{"id":23028,"date":"2013-12-02T11:55:28","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T16:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=23028"},"modified":"2013-12-02T13:06:53","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T18:06:53","slug":"alston-wins-comeback-player-of-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=23028","title":{"rendered":"Alston Wins Comeback Player of Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_20583\" style=\"width: 465px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Kevin-30.bmp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20583\" data-attachment-id=\"20583\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?attachment_id=20583\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Kevin-30.bmp\" data-orig-size=\"\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"[]\" data-image-title=\"Kevin-30\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Revolution fullback Kevin Alston returned to the active roster on Monday three months after learning that he had chronic myelogenous leukemia. (Photo: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz)&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Kevin-30.bmp\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Kevin-30.bmp\" class=\" wp-image-20583 \" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Kevin-30.bmp\" width=\"455\" height=\"257\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20583\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left back Kevin Alston (right) was named MLS Comeback Player of the Year on Monday. (Photo: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Left back Kevin Alston became the third New England Revolution player\u00a0to\u00a0earn\u00a0individual post-season honors after he was named MLS Comeback Player of the Year on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Alston was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia, a rare but treatable form of leukemia shortly after coming off late in a Mar. 30 match against FC Dallas. He\u00a0missed nearly four months of action to receive treatment. He\u00a0returned to the pitch\u00a0on Jul. 27 at D.C. as a late-game substitute in a 2-1 win.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKevin has been an inspiration for our entire organization this year,\u201d Revolution president Brian Bilello said in a statement on Monday. \u201cIt was a shock to everyone to hear that someone so young and fit could be hit with this disease, but Kevin approached his treatment with such a tremendous attitude that it was no surprise that he returned to the field so quickly. We\u2019re very pleased his determination and spirit has been recognized by those around the league.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The fifth-year defender earned 35.42 percent of the club votes, 48.05 percent of the media votes, and 16.34 percent of the player votes for a weighted total of 99.81. Runner up Conor Casey, who hails from Dover, NH, received a 62.62 weighted total.<\/p>\n<p>Alston played in nine games during the 2013 season and started the Revolution&#8217;s\u00a0regular season finale at Columbus on Oct. 27. The\u00a01-0 win at Columbus\u00a0gave the Revolution their first postseason berth in four years.<\/p>\n<p>Alston is the first Revolution player to earn Comeback Player of the Year honors. Last week, Jose Goncalves earned\u00a0the Defender of the Year award, while\u00a0 Matt Reis picked up the Humanitarian of the Year honors.<\/p>\n<p>Alston is currently out of contract going into the 2014 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Left back Kevin Alston earned MLS Comeback Player of the Year honors on Monday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23028"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23038,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23028\/revisions\/23038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}