Former Santa Rosa student athlete just signed pro soccer deal

Frank Yallop has an admission to make.

The head coach of Monterey Bay Football Club, who counts two Major League Soccer Coach of the Year awards among his accolades, acknowledged he didn’t notice Ryan Dieter at first.

It was this past winter and Dieter, a soccer star at Santa Rosa’s Maria Carrillo High School before heading off to play at UC Davis, was trying to catch the eye of any professional teams.

He paid his way and showed up at a number of combines — essentially massive, multi-team tryouts.

Coming off a strong senior season with the Aggies, Dieter felt like he had the goods to play at the professional level. Even better, he thought he was showing those skills at these crucial combine events, despite their sometimes chaotic setting.

But he left empty-handed each time.

“I went to so many other combines and nothing,” he said. “The right people weren’t seeing me at the right time.”

Count Monterey’s Yallop among them.

“For whatever reason, I didn’t see Ryan,” Yallop said.

But he wouldn’t make that mistake twice.

When Dieter showed up at Monterey’s open tryout in January it took about four seconds for Yallop to register Dieter’s skills.

“He shone in the tryout with us,” Yallop said. “He stood out. I didn’t miss him again.”

From there, Yallop invited Dieter to the team’s training camp. It wasn’t an offer of a contract, but it was a chance for Dieter to play with the full squad and prove he could hold his own.

“He said, ‘We’d like to invite you to preseason,’” Dieter recalled. “That was one of the better days of my life. I got my foot in the door. Finally.”

Dieter said there were 11 “trialists” vying for three roster spots.

“Again, I was put in the situation where I need to fight for another foot in the door,” he said.

He didn’t start that preseason schedule on fire. “First week was tough,” he said.

But he kept after it. His play and confidence improved.

And in the second week of March, after months of not knowing if his dream of playing professional soccer was realistic, Dieter signed a one-year contract with Monterey and is now playing in the United Soccer League, one rung below Major League Soccer.

It’s an almost unheard of way of breaking in.

Granted, the Monterey club has only been around since 2021, but in its history nobody has been invited to training camp from open tryouts.

And not only did Dieter, along with four others, move from open tryouts to the club’s exclusive training camp, he actually signed a deal and joined the team.

He’s getting paid to play soccer.

“The moral of the story is keep going,” Yallop said.

No one needs to tell Dieter twice.

In the Crisp and Kelp’s home opener against defending USL Champions Phoenix Rising on March 16, just weeks removed from that simmering doubt that he would ever sign with any pro squad, Dieter got the nod.

He was entering the game.

“My heart was racing and yeah, I just ran a couple sprints, got my heart rate up some more,” he said.

Dieter, wearing No. 6 like he did at Davis, stepped on the field.

He was playing professional soccer.

And like he did at the open tryout, he took advantage of the moment, Yallop said.

“Ryan didn’t freeze, he was confident on the ball, creating a couple of half chances,” he said.

“Every time he gets the ball, he looks dangerous,” Yallop said.

That’s what friend and foe alike have been saying about Dieter for years.

For many who have followed Dieter, this latest move is likely no surprise. He was a standout with his Atlético youth club team in Santa Rosa — the one that won the U.S. Soccer National Cup Championship in 2019.

He dominated North Bay League Redwood opponents playing for Maria Carrillo and was named league MVP as a senior.

When a coach for an opposing squad was interviewed about how he was preparing to handle Dieter in the 2019 North Coast Section playoffs, he sounded like his preparation was founded more in awe than in strategy.

“He’s unreal,” the coach said. “We treated him like a normal player and that didn’t work. It’s one thing to talk about stopping him but it’s another thing to do it.”

When he committed to playing Division 1 soccer for UC Davis as just a junior, all signs pointed to an extremely bright future.

“Everyone was like, ‘You are going to go pro,’” he said of the time. “It made me believe I’m going to go pro as well.”

But Dieter makes no bones about it, the move from high school and club soccer to Division 1 was close to shocking.

“The level is so high, I was getting kind of slapped around,” he said.

His confidence waned. Just a little. “So, maybe going pro isn’t for me.”

Then he got to work.

He linked up with other young guys on the team who might have been feeling the sting of no longer being able to impose their will on the field, and they worked out in addition to regular trainings.

“I grinded with my teammates who were young,” he said.

For Dieter, at least, it worked. The left winger played in 71 games in his four years at Davis, starting in 35 of them.

His eight assists were second most in the Big West Conference his senior season, and he was named to the Big West Honorable Mention squad.

After he graduated in December with a degree in managerial economics, he turned his focus to soccer and those pro dreams. He signed up for those combines. And then … nothing.

So, he gambled a little. Open tryouts for the Sacramento Republic and Monterery were on the same weekend. Dieter measured his options.

Sacramento is an established squad with a rabid fan base. Plus, the club is right next door to Davis. It was perfect — maybe too perfect.

By Dieter’s way of thinking, Sacramento had their lineup locked in. So, he looked at Monterey. He called former Aggie teammate Max Glasser, who plays for Monterey.

All signs pointed to giving it a go farther south.

“I decided to go to Monterey,” he said. “Luckily it worked out.”

Dieter is a confident guy, but acknowledges that luck does play a role sometimes.

“You always have to be good enough, but a lot of guys are good enough,” he said.

He is trying to take advantage of the moments he’s given.

Scratch that.

He’s trying to take advantage of the moments he’s earned.

And it’s paying off.

When he came off the field after that debut appearance two weeks ago, the appreciation — for his work that night on the field, but perhaps more for the odds he beat just to be there — was real.

“Everyone, the coaches, my teammates, they were all super happy for me, congratulating me,” he said. “They said, ‘There is more to come.’”

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Instagram @kerry.benefield.