Editor’s Note: The Portland Timbers are on the eve of their fifth season in Major League Soccer—and 40th anniversary of their first season in 1975—as they prepare for Saturday’s season opener against Real Salt Lake (7:30pm PT, ROOT SPORTS). There are five players on the roster that have been with the club all five years of its MLS existence: Diego Chara, Jake Gleeson, Jack Jewsbury, Darlington Nagbe and Rodney Wallace. All five have grown with the club and been a part of some memorable Timbers moments.
Throughout this week, we'll showcase a story a day about each of the five. Five players. Five days. 5x5.
Here are their stories.
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"I feel like I just embrace the culture here. I feel like I’ve embraced the fact that I am in Portland. I feel like I’m a different person than I was when I first moved out here, and I really enjoy the way of life here in Portland. I enjoy being a part of this team. At this point of my career right now, I feel like I’m in the right place at the right time."
--Rodney Wallace
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PORTLAND, Ore. - During the 2012 MLS campaign, when the results on the field were proving to make for a challenging season, there was one thing that kept Portland Timbers midfielder Rodney Wallace and his teammates in good spirits.
The players called it the "fine wheel" and, according to Wallace, it was one of the things that brought the locker room together.
It worked like this: anytime you were late to practice or if you broke a small team rule, you went in front of the entire team and spun a small wheel. Each spoke of the wheel had a penalty that the player would then have to fulfill in order to wipe away his infraction.
The players loved it.
"Hopefully, a guy would spin the wheel and he'd get a $100 fine and we'd make fun of him for the rest of the week," laughed Wallace.
Now entering his fifth season with the club, Wallace feels that both he and the club have grown considerably from that stage.
"Not many clubs in the league handle themselves in such professionalism as we do here," he said. "And I’ve seen that growth from the first year until now. It’s been an amazing change, and I’m just happy to be where I am now with this club."
When he arrived in Portland from D.C. United ahead of the Timbers' inaugural MLS season, Wallace was still a 22 year-old player who hadn't found the right position on the pitch.
With time though, Wallace grew into his role with the Timbers, serving wherever he was needed first as a defender, later as a winger. But it was head coach Caleb Porter who solidified Wallace's place in the midfield.
"Caleb came along and gave me an opportunity to play in the midfield, and I proved myself that I could get the job done there," he said. "And until this day I’m still proving myself. It’s an ongoing thing for me to prove myself, that I am capable of being in that position day in, day out."
Wallace more than proved himself in 2013 setting career highs in goals with seven and assists with six and was voted by his fellow players onto the inactive roster for the 2013 AT&T MLS All-Star Game.
After tearing his ACL and sustaining a non-displaced tibial plateau injury during the 2013 Western Conference Championship against Real Salt Lake, Wallace made an impressive and speedy recovery, returning to the team in June 2014. In 17 appearances last season, Wallace scored five goals along with one assist. The performance earned Wallace the 2014 MLS Comeback Player of the Year Award.
Wallace believes that, had it not been for the move to Portland, his life and career would be very different today. He met and married his wife in the Rose City and the couple welcomed a baby daughter last year.
"I feel like where I am now, it has a lot to do with the club, the environment, Portland itself, and just the people around me," he reflected. "I think there are a lot of good people in the club. The players aren’t just players. They pick these people out here with a purpose."
Few players, Wallace says, have been more important to the team, than the five who have remained with the club since 2011.
"They’re good locker room guys," Wallace said of Diego Chara, Jake Gleeson, Jack Jewsbury, and Darlington Nagbe. In fact, Wallace and Chara have been road trip roommates for many seasons.
"We’re very close. The whole lot of us are close, but it’s just nice to be able to share that with somebody else," said Wallace. "We’ve built that strong bond because of the club."
Above all, though, it's the city of Portland itself that Wallace singles out for praise.
"I think that this is a special city just because people recognize who you are, but at the same time they respect you and you give them that respect and they give it right back to you," he said.
"On the field it’s just about being humble players that will work for each other, and will go to war for one another," he added. "There’s not one guy in this locker room that you wouldn’t give it all for."
