Kasey Keller, Sigi Schmd, Mooch Myernick elected to National Soccer Hall of Fame

Kasey Keller, Sigi Schmd and Glen "Mooch" Myernick are going to be American soccer immortals. U.S. Soccer announced that the trio have been elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame, where they will live in American soccer lore.

Keller is the most notable of the trio, having played 102 matches for the United States and been on four World Cup teams. He holds the U.S. record with 47 clean sheets and was twice named U.S. Soccer Male Athlete of the Year, while also enjoying a long European club career that took him to the Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga. Between his outstanding play for club and country, he was an easy choice as a first-ballot inductee.

Schmid has been a coach for 35 years and is one of the most successful that American soccer has ever seen. First he was a coach at UCLA, where he won three national titles. He also served on Bora Milutiovic's staff at the 1994 World Cup, managed the U.S. at the 1991 World University Games, the 1995 Pan American Games and twice coached at the U-20 World Cup. That was all before making the jump to MLS, where he has become the league's winningest coach. He has twice been named MLS Coach of the Year, captured an MLS Cup with the Galaxy and Crew, won the 2000 CONCACAF Champions League and has taken home the U.S. Open Cup a staggering five times.

Myernick has a long career with the U.S., beginning as a player in the 1970s. He was the team's captain in 1978 and also won the 1976 Hermann Trophy at Hartwick College. He began coaching in 1993 when he was an assistant with the U.S. U-20 team and had roles with the U-17 and U-23 Olympic teams as well. He led the Rapids to the MLS Cup final in his first season as their manager in 1997 before becoming an assistant for the U.S. senior team. There, he helped the Americans to the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup and stayed on through the 2006 World Cup. He passed away at the age of 51 just months after the tournament.

Somewhat surprisingly, this year's induction class is made up entirely of men and none of them have ties to the women's game. While that isn't especially shocking at face -- the men have a much longer history in the sport than the women -- it is when you consider that the women's team has been much more successful and players like Briana Scurry have yet to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. It's not a matter of who did get into the Hall of Fame, especially when all three inductees are phenomenal, but another person or two would probably have filled out the class nicely.

Congratulations to Keller, Schmid and Myernick. All three are deserving inductees who have done a world of good for the sport in this country and deserve to have their accomplishments remembered for generations to come.