Three days into 2012, Jeff Parke received the call he’d been waiting a lifetime a lifetime for.
The former Drexel soccer star was watching TV in his Abington home, recovering from his morning workout and resting for his afternoon one, when the phone rang. On the other end was Jurgen Klinsmann, coach of the U.S. national team. The next morning Parke boarded the first flight from Philadelphia to Arizona, where the team was training, and three weeks later, he took the pitch against Panama, earning his first U.S. cap and fulfilling his life-long dream.
“It happened so fast,” he said. “I was sitting on the bench, I didn’t know if I was going to get in. … Once the guy on our team got a red card I was like, ‘Oh man, I think I’m going to be going in.’ Literally 10 seconds later the one coach comes up and says ‘Get ready, you’re going in.'”
If Parke’s entrance into the game was sudden, his ascent to international competition was anything but. By the time the Downingtown native left Drexel after four years to pursue professional soccer, he was recognized as one of the finest defenders in the country. Major League Soccer’s New York Red Bulls took the defenseman with the 60th and last overall pick in 2004 SuperDraft. He became a Seattle Sounder in 2009, and last year had one of his best seasons yet. He was named the club’s 2011 Defender of the Year.
Klinsmann took notice. When Omar Gonzalez, the MLS Defender of the Year, was injured, Parke was tapped to replace him. The defender played about 35 minutes in the Americans’ 1-0 victory in Panama. Though he didn’t see the field in a later game against Venezuela and wasn’t among the 21 players selected to face Italy on February 29, Parke holds out hope that he’ll get another shot with the national team.
“I’m always looking forward to possibly getting called in,” he says. “At the end of the day, I’m also 29 years old. I know the direction the U.S. team is going.
“I’m just happy that I got a cap. If anybody ever asks, I can say I played in a game for the U.S. … It’s funny how things happen. Nothing for me is really the easy way, but somehow I got there. I always believed that I was good enough to get called in. I just never got the opportunity. Better late than never.”