THE FRONT ROW with BRUCE BOURQUIN, Dec. 19, 2014

Overcoming an injury-filled youth, 16-year-old Lake City High sophomore Travis Swallow became the first boys player from Coeur d'Alene in more than a decade to make it to the 18-player Olympic Development Program Region IV team, which is made up of the 14 western states.

This came after five years of knocking on the door, before Swallow broke it down.

TODAY AT the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., located 51 miles south of Tampa, the 5-foot-9 center midfielder from Coeur d'Alene is playing in an interregional tournament with all four regions through Sunday.

"They will pick some players who may replace some national team members," Swallow said. "They play in other countries."

The last area player that made a regional team in ODP was Tanner Williams of Sandpoint in 2008. Swallow made the team out of thousands across the region who tried out.

Swallow eventually wants to see if he can play college soccer at the NCAA Division I level, then perhaps try out for the Portland Timbers or Seattle Sounders Academy teams. He's got a long way to go until college, but for now he said he wants to go into physical therapy and is looking at possibly playing at Gonzaga University.

MIKE THOMPSON, a former Gonzaga assistant men's soccer coach from 2001-2011 and a former Zags attacking midfielder, is the director of the Sting Soccer Club. He coached Swallow from seventh through ninth grade.

"There's no doubt he's definitely a college player (talent-wise)," Thompson said. He's got work to do to get even better, get adjusted to the speed of play. Florida's going to be a challenge for him. Where he lives, it's hard to replicate that kind of speed."

Thompson said Swallow has played forward and midfielder for the Sting and has been the leading goal scorer on his teams.

"Travis is super competitive," Thompson said. "Because of that, he puts in a ton of extra work, he does all the little intangible things, he always seeks advice, something that a lot of kids don't do. He's very strong, he's got above-average speed, he's very lean, knows how to use his body to initiate contact. He's right-footed but his left foot is equally strong."

He scored two goals for Lake City, which won the 5A Region 1 boys soccer tournament, went 1-2 at the state 5A tournament and finished 16-2. Swallow scored both of his goals in the same game, a 2-0 win over Coeur d'Alene. One of his first touches as a varsity player was a goal in the 72nd minute, followed by a strike in the 74th.

"Travis can play different positions," said Lake City coach Chad Beadell, who in 1996 at age 18 made it to the ODP region team as a goalkeeper. "One of the things was he was banged up, so to be 80 to 90 percent and still contribute and for a sophomore to give me good minutes on an older team is amazing. He'll have a blast and it'll be a good experience for him."

Swallow loves the options he has as a center midfielder, which is similar to a point guard in basketball.

"You try to get the ball away from your opponent," Swallow said. "You have a lot of freedom, you find penetration in the defense. You get the through ball to the outside."

SWALLOW BOUNCED back from tearing both his hip flexors in his freshman year.

"My first tear was during a JV game in October against CHS (Coeur d'Alene)," Swallow said. "The second was about three months later practicing with an older team. Both times I was taking a shot when they tore. I tore my left hip in the game and my right one second, during the practice. I missed a lot of ODP work for that but this past summer, I finally came back healthy."

But Swallow grinned and bore it, and began the six-month road to recovery.

"It took a lot of physical therapy to rebuild the scar tissue," Swallow said. "I worked out three times a week with a trainer and then three times a week with some coaches."

That wasn't the first time Swallow had to battle injuries. Like during his first attempt at making an ODP team, when he was only 11 years old.

"I ended up making it to that camp in (McMinnville) Oregon," Swallow said. "But I dislocated my shoulder the first game of the camp. So after that, it set me back, so I ended up not doing it the next year and the year after that (in 2011) it was, see how far I can make it, do my best. I ended up making it to the camp again, not making it any further. So after that, I really wanted to make it to the (Region IV) team. I put in a ton of extra work in the offseason and I only ended up tearing up my hip flexors."

THE FIRST step toward making the Region IV team was the first tryout in Boise, before going to another one at Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore., 40 miles southwest of Portland.

"They picked 100 kids from half of the region and they put the north states in a subregional pool in Sacramento, Calif.," Swallow said. "I came out of Sacramento and it was a three-day camp. There was another camp going on in the southern part of the region with another 100 kids or so and in each of those camps, they picked 20 kids and they went to a camp at Linfield College in McMinnville over the summer. So in Oregon there were about 40 to 50 kids and out of that they chose 18 to represent the regional team and that's where I'm at now."

RYAN SWALLOW, Travis' brother and a senior who played with him at Lake City this past season, helped convince Travis to play for the high school team, as opposed to playing for Washington East, a club team out of Spokane. Ryan plans to attend Montana State to study engineering. Travis said Ryan could one day take over for John Swallow, the boys' father, who owns several small businesses. One of them is The Depot on Third and Lakeside in downtown Coeur d'Alene, which John bought two years ago and remodeled it to look like the train station it once was.

"My parents wanted to see us play on the same team," Travis said. "I'm glad I did, because it was an awesome year. I got to learn a lot from my teammates.

Erin Swallow is the boys' mother and she does bookkeeping for the business.

"We were really happy," Erin said of Travis making the regional team. "With all the hard work he's done, it's paid off, he stuck with it. It was hard for him to sit on the sidelines (with the injuries)."

And now Travis is roaming free, trying to take his soccer game as far as he can go.

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013 or via e-mail at [email protected]