On a cold day in Falkirk, Scotland, Gordon Dent waited in his old green Nissan for his son Robel to get done with soccer practice. Every time Robel had a practice, he had been to the Shell station just down the street to get a newspaper for himself, a Lucozade sports drink and a Mars bar for his son to consume on the two-hour drive back to their home in Livingston.
“[The car] was such an ugly green,” Robel, senior psychology major, laughed as he recalled his childhood days on Falkirk FC’s under-12 team. “I loved the feeling of walking to the car to the heat he had turned up for me knowing those two things [were] calling my name.”
Robel was a soccer player at Union his last two years of eligibility, and in just a month he is going to join the Seattle Sounders’ under-23 squad. This scene was just a microcosm of his life trying to become a professional soccer player.
Robel remembers every time someone has helped him with his soccer career, whether it was being driven two hours to practice several times a week or being giving small pieces of advice. When I met with Robel for an interview about his signing with the Sounders, three questions about his career quickly turned into a half-hour conversation about the people who have helped him get to where he is. He had an offer to play for an NCAA Division I team last season, and he turned down a professional opportunity in Mexico to try to work his way through the Sounders’ system this summer. According to Darren Sawatzky, the Sounders’ head coach, Robel could get an opportunity to play professionally for Seattle’s team in the United Soccer League, the second-best league in North America.
In our interview Robel deflected the credit and made it clear that he couldn’t have gotten to where he is without the people he’s had supporting him his whole life. After the initial interview, he even reached out for a second meeting to make sure I had all of the information about the people who have helped him.
One of the first people he mentioned was Niklas Brodacki, who played for the Division I team Robel received an offer for in Arkansas, who gave him the contact information for the Sounders that ultimately gave him the opportunity to sign there.
Since NCAA athletes can’t be paid beyond their regular scholarship money, even basic needs become difficult outside of school. Dent’s aunts Blaine and Shefenna along with his older brother Ben and their families have helped him stay afloat financially though. Even the flight to Seattle would have been next to impossible without the help of his family.
As Dent keeps mentioning more names of people who have helped him in some way along this journey, it became apparent that I wouldn’t be able to fit them all gracefully into one article — names like Nicholas Doyle, Jonathan Wardlow and Will Montgomery, who supported him in his time playing for Little Rock’s semi-pro team over the summer.
He also mentioned several people who have helped him since he’s been at Union, such as his best friend Ces Lazarini and Hannah Kate Heckart, his closest and one his biggest sources of support since joining Union’s soccer team, who patiently stayed up late with him to help him train at the practice field.
“Hannah Kate played a massive role in supporting me,” he said. “She attended every single soccer game and she was always there for me.”
Robel even mentioned his trainers, Briamst Castro and Leo Cruz, and his assistant coach, Scott Sinclair, for giving him good advice and helping to teach him discipline throughout the process at Union.
“If you want to train with [Cruz], you cannot be late,” Dent said. “Never miss a training session or it’s done… I wanted a mentor who takes [soccer] seriously, so this was the perfect guy.”
Dent literally spent the last dozen or more years of his life training to become a professional soccer player, and his hard work along with that of everyone who has supported him might finally pay off if he plays well enough to make the Sounders’ USL team. If he doesn’t earn a USL contract this summer, Dent plans to finish his psychology degree in the fall while running for Union’s cross country team before trying to make it as a pro again next year.
