If there’s a level playing field to be found anywhere at an MLS club, where some make millions while others carpool to training with roommates, it’s in the sauna at the Seattle Sounders’ Starfire practice facility. That was the place where one of those millionaires, Clint Dempsey, often would hold court.
Dempsey could be guarded, curt and cautious. But once you were familiar, you could become something like extended family. And that was the case whether you were his playing peer, an assistant equipment manager or Aaron Long, a relative no-name whose most significant soccer accomplishment at the time was the All-Big West selection that followed his junior season at UC Riverside.