Youth
Dempsey was born in Nacogdoches, Texas and, for much of his childhood, his family lived in a trailer park, where he and his siblings grew up playing soccer with the local children or anyone they could find. His older brother Ryan was offered a tryout for the Dallas Texans, an elite youth soccer club, and brought Clint, who was noticed and recruited while passing time juggling a ball on the sidelines. Dempsey became a standout on the team at an early age, but had to quit due to his family's time and money constraints as his eldest sister Jennifer was becoming a ranked youth tennis player. Several parents of his teammates with the Texans offered to assist the Dempseys with expenses and travel, allowing him to rejoin the club.
On November 27, 1995, Dempsey lost his then 16-year-old sister Jennifer to a brain aneurysm. Dempsey was devastated with the family's loss and later explained that this event helped him developed a deeper motivation to pursue soccer; in honor of his sister.
He went on to be the captain and high scorer of the Texans and was honored with the MVP of the Tampa Bay Sun Bowl tournament. Dempsey studied the play of Argentina's national team, especially Diego Maradona. Clint was heartbroken when the news came to Nacogdoches that Maradona would not be playing in the 1994 World Cup game played in the Cotton Bowl. He attended Furman University as a health and exercise major and a key player for Paladins soccer.
Read more about this topic: Clint Dempsey
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“I cannot give them my confidence; pardon me, gentlemen, confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom: youth is the season of credulity.”
—William, Earl Of Pitt (1708–1778)
“Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142. This is no time to be flitting about the earth. I must cease from the activities proper to youth and begin to take on the dignities and gravities and inertia proper to that season of honorable senility which is on its way.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)