There are, as Tobin Heath put it, generally only a few reasons a player would knock on the door of a team's president without an invitation. And it isn't a list with a lot of positive entries.

But even if Gavin Wilkinson, general manager and president of soccer for both the Portland Timbers of MLS and Portland Thorns of NWSL, didn't expect the worst when Heath sought an impromptu meeting less than a year ago, he was surprised to learn her purpose. Heath knew Portland was to be among the initial participants in U.S. Soccer's Girls' Development Academy. She wanted to be involved. Not when she was done playing, which she most assuredly wasn't then and isn't now, but right away. And not in a ceremonial manner.

And that's how a recognizable name, the reigning U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year, became the new assistant youth technical director for the Thorns Development Academy.

"It was Tobin that started this conversation," Wilkinson said. "It was Tobin that knocked on my office door."

Tobin Heath was on hand at the May 10 Portland Thorns Academy tryouts at Providence Park. Sam Ortega/Portland Thorns

The 69 inaugural member clubs, including branded representation from nine National Women's Soccer League entries, will beginning this year fielding academy teams in four age groups spanning teenage years on a nearly year-round calendar. It mimics the boys academy system introduced a decade ago by U.S. Soccer.

An inventory of the mission and methods of the program could fill pages, not to mention elicit rebuttals at least as long in a soccer community in which few are without opinions on how best to develop young players. But all could presumably agree on an objective summed up this way: produce more Tobin Heaths.

If so, one Portland resident is uniquely qualified to help in that regard.

"I'm passionate about making this country and the youth passionate about football," Heath said. "To want to go out and play and feel that freedom to not have to have it be something organized, but to have it be organic and be driven by just a love for the game and a love for the ball."

She is still a curious fit as an authority figure at first glance. Heath has always been more free verse than iambic pentameter, an equal mix of genius and obsession in her command of the ball and in the way she sees the field. She is always in her own space. Even among peers who rarely spend enough time at home to keep the plants alive, she has been the nomad who wandered from continent to continent, city to city, couch to couch, following a ball.

"She has a love affair with that ball and with this game," Thorns coach Mark Parsons said.

And maybe that isn't such a strange means by which to influence others.

Parsons once sent Heath a link to some highlights of Arjen Robben, the Dutch winger who plays for Bayern Munich. Robben plays on the right and loves to cut inside. Heath plays on the left and loves to cut inside. There were some similarities that lent the clips relevance, but mostly Parsons just thought they were cool highlights. Soon thereafter Heath approached with analysis more suited to scouting video in advance of a championship game. She wanted to break down each move and talk about how she might be able to incorporate elements in her own game.