The Earthquakes announced on Monday the signing of midfielder Will Richmond to a Homegrown Player contract for the 2022 season with club options through 2025. Here are five things to know about the Quakes’ newest Homegrown:
1. He becomes the ninth product of the Quakes Academy to sign with the first team and eighth since December 2016. San Jose now has seven Homegrown players on its first team roster heading into 2022 (Cowell, Fuentes, Marcinkowski, Ochoa, Richmond, Thompson, Walls).
2. Richmond joins the Earthquakes after playing for Stanford for the last four years, tallying 11 goals and 11 assists in 72 appearances (49 starts). His best season came in 2020 when he ranked top-10 in the Pac-12 Conference in both goals (5, t-8th) and assists (6, t-3rd).
3. The 21-year-old led Stanford to two Pac-12 championships (2018, 2020), helping them finish third place nationally in 2019. He earned All-Pac-12 First Team honors in 2020 and All-Pac-12 Second Team honors in 2021 and was also a two-time Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll recipient (2019, 2020).
4. Richmond, born in San Francisco and raised in Piedmont, competed for the Quakes Academy from 2016 to 2018 after playing for De Anza Force Club (2015-16) and Ballistic United Soccer Club (2014-15).
5. Richmond was teammates with Quakes defender Tanner Beason at Stanford during the 2018 and 2019 seasons.
