Read on Twitter
Looking back through the early days of MLS era Sounders, IMO an underrated (cc @CaseyDunau) Sounder was O’Brian White. Before the blood clot in his leg ended his career, everyone was super excited about him.
He was originally drafted in ‘09 by TFC after he scored bucketloads at UCONN. TFC was a trash fire at the time and he only scored 4 goals over his 2 seasons there. During the 2011 preseason he was left unprotected and taken by Vancouver, then dealt to us for a jar of pickles.
At the time, everyone was really impressed with his physicality. Lots of quotes about his muscular 6’1 frame and the dude could fly. He made an impression in preseason such that the Sounders felt comfortable terminating DP Blaise Nkufo’s contract in March 2011 when he wanted out.
After Nkufo was cut free, White found himself competing with Nate Jaqua, who had made himself pretty handy scoring 9 goals in all comps in ‘09. But he breezed by that challenge
By the middle of April he had solidly worked his way into prying Jaqua out of the starting CF role. Here is @bedirthan’s depth chart from 12 April 2011: https://www.sounderatheart.com/2011/4/12/2106265/seattle-sounders-depth-chart
He made an MLS team of the week after scoring against the Chicago Fire in a home 2-1 win, his second goal in two games. After 7 games started, he had scored twice, assisted twice, made a team of the week, and people were excited.
But then, tragically, on 27 April, an arterial blood clot in his left leg caused him to have emergency surgery in what was apparently a pretty scary situation, and leaving him out “indefinitely”. Pat Noonan was acquired shortly thereafter to make up numbers in the front line.
By 9 June, everything seemed like it had stabilized. White was back training and Joshua Mayer’s wrote this article, which quotes Sigi saying it shouldn’t be “season ending”. https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/sounders/sounders-fcs-obrian-white-recalls-blood-clot-scare/
White never fully got it back. After some further training and building back fitness, he managed to come on as a sub in the Man Utd friendly on 20 July and had a couple minutes in 2 other games, he had to have a second surgery on 27 August, as detailed here by @AaronCampeau:
Eventually, his condition got a point where it was no longer viable. He was placed on IR and his contract was eventually bought out by Seattle, but he was allowed to remain with the team and receive the medical help he needed. But he never played another competitive game.
A sad story, and unfortunately one of those “what could have been” moments. Sounders finished 4 pts behind the Galaxy in the Supporter’s Shield race in 2011. Having a healthy and scoring CF would have gone a long way in closing that gap.
