NWSL expansion franchise on Thursday morning. He comes to the gig after a stint as the Chief Soccer Officer of the North Carolina Courage, and he also previously spent time in the front office of the Richmond Kickers, Sporting Kansas City and North Carolina FC.
“Usually when you’re a new GM, you come in because there’s a problem,” Johnson said. “The team isn’t performing, or you’ve got to hire a new coach, or maybe the front office is struggling. I’ve never gone into an expansion situation like this, and I’m looking forward to it.
“And really, it’s even better than a clean slate because we have all this wind in our sails — 10,000-plus season ticket commitments, all of the team facility news. This is ideal.”
Johnson is Denver NWSL’s second major hire after the club tabbed Cherry Creek and CU alum Jen Millet as its president and first official employee last month. Johnson signed a multi-year contract with an option. He comes into the club that’s set to play its first two seasons at a modular stadium in Centennial before moving to a permanent home in Denver — a 14,500-seat stadium at Santa Fe Yards that was recently green-lit by the Denver City Council.
The Raleigh, N.C., native played collegiately at North Carolina State and is a member of the North Carolina Soccer Hall of Fame.
He’ll have a busy rest of the year ahead of him as he fills out the team’s leadership framework, in addition to building the roster from scratch. There is no expansion or college draft, so the entirety of Denver NWSL’s roster will be free agents.
Johnson, who is moving out to Colorado this weekend, has already started creating a list of player targets as well as candidates to be the team’s first head coach. Of notable coaches with Colorado connections, Lorne Donaldson — the longtime Real Colorado leader who was the Chicago Red Stars head coach in 2024 and part of ’25 — is the most obvious local candidate.
“We have a long list of coaches that we’ve narrowed down to a medium list,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t say we’re in the short list phase, but we’re working through our process on that.”
In addition to a head coach, Johnson will also be hiring an assistant GM, technical director, director of operations and player experience, and director of medical and performance.
“The goal is to hire the head coach as soon as possible, knowing it may take a little while … but the head coach hire is not going to hold us up from hiring some of the other positions,” Johnson said. “Some of these hires may be in parallel.”
While the NWSL’s 2025 season doesn’t end until the championship game on Nov. 22, the 2026 free agency period begins on Tuesday, July 1. When that date hits, Johnson and the Denver NWSL front office will have roughly six months to put together the roster. In addition to negotiating with free agents in America, the club can make contact with international free agents six months before their contracts end.
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Lindsey Heaps (nee Horan) is under contract with Lyon until summer 2026, so she could be a target, even if she’s not in kit at the start of the ’26 season. Sophia Wilson (nee Smith) has a player option with the Portland Thorns for the 2026 season. She is currently on maternity leave. And Jaelin Howell, now with NJ/NY Gotham Football Club, will be a free agent in ’26.
Johnson said the club will be targeting high-profile Colorado players, emphasizing that “we want this roster to have the DNA of Colorado soccer.”
“We’re certainly going to go after the best Colorado soccer players, as well as the best U.S. players and we’ll go after some great international players,” Johnson said. “That’s the best way to go about this. We think this is going to be a place where those who have grown up playing soccer in Colorado are going to want to play for.”
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