Chris Seitz has clearly been one of MLS' top goalkeepers this season, with the best goals-against average and winning percentage among starting GKs, along with top-tier numbers in clean sheets (nine) and wins (14) as the No. 1 'keeper for league leaders FC Dallas.
What's less obvious to the casual observer is the true extent of the 29-year-old Californian's turnaround from a difficult 2015. And all of it has come in the wake of a life-saving, and career-threatening, bone marrow donation he made to a stranger four years ago, an act that earned him MLS W.O.R.K.S. Humanitarian of the Year honors.
The Los Angeles Times' Kevin Baxter profiled Seitz on Friday in the run-up to his FCD side's Decision Day visit to the LA Galaxy on Sunday (4 pm ET, FS1 in US, MLS LIVE in Canada), taking stock of the veteran goalkeeper's career year and looking back on “the most important save of his career,” the donation that saved the life of Phil Richiuso, a Navy veteran from Erie, Pennsylvania who was stricken with acute myeloid leukemia.
“He’s got a great moral compass about him,” said Galaxy 'keeper Dan Kennedy, Seitz's teammate in Dallas last season. “He’s just a good man. He has the trust of every single guy in that locker room. “He’s always going to do the right thing and he’s always going to lend a helping hand.”
It's an amazing story of selflessness and redemption, both on and off the field.
