WASHINGTON TERRACE — Former Mountain View soccer star Mike Chesler understands his dream of one day being a professional soccer player may not come true.
But he's going to do everything in his power to make it a reality.
That's why he traveled across the country this summer from his university in North Carolina — High Point, where he's starred at goalkeeper the past two seasons — to Utah to play for the Ogden Outlaws of the Premier Development League.
You see, when you're an up-and-coming soccer player like Chesler, getting high-quality minutes on the pitch against high-level competition during the summer months is vital, and that's precisely the opportunity the Outlaws afford their players — to get quality minutes against quality opposition.
"It's all about getting minutes," says Chesler, who played for a PDL team in the south last year but came back to play for the Outlaws this year in part because he could also train with Real Salt Lake "every once in a while."
"It is huge because if you can't play, you can't develop. I mean, you can train and practice and practice and practice, but you just can't simulate game action. To sit here and play 90 minutes every single game to get ready for the fall is huge, as opposed to playing six games because you just see 200 more opportunities if you (play more)."
Providing an opportunity for Utah's brightest soccer talents to be able to play during the summer months was the main impetus behind creating the Ogden Outlaws back in 2006 and subsequently bringing them into the PDL.
"The whole idea when we put the team together was to allow a lot of Utah kids to come home from college during the summer and have a place to perform in a professional setting while they continue their development (and) they're getting ready for college in the fall," said owner Mike Hickman. "Our goal is to try to get young players mixed with a few older players to help integrate them and see how to act like professionals and work like professionals and how to take care of your bodies a little bit.
"We try to send them back to college better than when they came."
For the most part, the Outlaws, who finish up their 2010 season tonight in California, have been successful in achieving that objective. There have certainly been exceptions — as you would expect — but Hickman feels the players that have come through his team have returned to their colleges better than when they arrived.
An Outlaws player has been selected in the MLS SuperDraft in each of the past two seasons — Kyle Christensen of Layton was taken two years ago, and Nick Cardenas of Colorado was taken last year — and while Ogden has struggled on the field over five years against arch-rival BYU, which has used the PDL wonderfully in its own way, and the rest of the league, the Outlaws have perennially had several of their players go on to accomplish big things.
"What everybody in the PDL is trying to do — develop players in a professional setting as much as possible — we've had some success where some teams haven't," says Hickman. "Our record hasn't shown that we have quality, (but) every year we've had guys on the all-conference team. Every year we've had guys that have performed even though we haven't performed well as a team."
One guy who clearly performed during his time with the Outlaws was Christensen.
One of the best players in the history of the state, Christensen shined with the Outlaws — and at the collegiate level — before going on to being drafted by MLS. Neither he nor Cardenas was able to stick in MLS, but it was nonetheless a high honor to be chosen.
Christensen is the biggest local name to have played for the Outlaws, but he's not the only big one to have featured in Ogden's side. Indeed, there have been many stellar local guys who have donned Outlaws' jerseys over five years, and further developing those players is an enormous priority to both Hickman and first-year coach Rob Karas.
"I love having guys that you read about in the paper that were all-state or all-area now coming out and trying to be on this team," says Hickman. "Unfortunately, I still don't think we're getting all the best kids. I think a lot of kids either don't know about us or maybe think it's not worth their time or for whatever reason aren't spending their summers here."
That isn't to say, though, there isn't already a lot of talent on the Outlaws' team. Indeed, Chesler is part of a stellar list of local players, and Mike Farfan, a standout for the University of North Carolina, is at the top of the list of out-of-state players.
Hickman has worked tirelessly to create an entertaining product for local soccer fans to watch, and he hopes more and more people will be exposed to the players he's trying to help develop as the years roll along.
"I just hope that more people can come get to know what the Ogden Outlaws are all about," he says.
e-mail: drasmussen@desnews.com