{"id":10841,"date":"2012-02-17T11:50:35","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T16:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=10841"},"modified":"2012-02-17T14:57:27","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T19:57:27","slug":"britains-newest-soccer-sensation-rural-texas-boy-looks-to-the-sky-after-each-goal-he-scores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/02\/britains-newest-soccer-sensation-rural-texas-boy-looks-to-the-sky-after-each-goal-he-scores","title":{"rendered":"British soccer sensation is a rural Texas boy who looks to Heaven after each goal he scores"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making\u00a0English Premier League\u00a0soccer history, the intense kid from rural Texas scored a \u201chat trick\u201d \u2013 three goals in\u00a0a single\u00a0match for Fulham. Only a few days later, did he it again — the first American ever to do so once, much less twice.<\/p>\n

And each time after Clint Dempsey scored, he looked to the sky.<\/p>\n

Only reluctantly will he tell you why. As a 10- and 11-year-old local soccer phenomenon, Dempsey\u00a0grew up outside of Nacogdoches, deep in Texas football territory.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Clint Dempsey looks to heaven<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There, he earned youth soccer coaches\u2019 attention — and dread — with his young hunger to score and his instinctual ability to \u201cfinish\u201d \u2013 to be there just at the right split-second to slam the soccer\u00a0ball into the net.<\/p>\n

Dempsey\u00a0recalls how as a 7- and 8-year-old, he loved kicking basketballs with Hispanic buddies with their bare feet on any available grassy patch with piles of rocks as their goalposts. If six kids showed up, they competed 3-on-3. If 12 came, 6-on-6. If it was 30 \u2013 including big sisters and little brothers, they played 15-on-15. They didn\u2019t need coaches or referees blowing whistles; they just played for hours, enjoying the sheer joy of soccer.<\/p>\n

As a third grader, “I was hooked,” Dempsey tells the British daily the Guardian<\/a><\/em>. “The popular kids at school would be like, ‘What are you doing, man?’ I played all the other sports, too. But I hated all the waiting to bat that you get in baseball. And there were too many stoppages in football. Soccer was continuous, free-flowing and exciting \u2013 and I was good at it too.”<\/p>\n

\u201cHis family could see he had talent,\u201d reports the Guardian<\/em>\u2019s Daniel Taylor, \u201cand when he reached 10, they decided to do something about it. His dad, Aubrey, drove him toDallas to trials for a club team called the Longhorns.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coach for the Under-12 team\u00a0threw a ball to the youngster, watched Clint do a few fancy moves he\u2019d learned from neighborhood buddies and their dads \u2013 and immediately declared: “I want him.”<\/p>\n

Easily 10-year-old Dempsey made the starting lineup for the — Continued on Page 2<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making\u00a0English Premier League\u00a0soccer history, the intense kid from rural Texas scored a \u201chat trick\u201d \u2013 three goals in\u00a0a single\u00a0match for Fulham. Only a few days later, did he it again — the first American ever to do so once, much less twice. And each time after Clint Dempsey scored, he looked to the sky. Only…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[988,32,102],"tags":[1911,1917,1912,1910,1915,1916,1913,1914,1909,1625],"class_list":["post-10841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athlete","category-christian","category-feature","tag-charitable-giving","tag-congress","tag-david-archuleta","tag-hallelujah-chorus","tag-layaway","tag-merry-christmas","tag-mormon-church","tag-secret-santa","tag-silent-monks","tag-soccer"],"yoast_head":"\nBritish soccer sensation is a rural Texas boy who looks to Heaven after each goal he scores<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/02\/britains-newest-soccer-sensation-rural-texas-boy-looks-to-the-sky-after-each-goal-he-scores\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"British soccer sensation is a rural Texas boy who looks to Heaven after each goal he scores\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Making\u00a0English Premier League\u00a0soccer history, the intense kid from rural Texas scored a \u201chat trick\u201d \u2013 three goals in\u00a0a single\u00a0match for Fulham. 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