The hundreds of thousands of fans who streamed from downtown Seattle to nearby Lumen Field this summer enjoyed six exciting World Cup matches. They were looking ahead to the semis and finals — not back.
Most had no idea of Washington state’s rich soccer heritage. The Seattle Sounders have been around, in one form or another, since the NASL days. Legendary players like Michelle Akers and Kasey Keller grew up there. A century earlier, in the 1880s, the game was being played by Puget Sound.
Frank MacDonald knows all that. And, for over a decade, anyone who logs on to Washington State Legends of Soccer — the site he co-founded and launched in 2016 — can know it too.
The goal is to “preserve, celebrate and inspire.” The organization administers a scholarship in the name of the late Jimmy Gabriel, runs an online museum, and sponsors special events.
It also may be the best site for a state’s soccer heritage in the country. Year by year (and era by era, in the early days), it offers an astonishingly robust report of just about everything of significance in the state’s soccer history. All levels are represented: professional (including long-forgotten leagues), college, club, high school and youth. There are videos, photos, lists (All-Americans, for example) and milestones (every boys and girls high school state champion).
The amount of detail is extraordinary. The research required is mind-boggling. There is even an introductory paragraph for each year and era, with information on what was happening then in the world beyond Washington (on and off the field).
If the level of information is impressive, there’s good reason. That’s been MacDonald’s career.
The Evergreen State native majored in communications, then was hired as a public relations assistant for the NASL Sounders a week after graduation. He spent 23 years at Seattle Pacific University, working with legendary coach Cliff McCrath. He joined the MLS Sounders in their infancy, handling web content and communications
The project began in late 2014. Washington State Youth Soccer Association president Doug Andreassen and youth leader Jim Boyle were mulling a Hall of Fame-type organization. A small group, including MacDonald and Leeann Johnson, moved the idea forward.
In 2016 McGrath, former coach and player Alan Hinton and Gary Wright, a Sounders executive, joined the board of directors. The organization achieved non-profit status the same year.
One of their first expenditures was for camera equipment. The plan was to interview important figures including National Hall of Fame members Whitey Craggs and Tom Webb, and others like Mike Ryan, who coached the first official U.S. women’s national team in 1985.
MacDonald and Johnson conducted the interviews. “The timing was right,” he says. “Many of the first ones we spoke with are now gone.”
The scholarship was originally named for Hinton, in 2019. He urged that it honor Gabriel, the Scottish international who played for and coached the NASL Sounders, became the first WSYSA coaching director, and later served as an assistant for the University of Washington’s men’s and women’s sides. Gabriel died in 2021.
Last spring, Washington State Legends of Soccer awarded six $4,000 need-based scholarships.
As soccer fans in the state and around the world discover the site, MacDonald hopes they’ll “go down the rabbit hole” it can open. Clicking Akers’ link may lead to much more about women’s soccer – including that former national team player Lori Henry returned to teach in the Shoreline, the town where she grew up.
The massive archive is the work of a small group. MacDonald — whose title is executive director — does the curating and writing. (As a side project, he posts a daily “This Day in Washington Soccer History” on social media.) Johnson handles photos, video and design.
Like the state itself, Washington State Legends of Soccer punches above its weight. Fundraisers to help pay for the scholarships and platform routinely draw 350 people. Longtime Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer emceed the most recent event, which honored Hinton and McCrath.
It’s a labor of love, for MacDonald and the board. “We’re keeping history alive,” MacDonald says upon the site’s 10th anniversary. “Hopefully, people are making their own soccer history here too. Years from now, our successors will tell those stories.”