This Friday, Rapid City Stevens sophomore Zack Williams will say goodbye to his family and friends in western South Dakota to start a new journey with soccer in Phoenix, Arizona. Williams was recently selected to join the academy team of the Phoenix Rising Major League Soccer (MLS) club.
“It’s exciting, it’s something I’ve wanted since the summer of my sixth-grade year,” said Williams. “My goal is to go professional. So my thought was, if I need to go professional, I need to get on a good team, right under a professional team.”
Over the past few years, Williams has also spent time training and playing with the development academy for the Colorado Rapids. This helped open the door for the Phoenix Rising to come knocking and offer him an official roster spot with their academy club.
Although humble, Williams does say that in a sport like soccer, if you want to be great, you have to spend a lot of days working hard.
“To be the best, you have to be the best, you have to train when your coaches and others aren’t looking,” explained Williams. “You’re not just training during training hours, you’ve got to hit the field late at night, and you’ve got to keep hitting the weights to get big.”
Williams is both a strong club and high school soccer player. At Rapid City Stevens in 2020, he set the school record for goals in a single season.
“High school soccer has definitely helped me, because a lot of us kids who play club soccer play high school soccer [in Rapid City] as well,” Williams stated. “Everybody wants to win.”
Rapid City Stevens finished Runner-Up in 'AA' boys soccer this past fall.
Jeff Fierro is the head soccer coach for the Stevens Raiders, and he’s also Zack’s Advanced English teacher.
“He knows he has places to go, and he knows that doing that requires him to buckle down and get work done, whether that’s on the field or in the classroom,” Fierro said. “He has that mindset in both settings, and I think that’s going to really serve him well.”
When Williams moves to Phoenix, he’ll be staying with a host family. Because of the day-to-day training and season schedule, he plans to finish his remaining two years of high school in Arizona. For Stevens high school, this means they’ll be losing a great soccer player. But, as most will tell you, for some kids, this is how the process works.
“We’ll be cheering for him and hoping the best for him. Our loss, but that programs gain. He’s a great athlete and a great person. It’ll absolutely be fun to follow and watch his success,” mentioned Fierro.
“It’s obviously sad leaving my family and friends, but I’m just looking at the positive side, because this is my dream. I want to be a professional and this is just a step in becoming a professional,” Williams said. “I just tell my family and friends that this isn’t goodbye.”
