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DeAndre Yedlin's Story


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http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024518529_soundersyedlin16xml.html

Even though I've become friends with Ira and Vicki, I've always been hesitant to ask about how they came to be DeAndre's guardians and to raise him. This is a tremendous story of some really awesome people.

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Well, his poor touch led to the counter attack, so he had better be fast. :nono: Amazing recovery speed! Great hustle!

Mistakes happen sometimes. Awesome when you can and care enough to make up for them almost immediately!

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http://www.mlssoccer.com/24under24/news/article/2014/09/25/discovering-deandre-how-seattle-sounders-found-developed-deandre-yedlin

A few excerpts...

By then he’d also caught the eye of Akron head coach Caleb Porter, who had served as an assistant with the US Under-18 team when Yedlin was called in as a junior in high school. The Zips won a national title in 2010 using an aggressive and effective right back in Kofi Sarkodie, but there was a hole in the lineup after Sarkodie departed for MLS, drafted by the Houston Dynamo in 2011.

The Sounders played it safe, and Yedlin went to Akron. Sounders assistant Kurt Schmid watched him play a number of times his freshman year and Yedlin returned to Seattle the summer after his freshman year a more confident player. The faults that hurt him during his younger years – a sometimes clumsy first touch and errant crossing – had improved, and he was beginning to truly grasp when to best use his speed in attack so that his team wouldn’t get caught on the counterattack.

Yedlin returned to Akron his sophomore year and excelled again for the Zips, leaving no doubt about his professional future. The Sounders made him the franchise’s first-ever Homegrown player in January 2013 and unveiled him at the MLS SuperDraft in Indianapolis four days later.

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  • 1 month later...

How to make it in America

..."For his college coach Caleb Porter, it was Yedlin’s “fearlessness, mixed with a positive attitude, and a refreshing level of naïveté” that allowed him to leap from college to Major League Soccer to the World Cup before he could legally buy a drink. “I don’t think he thinks too much about the magnitude of the things that he’s doing,” said Porter. That might be the young player’s most useful quality."...

..."It’s strange to think of DeAndre Yedlin as a late bloomer, since he featured in a World Cup as a 20-year-old, but Yedlin “was very much under the radar” entering college, said Caleb Porter, Yedlin’s coach at the University of Akron. Although Yedlin attended several U.S. youth national team camps, he never featured regularly, and many college coaches were unsure how his skill set would translate to the collegiate level. He was projected to be a winger, and they wondered if he had the technical skill, tenacity, and size to succeed as an attacker, but Porter had a different idea.

“I immediately saw a potential standout right back,” said Porter, the current coach of the Portland Timbers. “I get kids all the time that are forwards who shouldn’t be forwards, so it’s pretty normal to take a kid out of position.” In Yedlin, Porter envisioned a modern attacking fullback in the mold of Dani Alves."...

..."Yedlin credits Porter for his development into a player who was ready for the professional leagues. “There were times when I absolutely hated him,” said Yedlin. “It seemed like during my freshman year, he’d always be getting on me.” But Porter’s exacting standards forced Yedlin to change the way he evaluated his own play. Porter “made me mentally stronger and judge myself a little bit harder, which is something that I needed,” Yedlin explained.

After two years with Porter at Akron, Yedlin faced another choice: return to Ohio and finish out his collegiate career or accept a contract offer from his hometown club to become the Seattle Sounders’ first “homegrown” player in 2013. Porter advised Yedlin, “If you’re ready to do this, it’s going to be a step up. You’re thrown into this environment where it’s money and it’s business, and mentally you have to be ready for it.” At 19, DeAndre Yedlin was ready for both the glamour and glare of being a professional."...

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And another reason to love Caleb Porter.

Yep. Jared may think he's doing these guys a favor by not getting on them, but he may actually be doing them a disservice. Worth repeating...

Yedlin credits Porter for his development into a player who was ready for the professional leagues.There were times when I absolutely hated him,” said Yedlin. “It seemed like during my freshman year, he’d always be getting on me.” But Porter’s exacting standards forced Yedlin to change the way he evaluated his own play. Porter “made me mentally stronger and judge myself a little bit harder, which is something that I needed,” Yedlin explained.

Edit: I hope there's at least some "hell" going on out of sight. I still think that holding the team on the field and making them accountable immediately after something like we saw Saturday is the way to go. A couple of Crew players told me Sunday afternoon that they hated going through things over & again in the circle (back in college) and that it was motivating to try to avoid it.

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  • 4 weeks later...
DeAndre Yedlin leads nominees for US Soccer Young Male Athlete of the Year

Seattle Sounders defender DeAndre Yedlin leads the group of nominees for the U.S. Soccer Young Male Athlete of the Year, announced on Thursday.

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  • 6 months later...

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