Brad Otto was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Otto family migrated west to California just in time to start Kindergarten. He immediately fell in love with sports. Though his father was a great athlete, he unfortunately received his athletic ability from his mother. He would have preferred his mother's looks and his father's athletic ability. Despite his lack of size and speed he spent the majority of his childhood on the fields, courts, baseball diamonds, and golf courses of Southern California.

Brad started playing organized soccer at age 5. By the age of 12 he began playing club soccer. Brad attended Riverside Poly High School. Poly had a high powered team led by Coach Tom Tilson. At age 16 Brad measured in at 5 foot 90 pounds. Thus, he spent most of his High School career playing J.V. or cheering from the Varsity bench. Brad started college by growing nearly six inches his Freshman year. Then living in Southern Illinois, he played in the St. Louis Premier League for a couple of years.

Brad returned to California and finished his college degree in Kinesiology at Cal State San Bernardino. He returned to Poly High School to coach J.V. Girls Soccer. He moved on to Coach Varsity at La Sierra High School and Power Soccer. Brad found that the only thing better then playing soccer, was coaching soccer.