Youth
Dempsey was born in Nacogdoches, Texas and, for much of his childhood, his family lived in a trailer park, where he and his siblings grew up playing soccer with the local children or anyone they could find. His older brother Ryan was offered a tryout for the Dallas Texans, an elite youth soccer club, and brought Clint, who was noticed and recruited while passing time juggling a ball on the sidelines. Dempsey became a standout on the team at an early age, but had to quit due to his family's time and money constraints as his eldest sister Jennifer was becoming a ranked youth tennis player. Several parents of his teammates with the Texans offered to assist the Dempseys with expenses and travel, allowing him to rejoin the club.
On November 27, 1995, Dempsey lost his then 16-year-old sister Jennifer to a brain aneurysm. Dempsey was devastated with the family's loss and later explained that this event helped him developed a deeper motivation to pursue soccer; in honor of his sister.
He went on to be the captain and high scorer of the Texans and was honored with the MVP of the Tampa Bay Sun Bowl tournament. Dempsey studied the play of Argentina's national team, especially Diego Maradona. Clint was heartbroken when the news came to Nacogdoches that Maradona would not be playing in the 1994 World Cup game played in the Cotton Bowl. He attended Furman University as a health and exercise major and a key player for Paladins soccer.
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Famous quotes containing the word youth:
““I don’t suppose there’s a man going, as possesses the fondness for youth that I do. There’s youth to the amount of eight hundred pound a-year, at Dotheboys Hall at this present time. I’d take sixteen hundred pound worth, if I could get ‘em, and be as fond of every individual twenty pound among ‘em as nothing should equal it!””
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
““You are old, Father William,” the young man cried,
“And life must be hastening away;
You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death:
Now tell me the reason, I pray.”
“I am cheerful, young man,” Father William replied;
“Let the cause thy attention engage;
In the days of my youth I remembered my God,
And He hath not forgotten my age.””
—Robert Southey (1774–1843)