Josh Ford takes his college experience to Sounders

The U Conn player was taken in the Supplemental Draft, and so will have a tough battle to join the team if only carries three keepers. He does know the League a bit already though with friends, both former teammates and opponents, scatter around MLS, including one on the Seattle Sounders.

Dave Clark: You have the opportunity to join a team with a player who is on the short list of famous US soccer players, you don't even have to follow soccer to know who Kasey Keller is. How does that feel?

Josh Ford: It feels really good. To watch Kasey Keller when I was young and now be able to play with it feels great. Even just today watching him I learned a lot. About movement and technique and how clean he is. I'm inspired to be a good goalkeeper like that. From being underneath him and just watching that's one step in the right direction.

DC: You red-shirted a year, and then four years as a starter, that's a lot of experience and in keeping a lot of it is what you learn, as opposed to other positions stressing athleticism and prefer younger players. It seems in MLS being an older keeper is an advantage. Do you think sitting that year and then starting four straight gives you advantages?

Ford: It definitely helps. Being able to sit and watch, it was tough to watch because every year you want to be in the mix, but that helped me a lot in the long run. It allowed me to get used to the caliber of players I was going to go against and who was out there. Now I'm playing with one in O'Brian White. That alone helped me in the long run. That helped me, and I think that it was one of the better decisions I've made in my life. I had a great coaching staff, a great goalkeeping staff when I was there, by far it helped with a lot of my success.

DC: Being from the Northeast you didn't have a team that was followed like this, but they were around a lot longer than this what were those experiences like?

Ford: It was really cool. As time went on I started to learn about a lot more players, meet a lot more players. I ended up going to a few Revs games, and a Chicago Fire game because my friend Kwame Watson-Siriboe is with the Fire. It was good to meet new players, to watch it on TV in the dorm rooms when we're just hanging out during the MLS season. We liked to watch the games, see what's going on, watch the style of play and try and learn. We just all watch soccer and learn something from it. We always want to be one of those guys, to be on a video game. Why not watch a better player in MLS, and not just European soccer?

DC: You mentioned the dorms, so I have to ask. You played FIFA, what was your team?

Ford: I'm an Arsenal fan. I'm always playing with Arsenal, getting some Ws talking smack. It was all fun and games, dorm life was fun, but now I'm looking forward to getting in MLS and getting started.