Shep Messing

High school and college

Messing attended Wheatley High School, where he started playing soccer. He graduated from Harvard University in 1972 after playing on the school's men's soccer team. He was a two-time second team All-American.

National and Olympic teams

He joined the U.S. national team that played in the 1971 Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia. He went on to play with the U.S. team at 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The U.S. went 0-2-1 in group play and failed to qualify for the second round. Messing manned the net in the U.S.'s third game of the games, a 7–0 loss to West Germany. The Munich massacre took place 30 yd (27 m) from his room. Messing was protected along with 12 other Jewish members of the US Olympic delegation. He said: "It really forged a greater Jewish identity for myself at that moment than I ever had before... That was a turning point in my life as an athlete – and as a Jew. Words really can't describe it.... two German soldiers there with machine guys, saying come with them.... We have to get the athletes to safety. Then I realized that they were rounding up the Jewish athletes." After the Olympics, Messing received offers from teams in Mexico and Germany, but was invited to play for the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League (NASL), where his teammates would eventually include Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgio Chinaglia.

NASL

He made his debut with the Cosmos in a May 20, 1974 exhibition game with…

Messing was born in The Bronx, New York City, grew up in Roslyn, New York, and is Jewish. His mother, the daughter of a Russian furniture maker and his Latvian wife, taught physical education at Nassau Community College, his father was a lawyer who worked in Manhattan, and his paternal grandfather was from Riga, Latvia. Messing, along with his brother Roy, attended high school at The Wheatley School in Old Westbury, New York.

Club

New York Cosmos Soccer Bowl (1): 1977 New York Arrows Major Indoor Soccer League Championship (4): 1978–79, 1979–80, 1980–81, 1981–82

Individual

Major Indoor Soccer League Championship MVP (1): 1978–79 First Team All MISL (2): 1978–79, 1979–80 New York Sports Hall of Fame National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame Nassau County Sports Hall of Fame