Professional
While in college, Maher also played as an amateur with the Ocean City Barons of the Premier Development League (PDL). He spent three seasons with the Barons and in the 2004 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, the Barons played against the Syracuse Salty Dogs. At the time, his brother Anthony Maher was with the Salty Dogs. In the spring of 2007, Miami FC picked Maher in the first round (ninth overall) of the USL College Draft. Maher elected to finish his degree which caused him to miss the 2007 USL pre-season. Following graduation from Temple, Maher moved to Cary, North Carolina to live with his brother, Anthony, who was now playing with the Carolina RailHawks. Maher trained with the RailHawks, eventually gaining a contract offer mid-season. Maher made his first professional start against Mexican First Division side Cruz Azul. In 2007, the New Jersey Ironmen of Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) drafted Maher with the second pick of the MISL College Draft. During the 2007–2008 season, he was a Defensive Player of the Week, making him the first rookie to earn POTW honors. He scored his first career MISL goal on January 5, 2008 vs. Detroit Ignition. On January 7, 2009, he signed a contract with the Philadelphia KiXX of the newly formed NISL. At the time, his brother, Anthony Maher, also played for the KiXX. On March 1, 2009, Maher blew out his knee. A few days later, he was driving drunk when he hit and killed Hort Kapp. Maher was sentenced to five and a half years in prison in January 2010.
Read more about this topic: Matthew Maher
Famous quotes containing the word professional:
“Men seem more bound to the wheel of success than women do. That women are trained to get satisfaction from affiliation rather than achievement has tended to keep them from great achievement. But it has also freed them from unreasonable expectations about the satisfactions that professional achievement brings.”
—Phyllis Rose (b. 1942)
“The relationship between mother and professional has not been a partnership in which both work together on behalf of the child, in which the expert helps the mother achieve her own goals for her child. Instead, professionals often behave as if they alone are advocates for the child; as if they are the guardians of the child’s needs; as if the mother left to her own devices will surely damage the child and only the professional can rescue him.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“Three words that still have meaning, that I think we can apply to all professional writing, are discovery, originality, invention. The professional writer discovers some aspect of the world and invents out of the speech of his time some particularly apt and original way of putting it down on paper.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)