Friday's edition of The Sun included a notebook item on Maryland senior midfielder Adam Sear. The native of Perth, Australia will be competing for Team Australia at the 2010 World Championships in Manchester, England, and he called the opportunity to play "a dream."
"It's an honor," Sear said. "It's the highest pinnacle that we have in Australia. You grow up and see on the Internet all this stuff about the college game, but our peak is the Australian team. My father [Rod] was lucky enough to be the general manager of the last one, and he's the executive director of this one, and he's already got his green jacket with the emblem on it, and he definitely lets me know about it. But I was lucky enough to get chosen, and like I said, it's a dream come true. I can't wait to wear the green and gold."
Sear was discovered by Bob Shriver when the Boys' Latin coach was touring with a team in Australia.
"He asked me, 'Would you be interested?' I said, 'Yes, yes,'" Sear recalled. "It was surprisingly easy. It was something that I wanted to do. I didn't think about anything that was going to go bad. I was just so excited about the opportunity to come over here – especially to Maryland, a school with such a rich tradition, and it's always up there in the Top 10. … It's an amazing thing to be here, and I consider myself to be extremely lucky to be able to get over here. It was tough to say goodbye to the parents. There were a few tears when you leave, but my parents knew what I wanted to do and I was lucky enough to have two parents who told me, 'Go do what you want to do.'"
Sear said he hasn't been back to Australia since August 2009. While he misses his family and friends, there's one thing that Maryland just can't duplicate.
"The beach," Sear said. "I grew up a street away from the beach, but I never considered it a lucky thing to be able to wake up at 8 o'clock in the morning, walk across the road, and take a dip – until I came here and realized that we're 2½ hours away from a beach. I grew up around the water, so it was definitely a tough thing to give up."