Real Salt Lake defender Chris Wingert in action against the Philadelphia Union on April 12, 2014, at PPL Park in Chester, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

By Peter Schwartz

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Last Wednesday was a hectic and whirlwind day for Chris Wingert.

A defender for Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer, Wingert was attending the MLS Players Association meetings in Las Vegas before flying home to Long Island later in the day to spend the holiday season with his family and friends.

In between the meetings and the trip to the airport, he was on the phone with five of his friends back in New York as they were all glued to their computers. They were watching the MLS Expansion Draft as both New York City FC and Orlando City were stocking their rosters with unprotected players from other teams.

Wingert, an 11-year MLS veteran, was left unprotected by RSL and was waiting to find out if he would be coming home to New York, moving on to Orlando, or staying put in Salt Lake City.

“It was crazy,” said the former St. John’s star. “There were so many moving parts and so many possibilities.”

The expansion draft consisted of 10 rounds with Orlando and New York alternating picks. With their first round pick, NYCFC took Wingert’s teammate with RSL midfielder, Ned Grabavoy.

As the picks and rounds went by, Wingert and his friends kept holding out hope that that Babylon native would be coming home. Then, with the final pick of the draft, NYCFC ensured the homecoming by taking Wingert. As it turns out, the feed that his friends were watching was a few seconds ahead of his so they found out first and starting going crazy.

Following eight seasons with RSL, Wingert was coming home but wanted to make sure his friends hadn’t jumped the gun.

“I kind of wanted to hear it for myself,” said Wingert. “Then I heard it while watching it on my computer so it was just a crazy, tense situation. I actually didn’t know for sure if it was going to happen until it actually happened.”

After the excitement of hearing his name called, Wingert spent about an hour with the other MLS players at the meetings before heading to the airport. When he arrived back home in New York, he had over 200 text messages and calls to go through as well as one very special person waiting for him when he got off the plane.

It was his mother, Noreen.

“My mom usually goes to bed at around 9 o’clock but she was there to pick me up at the airport at 1 a.m.,” said Wingert, whose family is understandably ecstatic over the news. “She was pretty excited. They’re over the moon and that obviously makes me feel good.”

After a stellar high school career at St. John the Baptist, Wingert went to college at St. John’s and captained the Red Storm to a Final Four appearance. He won the 2003 Hermann Trophy, which is college soccer’s equivalent of the Heisman.

Wingert, 32, was taken by the Columbus Crew in the second round of the 2004 MLS SuperDraft and spent two seasons with the team before being traded to the Colorado Rapids in 2006. Wingert’s stay in Colorado was short as he was traded to RSL during the 2007 season.

Now, his career has come full circle with his acquisition by NYCFC and his return home to New York.

Wingert had good reason to think he was Big Apple-bound because NYCFC head coach Jason Kreis was his coach for his first seven seasons with RSL. They won an MLS Cup together in 2009 and made it back to the championship game in 2013, only to lose to Sporting Kansas City.

After that loss, Kreis left RSL and signed on as the head coach of NYCFC. When MLS awarded a 2015 expansion team to New York, Wingert began thinking about a homecoming. Now with Kreis in New York, the chances were even greater.

But coming home would not have been possible had RSL not left him unprotected, something that he spoke with the team about a year ago.

“I have to give RSL a lot of credit,” said Wingert. “They were great at trying to accommodate me and I’m really excited for the opportunity with New York City.”

However, coming home does come with a price.

Wingert had spent eight seasons with RSL so there are many people that he now has to say goodbye to.

“It was a real emotional rollercoaster,” said Wingert. “As excited as I was to join New York City, I was definitely pretty sad about leaving an organization, a group of guys, and people in Utah.”

But now Wingert’s professional career will continue with NYCFC, a club owned by both Manchester City and the Yankees. His home pitch will be at Yankee Stadium, which is music to the ears of his father, Norm, a huge Yankees fan and a former professional goalkeeper.

“It’s going to be really special,” Wingert said. “My dad has been to hundreds and hundreds of games at Yankee Stadium, so for him to come watch me playing my home games there is going to be pretty cool.”

However, since Wingert grew up on Long Island, Shea Stadium was closer to home, so his dad took him to a lot of Mets games.

That meant developing a dual allegiance.

“In the 80s, when I was growing up, the Mets were pretty good and the Yankees weren’t so I grew up a little bit more of a Mets fan, but I still rooted for the Yanks,” admitted Wingert, who has chosen to break one of the primary rules of being a New York sports fan.

You just can’t root for both the Mets and Yankees!

“Most of my friends that are Mets fans kind of crushed me for that,” said Wingert. “But now that I’ve been out of New York for so long, I’m always rooting for both the Yanks and the Mets. Now, certainly, my allegiance is to the Yankees for good reason.”

Smart move, Chris!

Wingert is joining an NYCFC team led by international superstars David Villa and Frank Lampard. Kreis, along with Sporting Director Claudio Reyna, and the rest of the staff are leaving no stone unturned in putting a strong club on the pitch for its first season.

“Any time you get to play with great players as part of the organization it’s going to be really exciting,” Wingert said. “I think we’re going to be competitive right away.”

But regardless of how good NYCFC is, Wingert is going to be inundated with ticket requests. His parents could make things a bit easier for Chris as they are contemplating buying season tickets, but the local hero is still going to have some work to do to satisfy everyone.

“I only get four for each home game,” said Wingert. “I’m going to have so many requests. It’s exciting. I’m going to be getting as many as I can. The guys in the locker room will probably hate me after the first couple of games because I’ll be asking everybody for their tickets.”

Those tickets will be in especially high demand for the highly anticipated games against their cross-town rival Red Bulls. With two teams in town, the New York sports landscape now has its newest rivalry.

“We’ll see how that develops,” said Wingert. “I think it’s great. The Red Bulls have been very good as of late and have a good organization as well. Hopefully we’ll create a great rivalry with them.”

Chris Wingert was coming home last Wednesday regardless of what happened in the expansion draft. But after getting selected by NYCFC, it is going to be an extra-special holiday season for him, along with his family and friends.

I’m guessing Santa Claus is going to be leaving some NYCFC gear and tickets under the Wingert’s Christmas tree!

Welcome home, Chris.

Follow Peter on Twitter at @pschwartzcbsfan. You can also follow Chris Wingert @wingert17 and New York City Football Club @NYCFC

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