The good old days are still vivid memories for Dawson’s Callum Wood Ryan.

The 16-year-old soccer star recently wrapped up his first season with the Real Salt Lake youth academy in Casa Grande, Ariz., when his U18 team was bumped from State Cup competition.

“It’s crazy,” Wood Ryan said this week. “I grew up in Dawson and I never even played outdoor until I was 10 years old.

“I remember playing in the school gym Wednesday nights once a week, and then on the weekends with my buddies,” he recalled. “I never even joined the Yukon Strikers until I was 12 and I didn’t even make my first Arctics – I was cut.

“So if I can do it, other kids can too, as long as they put their minds to it. They’ve got to want it more than anything else.”

Wood Ryan became the first Yukoner to join a professional soccer academy full-time last summer.

In 30-plus games, the left midfielder scored two goals while playing more of a “provider” role with the elite U17 squad – a first year program for the Arizona academy.

“Our team was actually pretty good,” Wood Ryan told the Star.

However, due to a shortage of players on the U18 squad, Wood Ryan was one of the players called up for the senior group’s playoff run – which ended after just three games.

Wood Ryan said his season felt surreal at times.

The youngster landed his position on the team following a six-week training camp last summer.

His daily schedule included before-school workouts at the academy gym, followed by after-school training and workouts five days a week. Games were played on the weekend.

“The facilities are crazy,” said the Grade 11 student. “They’re $20 million facilities.

There’s eight fields, six of them lighted.

“There’s a huge indoor centre where the gym and the classrooms and study rooms are. The dorms are right on the complex, too. I wake up and walk 30 seconds to the gym and the fields.

“It’s what I dreamed about ever since I was a kid.”

He was one of two Canucks on the Real Salt Lake U17 roster.

Winnipeg’s Aaron Hidalgo-Mazzei just got called up to play left back for Canada’s U18 national team.

Wood Ryan’s training will continue until late May, and he is expecting to return to Whitehorse for at least a month this summer.

He said he has received an invitation to return to the academy next season, but is weighing his options to see what is best for his career.

Wood Ryan said his hope is to play college soccer and then attempt to go pro.

According to the club’s website, Grande Sports Academy is the only full-time residential academy affiliated with a Major League Soccer team.

U.S. Soccer named the facility the West Conference’s Best Training Facility for the past two seasons.