Climb

Photography by Diana Hernandez.

“If someone were to write a story about my life fifty years from now, what would that look like?”

It’s a question that gets Richmond Kickers’ Chris Cole up every morning. And it’s a question that’s motivated him to pursue a career in soccer -- wherever that takes him.

“There’s been no big leaps in my career. It’s been like climbing up a ladder,” reflects Chris. “Getting to one notch, hanging there for a little, and powering through to get to that next notch.”

In that sense, Chris’ story encapsulates the reality of what achieving a dream in the North American soccer landscape means. Tryouts, cuts, emails, long drives, connections, sacrifices, and an unwavering conviction that stretching just a little farther can get you to that next notch.

Like for many kids in the U.S., Chris' first experiences with a ball took place in little league with a few children chasing after a ball. Chris had moved from North Carolina to Tennessee, and at the age of four, he was playing in his older brother’s practices trying to stay competitive amongst children three years older than him.

“I would join my older brother’s practices, and I would chase everyone around. At one point, my dad just had to pick me up and say, ‘Hey dude, you have your own practice too, you know.’”

His time in Tennessee was brief, though, and at eight years old, Chris moved across the country to Seattle, a hotbed for soccer in the West.

“I don’t remember it being a hard move,” says Chris. “As cliche as it sounds, I was playing all the big sports at the time, so when I moved up to Seattle, I was still able to play soccer, basketball, and baseball. That’s the awesome thing about sports, you just make friends with whatever team you’re on.”

After a few years playing club soccer in Seattle, Chris’ mom suggested trying out for Eastside FC, one of the biggest clubs in Washington.

“I would’ve been happy with just making the B-team and just working my way up. But the coach pulled me aside, and I ended up making the first team.”

Once Chris made the team, he became fully invested in soccer, dropping many of the other sports -- like baseball and basketball -- that he’d played growing up. “I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a pro athlete, right? Nothing crazy for a kid. And then I realized that soccer was probably my best bet at doing so, so I just doubled down on that.”

But Seattle posed a unique challenge for Chris… albeit one that would end up shaping the rest of his trajectory.

Unlike in the major soccer cities in North America, Seattle’s pool of young players only have three top college programs to strive for if they want to -- Seattle Pacific University (DII), Seattle University (DI), and the University of Washington (DI).

“Every Seattle kid wants to play for one of those three schools,” admits Chris, “so it’s very competitive because there aren’t that many options in the area, especially since there’s obviously a fixed number of roster spots,” he adds.

After a brief stint for the Lenoir-Rhyne Bears -- a college soccer program in North Carolina -- Chris knew the place to be was actually back in Seattle.

“I had gone out to this small school in North Carolina, and I knew I wanted to go back out to Seattle, but there’s only so many schools to choose from. I knew I wanted to eventually play professionally, so I figured the best bet would be for me to go to a well-known program.”

But it was easier said than done. Chris’ plan to go play for Seattle Pacific University didn’t pan out the way he envisioned. Due to strict transfer restrictions, there was no spot guaranteed for Chris, and he had to play at Bellevue College for one season in order to stay competitive while waiting an extra year for a real shot at making the SPU team.

“I had to wait a whole year, but I reached out to the SPU coach once again, and since I’d had a good season at Bellevue, he offered me a spot. I was the very last guy to commit in that class.”

While making the spot was a huge achievement for Chris at the time, the challenges were only just beginning.

“SPU has five national titles, so the program really sticks out. At the time, the level of soccer was the highest that I had played at, so that's when I had to start really dial in and be very detailed and focused. As you move onto the next level in soccer, there's increasingly less room for error, so that was my first realization that if I really wanted to play professional soccer, then I’d have to be super locked in at all times. Maybe I can't control right now if I'm the most technical player or if I'm the fastest player, but I can definitely be the hardest worker.”

Yet despite the hard work, things didn’t pan out for Chris as he’d hoped. It was his junior year in college, and he was barely making the traveling roster.

“I definitely had moments of doubt,” remembers Chris. “There were so many guys that I played with or played against that objectively had a better soccer resume than me. And I would see them be turned away by professional clubs or not be able to make it at the pro level. There would also be guys from great programs, even All-Americans, with numerous accolades that wouldn’t make the level I was trying to play at. So I would look at myself, at a relatively small school, struggling to see the field, and think, ‘Am I crazy? Am I delusional?’”

Despite those moments of doubt, Chris dug deep and stuck with his dream.

“I guess I was just too stubborn, though. There’s no way I was going to give up on trying to play professionally. I burned my ships, as they say, and threw away any plan Bs that I had. Even if it would take me five years after college to find a team, I was determined to figure out how to do it. Of course, I had those moments of self-doubt, but anytime you’re doing something worth doing, there’s gonna be a chance that you fail. You just have to acknowledge it and move on with it. So from there, that’s what I tried to do.”

