Tempted by offers to play overseas, Toronto FC goalkeeper Greg Sutton is the rare pro athlete that decided to follow the road less traveled, choosing family and country over potential fame and fortune to remain in North America, where he has carved out a solid career and without which he wouldn’t have met his wife.
“Sometimes I do think about what might have happened if I’d signed in Germany. I think everyone wonders how life would be if they’d done certain things. But I have no regrets,” says Sutton. “Some guys are always trying to go overseas because of the monetary values. For me, that’s never been a persuasive argument. I was comfortable here,” he adds, of playing for the USL-1’s Montreal Impact after brief MLS stints with the Chicago Fire and MetroStars.
The Canadian-born Sutton “has always come from the shadows to do unforetold things,” writes the Toronto Sun’s Bill Lankhof, being drafted out of small Division III school St. Lawrence University in upstate New York and rising out of his tiny Bethel, Conn., hometown to go on to win four back-to-back Goalkeeper of the Year honors (2003-06 in USL First Division) and earn 11 caps and counting for his home country.