BRIDGEVIEW – In a Chicago Fire locker room with a World Cup winner, U.S. national team members and a diverse group of MLS rookies and veterans from all over the world, Cary native Drew Conner tries to play a vital role: the man in charge of the music.

“Amazing guy. ‘DJ D Con’ is what we call him. He’s usually on the aux cord as much as possible,” third-year Fire midfielder and defender Matt Polster said. “Always dancing, bringing good vibes to the locker room.”

After a challenging rookie season spent back and forth between a last-place Chicago team and the club’s minor-league affiliate in St. Louis, Conner has established himself with the Fire this season, earning his first pro minutes and consistent appearances for a suddenly contending team.

Although only a second-year pro, Conner has been able to more fully integrate himself with the Fire this season, both in the locker room with his personality and on the field with his play.

“I just think it’s important," he said. "I think I saw a little bit of a lack of that actually last year when I came back from St. Louis. Of course, with the season we had last year, that doesn’t really help as far as good vibes go in the locker room, but that’s definitely something I think I bring to the table.”

The Fire have seen quite a turnaround in 2017, going from the worst record in the league last season to sitting in second place. They already have won more games than all of last season. Through 15 league matches, Conner has appeared in nine, logging three starts and 318 minutes.

“It’s been good. I think I’ve transitioned fast into a guy on the team who can either start or come in and play minutes now,” Conner said. “The fact that we’re winning games and doing really well makes it that much better."

At halftime of last Saturday’s match at Toyota Park, Conner’s parents, Tom and Patti, were sitting where they always do, seven rows up from the sideline, only a few sections over from midfield. Conner waved to his parents as he warmed up for what ended up being a 31-minute substitute appearance.

Tom Conner recalled when his son joined the Fire Academy, a youth soccer program operated by the Fire, and they brought him to Toyota Park to walk out of the tunnel and show what might be possible. It was a vision that fit the way Drew approached his sport.

“He always, at a very early age – probably age 10 – he had a very serious mentality for soccer,” Tom Conner said. “… At a young age he was so immature in other ways, but on the pitch he was very business-like. … He approached it at a very young age like a pro.”

The elder Conner played collegiately for Eastern Illinois University under Schellas Hyndman, who went on to be an MLS coach, but said he learned a lot from his son's preparation.

“When I played college soccer, I never thought in a million years you would start hydrating for a match on Tuesday when the match is on Saturday,” he said. “I learned from him. We didn’t have the academy. We played on gravel in Grant Park. It’s stuff like that that he learned at a very young age that he brought to the next level.”

Conner fulfilled his dream a year and a half ago, signing as a Homegrown Player in December 2015. During the 2016 season, the Cary-Grove High School and University of Wisconsin alum made 12 appearances on loan for Saint Louis FC but didn’t make an MLS appearance for the Fire.

“Last year it was very difficult because, obviously, I didn’t feel like he deserved to be in St. Louis, especially with such a horrible team last year," Tom Conner said. "I felt that Drew should have been given a chance."

This year, however, everything has been different.

“This year, he really feels like he can get a foothold on a permanent position,” he added.

Conner said that the mental aspect of his first professional offseason was important and helped lead him into a strong preseason that put him in a position to play more.

“I think going from the college season and then having prepared for either the combine or to get signed homegrown, there was never really a break there,” he said. “I think it’s more of a mental break than anything that players need, so in the offseason I took a good two weeks off and I just started thinking about my game and where I was struggling, where I’m strong.

"A lot of it just had to do with my mentality and being able to just kind of be confident with myself and my abilities."

After playing well in the preseason, Conner got his MLS debut out of the way in the season opener, coming on for a brief substitute appearance against Columbus Crew SC. He appeared in one of the next three games, getting 11 minutes at Atlanta United, before what he said really felt like his debut, a 35-minute substitute shift at home against Columbus.

“I kind of gained some momentum and just have been consistently training at a higher level,” Conner said. “Making my debut our opening game in Columbus, even though that was like three minutes, it was nice to get the debut out of the way and off my chest. It kind of helped me to just train and look forward to [getting] on the field as much as possible.”

After another substitute appearance and a couple of games without seeing the field, Conner got a surprising bit of news at the airport as the team headed for a game May 6 in Los Angeles: He would start against the five-time MLS Cup champion L.A. Galaxy.

Although his parents don’t miss a home match, Tom Conner ended up in attendance for the first start on a hunch. He now travels to road matches as frequently as he can, as well.

“Two weeks before, he goes, ‘I just have this feeling he’s going to play in L.A.,'" Patti Conner said. "So he booked a flight, and I’m like, ‘You’re nuts.'"

Conner went 75 minutes, his longest outing of the season to date.

“It was sick. It was really cool,” Conner said. “I was just really excited to have been given the opportunity. ... It was a lot to take in, and it was really exciting, but I was just happy to be out there. My adrenaline was going.”

He’s since made two more starts, come on as a sub twice and been an unused sub twice. He started and went all 90 minutes in a shutout win over Saint Louis FC on Wednesday in the Fire’s first U.S. Open Cup match.

Conner’s increased minutes have come with a shift of position. Naturally a defensive midfielder, he has found more time on the field at right back after the Fire acquired three prominent new midfielders – Bastian Schweinsteiger, Dax McCarty and Juninho Pernambucano – in the offseason.

“We have a ton of center mids and not a lot of wide backs, and the opportunity kind of presented itself in the last couple weeks,” Conner said after his first start at right back. “The coaching staff had kind of mentioned the idea of me playing there later in preseason, because we had a lot of trialists come in at right back, and we hadn’t signed any. We just were going through a bunch of guys."

The toughest adjustment in moving to the back line, Conner said, has been learning a different kind of awareness.

“The biggest thing is just not taking a break mentally, always staying clicked in and focused,” Conner said. “A guy can drive the ball to the other side, and all of a sudden you’re sprinting with one of the fastest players in the league.”

Now, finally watching their son as a pro after years of driving from Cary to academy practices or Wisconsin games, Tom Conner still is envisioning his son's next steps.

“I predict that in the future – Drew’s been the captain of the Fire Academy, the captain of Wisconsin – I think he feels like he can have the same leadership qualities at a pro level, too,” he said. “It only makes sense because he’s been seasoned and been kind of cultivating that leadership since he was 15 all the way up to the academy and University of Wisconsin."

The Conners said they’re not particularly nervous watching their son play anymore. If, however, Conner’s next milestone happens to be a goal, his father has promised a special celebration. The passionate, towering former college athlete is confident he can cover the seven rows and evade security.

“I did tell Drew that if he scores,” Tom Conner said, “I’m going out on the field.”