Frater Taken 15th Overall in Major League Soccer Super Draft

BALTIMORE, Md. - While many of their MLS counterparts had a busy day at the Baltimore Convention Center, making as many as six selections, the 2008 SuperDraft was a quiet day for the San Jose Earthquakes.

Head coach Frank Yallop and general manager John Doyle made just one pick, taking highly touted Texan Frater Shea Salinas (Gamma-Mu, Furman University) with the first pick of the second round (15th overall). At the moment, the Quakes are anxious to get quick results from their acquisitions and the technical staff believes that the Furman University product can contribute right away.

"We were looking for needs," said Doyle. "We need a wide attacking midfielder and Shea fits the bill for that, that's for sure."

Despite the fact that San Jose played host to an MLS club from 1996 to 2005, the Earthquakes' expansion status presents a unique set of pressures both on and off the field and for the time being, immediate contributions take priority over long-term growth.

"We have acquisition money and we want to make sure that we're getting players that can go right into our team, not players that are more developmental players," said the former MLS defender. "We have immediate needs to worry about and not developmental needs to worry about right now. It's tough going into it with somebody with no MLS experience."

The Quakes had already traded away the top overall SuperDraft pick to Kansas City in exchange for veteran defender Nick Garcia, and nothing that took place on Friday gave Doyle and Yallop any reason to second-guess that choice.

"For us it's terrific," said Doyle. "You look at the career that he's already had, he's a central defender and we were pretty excited to be able to get him. We didn't think we would. We had a lot of names thrown at us and we actually went to Kansas City and went after him specifically, and we were a little surprised that they let us have him."

The club has also made deals to acquire talented players like speedy striker Kei Kamara and standout goalkeeper Joe Cannon, and Doyle suggested that the club will be active in the international transfer market and may swing further trades within the league in the coming months.

"Kei Kamara is an exciting young player - I think if he was number one in the draft, we might've taken him," he said. "We like him, so we already picked him up. Ned Grabavoy is a terrific attacking player. Ivan Guerrero is a good attacking player. But I think we're going to look for some more attacking players - a striker, somebody who can fill up the goal."

Having picked up several other promising additions in the expansion draft, San Jose had little desire to give up any of those assets in light of the relatively unproven crop of youngsters on offer in the SuperDraft.

"We had a lot of teams ask us for the players that we drafted in the expansion draft, and we don't want to trade those guys," said Doyle. "We think we got great value and some excellent players out of that, [who] will contribute to our team over years."

Watch the Draft Announcement of Frater Shea Salinas (*Note you must have Windows Media Player to view this link.)

More Information on Frater Shea Salinas

In 2006: Tied for the most points on the team with 13...tallied a team-best seven assists on the season...came up big against Elon in the SoCon Tournament, scoring the game-winning goal and tallying an assist...also scored the winner and posted an assist in Furman's 2-0 victory against Charleston...recording an assist on the golden goal against Davidson...named first-team All-Southern Conference...a third-team NSCAA All-South Region selection... named to the PDL All-Conference team this past summer.

In 2005: Played in 18 matches while earning 17 starts...scored four goals and totaled four assists to rank third on the squad with 12 points...netted game-winning goal versus Appalachian State.

In 2004: Played in all 18 matches and registered four starts as a freshman...tallied two goals and one assist for five total points...notched first career goal versus Gardner-Webb on September 19.

Adapted from MLSnet.com news article and Furman University Athletics Page. If you would like to see your chapter news here, contact Communications Coordinator Tom McAninch.