Mirza Memic pictured in '05 with his parents. Photo courtesy of Seattle Times
Geoducks Sign First Recruit for '09 Season
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Head Men's Soccer Coach John Purtteman announced the signing of transferring forward Mirza Memic, who currently attends Whatcom Community College.
Memic's hometown is Bellevue, Washington and he attended Newport High School, leading the Knights to the State 3A Championships and earned All-State honors. He led the KingCo League in scoring, netting an incredible season high of 46 goals his sophomore and junior years.
Comparisons are already being made to former Geoduck All-American great Joey Gjertsen and '05 grad who is currently playing professional soccer for the Montreal Impact.
Not an unrealistic compliment for a player that scored 26 goals last season for Whatcom, a tally that many teams would be happy to have for a season's goal total.
On Mirza's recent visit to Evergreen he found out what the record for goals in a season was, 27 in '03 by Gjertsen. Purtteman noted that Mirza was excited at the prospect of someday claiming title to that record.
For the 6'4" forward the journey to Evergreen has not been a typical college student story. His family immigrated to the United States when Memic (pronounced Mem-itch) was ten, leaving war-torn Bosnia when he was four and eventually settling in Germany before they were again required to leave. It was in Germany in which Mirza began playing soccer.
After high school Mirza attended Western Washington University on a soccer scholarship. Unfortunately the school was not a good fit for him so he transferred to neighboring Whatcom to earn his AA degree and continue playing soccer. At Whatcom he earned a spot on the NWAACC All-Star Team and helped the team earn a NWAAC Northern Region Championships title.
Memic was not only interested in the soccer program at ESC, the learning environment was attractive to him.
"A liberal arts education is what Mirza wanted" says Purtteman. "Evergreen stands out with our course offerings and approach to learning".
In addition to a stellar prep and college career so far, he also spent three years in the Olympic Development Program which pools top youth talent in the United States to prepare them for national play. Through that program Mirza was selected to play with US Team Diadora in the Gothica Cup Tournament in Sweden when he was 17. The trip gave Mirza experience against the top youth teams in Europe.
Mirza will debut as a Geoduck at the 2009 Arno Zoske Classic Tournament Labor Day Weekend this fall.