Chris did end up finishing his college career making a solid number of appearances for SPU, but he didn’t get recruited or find any teams directly out of college. Instead, he had to show up to a Seattle Sounders U-23 open tryout to see if he could get his foot in the door of the semi-professional ranks.

“That year alone, there were multiple guys that got drafted in the MLS Draft, and it seemed like everyone up-and-down the roster went to a huge division one school. There were a lot of good players, so coming from SPU, it was pretty daunting. But I realized that once you’re out on the field, and everyone’s wearing the same uniform, it’s hard to distinguish the differences in level. The margin of difference is so small between the guys from a small school and the guys that are rumored to be drafted that it just really helped my confidence at the time.”

“I just thought, ‘okay, that guy is going to get drafted in MLS, and maybe I’m not at that exact level, but as long as I can improve and get in that same general level, then I will play professionally -- no question. And I kind of had no other choice. That has to be your mindset, or else you’ll doubt yourself and talk yourself out of things. I had to almost trick myself mentally to be able to push and get to that level.”

“Realistically, though, if you’d told me the actual chance percentage I had of going pro, I would’ve probably quit. That’s why sometimes you can’t even entertain the possibility of failure.”

They say if you tell someone you believe they can do something, they’ll generally prove you right. And that’s sort of how it went for Chris with the Seattle U-23s.

“There were two center backs that got drafted in MLS from that team, and obviously I didn’t. But I knew those guys were really good, and I wasn’t too far off. So my coach, after having seen me play for about five months, just told me, ‘if you keep working, you can get to that next level and play professionally.’ That was huge coming from my coach because he’d seen me play against very good, high-profile players. That was just another nudge to keep me going in the right direction.”

After his time with the Seattle U-23s, Chris reached out to coaches and attended open tryouts in hopes of finally getting the professional contract he so desired. But just as it happened for many young people in 2020, Chris’ ambitious plans to make it in his respective field were put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Everything shut down. But the cool thing about everything being shut down was that all my friends were back home in Seattle. Everyone I knew from SPU, Seattle University, and the University of Washington were there --  even some professional players that played overseas and couldn't leave the country. So we had a pool of probably 30-40 very, very good soccer players that would train together six days a week and then play 11v11 twice a week. Looking back at it, I think that's pretty cool.”

“I think that speaks to the passion and how much soccer means to a lot of people. I don't think there's ever been a 10-month span in my entire life where I've gotten that much better at soccer or improved at anything, period, than those months in 2020. The world was literally shut down, and we had all these guys that were just training. Given the circumstances and still being able to improve and actually see tangible results was awesome. That’s what set me up to finally make my dream come true in 2021.”

At the turn of the year, Chris started googling soccer teams all across USL. “I would look up the coaches on the club websites, message them on LinkedIn, and send my highlight tapes to anyone at these clubs,” says Chris.

One of the coaches that he was in touch with was Darren Sawatzky of the Richmond Kickers, who encouraged Chris to go to one of their open tryouts in January. Thanks to the extensive preparation he’d had in 2020, Chris impressed the coaching staff during the trials, and Sawatzky approached Chris with an offer.

“He called me and said, ‘Hey, we pretty much have a full roster, but you did well at the trial, so we're going to bring a couple of guys in for pre-season as trialists.’ Worst case, I would have been a practice squad player with the team all season. Best case would be making the team. All I wanted was a foot in the door. I was just hoping, praying for just a foot in the door. And if I get there and I'm not quite up to par then, so be it. I wanted a chance to prove to others, and maybe more myself, that I could play at that level.”

As soon as he heard the news, Chris flew over to Virginia Beach to stay with family during his time as a trialist. The one-hour-and forty-minute drive to the team facilities was worth it every single morning.

“If you think about it, a 1hr 40min drive to the grocery store is ridiculous. But for me, I’m driving to soccer practice. I get paid to play soccer. It hasn’t even crossed my mind to complain. That feeling hasn’t worn off, even a year later.”

In the end, after the trial period with the Kickers, Chris finally signed his first professional contract at the beginning of 2021.

“It wasn’t signed until after the first game of the season. I got into practice on Monday, and the trainer just told me Darren [Sawatzky] wanted to talk to me. At first, I thought, ‘man, what did I do?’ I didn’t want to assume anything good or get my hopes up. But when he said he wanted to sign me to the roster, I honestly felt a combination of gratitude and relief.”

“I have all these goals in soccer that go beyond signing a contract, but obviously, I can’t check those until I’ve actually signed a contract. I just knew it was another notch on that ladder.”

Since signing that contract, Chris has achieved quite a few more of those goals. From making his debut in USL, to becoming a starter, to bagging his first goal, to making the playoffs with the Kickers, it’s been quite a year for Chris.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to work my way into the starting lineup, take everything one game at a time, and tried to continue that slow and steady rise that’s been the story of my time in soccer.”

“I've worked 20 years to get to this moment, to earn the title of a professional soccer player. I'm proud of how far I've come. But to me, this is really just the beginning.”

Photography by Diana Hernandez.