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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — We all have our sports memorabilia collections, whether it be it a shoebox under the bed or a custom-built basement display that looks like a cul-de-sac Cooperstown. We all have an autographed ball or a box of ticket stubs, perhaps a jersey or two.
Chris Hegardt has a very nice assortment of jerseys, as most soccer players do, but his stash of shirts serves as a roadmap for the improbable career of the 20-year-old midfielder. From the youth league fields of suburban San Diego, through the soccer development ladder from Los Angeles to Europe to Seattle, to the NCAA College Cup and ultimately to the royal blue No. 19 jersey he wears now, as a rookie player with expansion MLS club Charlotte FC.
The jerseys Hegardt wears on the pitch cover up the scar that slices across his abdomen. The jerseys that hang on his walls, in his childhood bedroom back home in San Diego and in his still sparsely decorated Charlotte bachelor pad, cover up nothing. Instead, they reveal the story of a kid-turned-cancer-survivor-turned-man whose soccer dreams are still coming true. That’s especially true for a pair of uniforms handed to him by the same American soccer legend a dozen years apart.
“It feels so much better when you accomplish things knowing that you’ve overcome so much,” Hegardt says now, his bearded face framed by a perpetual smile. “That’s the goal, to inspire many more people to become a pro soccer player and be a good person. And for all those people that are sick to keep going and keep fighting.”
Now, the story of the first jersey.
It was December 5, 2009. Chris Hegardt was one month shy of his eighth birthday and spending his Saturday morning doing exactly what millions of kids his age do every weekend: He was playing soccer. But Hegardt was already performing at a level that most never reach. There was a building buzz around Southern California that he might be one the best in his age group not just in the area, but in the nation.
– E60: The Reunion:…
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Source : espn
