Thomas Dale’s Bates named boys soccer player of year

In the event that Will Bates does not become an international soccer star, he's working on a backup plan -- world-famous rapper.

That might be a slight exaggeration. Don't look for Willie the Squid and Project Trojans to be on MTV anytime soon, but Bates' soccer skills are the real deal.

The Thomas Dale forward can add Times-Dispatch player of the year to a list of honors that includes Central Region player of the year and Gatorade state player of the year. He's a member of the USA junior national team and has an eye on the 2012 Olympics.

This season he scored 19 goals and added 13 assists for the Knights, who were eliminated from the region tournament in a game Bates couldn't attend because of national team obligations.

That tournament took the team to Portugal, where they played one of the top-ranked youth teams in the world, the Germans, to a 0-0 draw.

"You never know, but I think the group we have coming up is pretty good," Bates said. "So far we have a 4-1-1 record overseas, and we've played two of the top teams in the world."

He'll get a rematch against the Germans at the end of this month, when he heads to Northern Ireland for the Milk Cup -- one of the top soccer tournaments for youth teams.

Next year Bates might attend the University of Virginia to play soccer, where he would reunite with another top player from Richmond, Brian Ownby of Deep Run. He might also head to Europe to hone his skills against the world's best players.

"Soccer is on a higher level over there for sure," he said. "We're improving, but we're still not on the level that they are."

Traveling with the national team has also given him the opportunity to build camaraderie with players who will form the core of US soccer in the future. The next Olympics are in 2012, an event open to players under 23 years old. Bates will be right under the cutoff at that time.

Of course, it will be hard for him to replicate the team atmosphere he had with the Knights, players he'd been around since he was young. During off days they'd hang out at his house, playing ping-pong and video-game soccer -- that is, when they weren't working on their burgeoning rap careers. (Album title: "Too Hood to be Good.")

"It's just good to have your team around you," he said. "Sometimes we'd have fun, and sometimes we'd get down to work."

These days Bates is having fun getting down to work, and he hopes it pays off in the coming years on the soccer field.

Contact Michael Phillips at (804) 649-6546 or .