Gone are the days of attention-grabbing Mohawk haircuts in the days leading up to the World Cup (there’s not enough hair there anymore, for starters). And gone are the days of a short fuse and hot temper that would results in regular red cards (both time and the presence of a wife and son have served to dampen that fire).
But still, Clint Mathis remains, returning to Real Salt Lake after a year in Greece and rejoining the league that made him famous, albeit now at the ripe age of 32. The Post and Courier’s Andrew Miller takes a look back at the enigmatic career of a player whose “passion and competitive drive” made him “one of the best American soccer players in the last 15 years.”
Miller follows Clint from his college days at South Carolina, to successful stints in big market cities like L.A. and N.Y.C., to the cover of Sports Illustrated, to his second stint in Salt Like City, where Mathis says he’s “planning on playing a couple of more years," adding “I feel really fit. I feel younger than I’ve felt in a while."