{"id":25641,"date":"2014-05-12T01:25:55","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T05:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=25641"},"modified":"2014-05-12T22:03:20","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T02:03:20","slug":"heaps-saw-greatness-in-dempsey-early-in-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=25641","title":{"rendered":"Heaps Saw Greatness in Dempsey Early in Career"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Kari Heistad\/capturedimagesbiz<\/p><\/div>\n

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. \u2013 The way Jay Heaps tells it, former teammate and\u00a0prolific goalcorer Clint Dempsey didn\u2019t immediately recognize what the greatness within him as a 21-year-old rookie.<\/p>\n

Back in 2004, the Revolution drafted the Furman midfielder eighth overall, and while every first rounder carries high expectations wherever he lands, it took a\u00a0few\u00a0starts for\u00a0Dempsey\u00a0to find his trademark swagger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was within 2-3 games of him joining the team,\u201d Heaps said. \u201cIt was a little bit of him trying to find his way, and then all of a sudden once he realized he was confident enough to play, he took off.\u201d<\/p>\n

And once Dempsey took off, plenty of people took notice. In his rookie year, the Nacogdoches, Tex. native scored seven goals and added an assist in 24 games en route to 2004 Rookie of the Year honors.<\/p>\n

But players, coaches and media within MLS weren\u2019t the only ones who made note of Dempsey\u2019s impressive form. Coaches from overseas clubs came calling, and it wasn\u2019t long before he was getting regular callups with the U.S. Men\u2019s National Team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first couple of national team games, he was feeling it out and (asking) \u2018what can I do here?\u2019\u201d Heaps said. \u201cWhen he realized that he was probably the best player there as well, his confidence went straight through the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though Dempsey\u2019s confidence carried him toward a move to the English Premier League with Fulham, another former teammate says that Dempsey always remained grounded.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was always a good guy,\u201d said Revolution midfielder Andy Dorman, who played with the Revolution from 2004-07 before returning last year. \u201cHe came into the league at the same time as me, so we always kind of looked out for each other, and made sure each other were doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Heaps, Dorman saw first-hand how dynamic Dempsey was on the pitch every week. But it was the way in which Dempsey played was what left an impression with the coaching staff and teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe played with a chip on his shoulder,\u201d Dorman said. \u201cIt must have been a nightmare for the opposition. Obviously, as a teammate, it was great for us, you\u2019d get a lift from his passion and his fight in every game, and never giving up on any tackles. \u00a0I think, as a team, we used that as one of our strengths.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Dorman and Heaps both agree that they saw bigger things on the horizon for their former teammate, one thing the Revolution coach didn\u2019t envision was the way he\u2019d return to MLS one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t expect him to come back and sign such a lucrative contract with MLS,\u201d Heaps said, with a laugh. \u201cI think that\u2019s a unique case with him and (Toronto\u2019s) Michael Bradley. I never thought that the league would be in that ballpark. But it\u2019s exciting for both, I think it\u2019s great for the player and great for the league.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revs coach Jay Heaps could tell ex-teammate Clint Dempsey was destined for great things during the midfielder’s time in New England. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[186,159,49,1274,63],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Dempsey1.png?fit=491%2C258","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25641"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25641"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25719,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25641\/revisions\/25719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}