Dec. 13, 2007
Greenville, S.C. --
Furman senior Jon Leathers, the 2006 and 2007 Southern Conference Player-of-the-Year, has been named a first team College Soccer News All-American, it was announced Thursday at www.collegesoccernews.com.
Leathers earned his second league player-of-the-year honor and third first team All-SoCon citation while guiding Furman to a 19-4-0 record in 2007. The defender helped Furman claim the SoCon regular season crown with a perfect 7-0-0 league record before taking the SoCon Tournament title and advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament with a 2-0 victory over Campbell in November.
The Athens, Ga., product, who garnered Furman University Male Athlete-of-the-Year honors and NSCAA All-South Region honors in 2006, recently was selected to the United States Under-23 National Team for training and a pair of matches against the Chinese U-23 team.
Leathers, along with teammate Shea Salinas, was selected on Thursday to participate in the 2008 adidas MLS Player Combine January 11-15, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The combine allows the 14 MLS teams to evaluate the nation's top players prior to the MLS Superdraft on January 18.
Leathers is the first Paladin to earn first team all-american accolades since Ricardo Clark was honored by College Soccer News and the NSCAA in 2002. He becomes the 15th Paladin to earn all-american honors.
2007 First Team All-America
Xavier Balc - Senior - Forward - Ohio State
O'Brian White - Junior - Forward - Connecticut
Patrick Nyarko - Junior - Forward - Virginia Tech
A. Bedoya - Junior - Midfielder - Boston College
Peter Lowry - Senior - Midfielder - Santa Clara
Bruno Guarda - Junior - Midfielder - SMU
Stephen King - Senior - Midfielder - Maryland
Julius James - Senior - Defender - Connecticut
Andy Iro - Senior - Defender - UC Santa Barbara
Jon Leathers - Senior - Defender - Furman
Brian Edwards - Senior - Goalkeeper - Wake Forest
