A mob was forming. What was in the center was unseen, but a group of 30 IU soccer players were jumping up and down in celebration in front of the IU bench at Bill Armstrong Stadium.
After about 20 seconds, the mob broke. From it emerged a 5-foot-7, 150-pound midfielder. Tanner Thompson had just scored a goal to put the Hoosiers up 2-1 against Louisville in the 48th minute. IU would win by that score.
The Hoosiers were celebrating the goal, not just for its importance for their season, but also for their leader in the midfield. The goal was the junior’s first from the run of play and second overall. Both he and his coaches expected more at the beginning of the season.
Thompson said he hopes the floodgates are open now, but that was not the main reason for his celebration. He was also celebrating a potential game-winning goal in a crucial non-conference match.
Most of all, he was celebrating not losing, because there is nothing Tanner Thompson hates more than losing.
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Tanner never liked to be told what to do, so he played soccer, both because he wanted to and because the game fit his personality.
“I like how it’s not robotic,” Tanner said. “There’s no plays. It’s in the game, you make decisions on your own, and you’re not following a script or anything like that. It’s just spur of the moment decisions.”
As a center midfielder, Tanner was in control of the pace of the game and, in many ways, whether his team won or lost.
Growing up in Loomis, California, competition was fierce in the Thompson household. The three brothers would compete in almost anything, especially soccer.
There were juggling competitions in the front yard and soccer-tennis games in an extra room. Those soccer-tennis games got so heated at times Gregg Thompson, Tanner’s father, had to make them stop playing so they wouldn’t fight. He had to lock the door to the extra room.
“For the most part, they were verbal confrontations, and depending how verbal they got sometimes they led to physical fights,” Tanner said. “It was all good. It got our competitive spirit up, and that’s part of the reason why we’re so competitive now. We just grew up with that competitive edge.”
Gregg said if Tanner had been an only child he wouldn’t be close to the same player he is now. Tanner’s competitiveness and desire to be better got him to IU, Gregg said. If you lost in the Thompson household, your brother wouldn’t let you forget. You were made fun of until you were furious enough to do everything you could to get better — everything you could to avoid losing again.
“That feeling when you lose just eats away at you,” Tanner said. “Winning is obviously nice, but the losing aspect is just the worst. It ruins your week.”
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Ty, the oldest brother, was playing in a game. It was nothing serious — he was only six or seven. Tommy, the youngest, was busy playing on the playground — the monkey bars were his favorite. Tanner was sitting, watching, learning everything he could.
He was in his father’s lap, watching his brother play, already starting to understand soccer’s intricacies at a young age. Tanner wasn’t even old enough to play on a team, but he knew he wanted to be around soccer as much as he could.
Whenever he could watch soccer, he did. Once he was old enough to play, he knew more than most kids his age and didn’t hide it when he was on the field for his father’s team.
“I remember when he was younger, he was like a little coach on the field for me,” Gregg, said. “He would mimic everything I say and make demands of players like I would in practice.”
As he got older, Tanner’s soccer obsession only increased. Sometimes after games, the brothers and their father would be riding home and Gregg would say something about the game. Tommy and Ty would nod their heads and silently agree. Tanner, on the other hand, would let his father know if he disagreed.
“We would always get into — I wouldn’t say heated — discussions, but definitely discussions,” Gregg said.
Now at IU, Tanner is a little different from other college players. He understands the game at a different level, IU Coach Todd Yeagley said. He sees things other players don’t.
“He’s been around the game a long time. He’s watched a lot of soccer. It’s in his DNA,” Yeagley said. “It’s the way he understands the game.”
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To the casual fan, Tanner’s junior season has not been great. He only has two goals, one from a penalty kick.
He’s had some hard luck around the goal. He’s hit the post a few times and had some near misses. The goals aren’t coming for the attacking player. But he said he doesn’t care, because he’s not too concerned with scoring goals.
“I’ve always been more of an assist kind of guy,” Tanner said. “I’ll score goals occasionally, but for the most part it’s more assists, and I don’t mind that at all. I like setting up plays.”
Tanner has seven assists, the most of any Big Ten player. The number only increases if you include the number of goals he’s created for which he isn’t credited the assist. But he said he doesn’t care about the statistic; rather, he cares about how many times his team wins — or loses, for that matter.
“It’s why the other guys love him so much,” Yeagley said. “He’s obviously as talented as they come in the country at his position, but he’s all about the team.”
He’s always been this way — the assister and not the scorer. He has the Granite Bay High School record for assists in a season with 21.
For Tanner, standing out from his brother Tommy was difficult. He never was a flashy player and doesn’t like being viewed as one, he said.
While playing midfield suits his personality, it also suits his skillset. He wasn’t fast enough to play forward or big enough to play defense, Gregg said. So he became a midfielder.
“He had good ball skills and an ability to find passes and those other things, and that’s something that takes a while for somebody to watch and figure that stuff out,” Gregg said.
Tanner never had a lot of interest in the ball tricks Tommy would spend hours in the garage practicing, Gregg said.
Even his cleats, the cleats all three brothers wore, are non-descript. When the three were younger, they wanted brightly colored cleats, like most other kids their age. Gregg said he couldn’t believe it. These were 10-year old kids who wanted $200 cleats. He told them they all had to wear Adidas Copas, the cleats he wore in the Olympics.
Tanner still wears the Copas, which might be the least flashy cleats in all of soccer. Now he has a blacked-out version, mixed among the bright blue, green and yellow cleats his teammates wear.
“I don’t like being viewed as flashy,” Tanner said. “I don’t like all the flashy cleats and everything like that. I have blacked out Copas — old school.”
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Sometimes, watching Tanner play, it’s hard to tell he’s the creative playmaker in the IU midfield. Not because of any lack of playmaking ability — he has plenty of that — but because he does things no one else at his position does.
He’ll challenge for headers with players a half-foot taller, make 30-yard runs tracking back to break up a play or go in hard for a tackle and pick up a yellow card.
That last one is a problem, actually. With four yellow cards this season, one more means a suspension.
“He’s not afraid to get a little bit ugly and do some of the things we call role-player work as a creative player,” Yeagley said. “That’s why he’s really well-rounded.”
Understanding where Tanner came from, it’s not hard to figure out why he never quits on a play and does the kind of work not required of him. Not wanting to be in the limelight makes sense.
He said he’s used to opponents focusing on him. Instead of trying something flashy to beat the entire team, he’ll just play a pass to a wide-open teammate so he can score or get the assist.
As long as the ball ends up in the back of the opponents net more than his own, Tanner said he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to lose.
“It’s not even the fact winning’s so great, it’s just losing is the worst,” Tanner said. “To avoid that bad feeling you have to win, that’s kind of my mindset.”
