A little more than 12 months ago, Griffin Yow was entering into preseason with Westerlo in Belgium. He had spent most of the previous season with the reserve team and prior to that, he was a seldom-used young player for DC United. While Yow had experience with U.S. youth national teams and was a member of the 2019 U-17 World Cup squad, he seemed like the most distant of candidates for these Olympics prior to the start of the season.

Even at the start of the season, Yow wasn’t close. He had a strong preseason with Westerlo but suffered a knee injury that kept him out of Westerlo’s first team until the end of October.

Once he returned to the field, however, Yow began a remarkable climb. He immediately broke into Westerlo’s starting lineup playing mostly as a winger and began putting up consistently strong performances. He ended the season with seven goals and seven assists in 2097 minutes.

Eventually, U.S. Olympic head coach Marko Mitrovic had to take notice and he called Yow up for the team’s March camp against Guinea and France. The U.S. team ended up scoring five goals between those two games and Yow either scored, assisted, or helped to create each of the team’s five goals.

After a strong finish to the season with Weserlo, Yow did enough to secure a spot on the Olympic team. His stellar year has made people question how far Yow can continue to go? Is this a blip, or is Yow truly maturing into a special player few saw coming?

Yow readily admits that the Olympics were always one of his goals, but he also doesn’t want to set limits on himself either.

“My goals have always been to play in the Champions League and to play in the Olympics, and play in the World Cup,” Yow said. “I definitely feel very, very good that I've reached one of those goals to be here at the Olympics. I would reevaluate my goals when the other two come. Until then I just need to keep myself humbled. Understand that I am very grateful. I am very blessed. I'm happy that things are going the way that they are. But I can't always say I want to have no roof on my career or now I can kind of take my foot off the gas and be happy about where I am. It's definitely important to acknowledge that I've come a long way, but also that there's more work to do.”

At the Olympics, Yow has continued to be among the most dangerous players on the U.S. team. Against France, he came off the bench, played well, and but had a goal called back in a loss. Then against New Zealand, he also came off the bench and assisted in the team’s final goal of a 4-1 win. His best game, however, was against Guinea in a 3-0 win where he made his first start of the tournament. While he didn’t score or assist, he was dangerous from the opening kickoff in forcing turnovers, getting the ball forwards, creating scoring chances, and drawing fouls.

When looking back at the past year, Yow is both philosophical and religious as he thinks about his journey to this point where he took his game to a level few expected or felt was possible.

“I'm a very religious person, so I just think that's what God had planned for me,” Yow explained. “I'm really blessed and thankful that it's gone the way that it has. Around the time I got to Westerlo, I had a big shift in my mentality and just letting God guide me and controlling the things that I can control and letting him do the rest - being the best, me that I could possibly be. Whether it was with the U-21 team, the reserve team, coming off the bench, or if I wasn't even on the roster - anytime that I could control something, I was just trying to do it to the absolute best of my ability.”

But looking ahead, his toughest challenge will take place on Friday when the U.S. team takes on a Moroccan team that has been one of the best teams at the Olympics after winning Group B ahead of Argentina.

“The team is going into it with a lot of confidence,” Yow said. “Especially based on our past three games. You could even include France in there because we had a very positive reaction to that. There were just little moments in the game where we just we didn't put away our opportunities. The next two games against New Zealand and Guinea were obviously really good showings from us. Going into this next game, we have a lot of confidence. It could be any opponent.”

That was be a huge test for Yow and the U.S. team but also one with huge opportunity. A win would put the U.S. team into the medal rounds and the chance to bring hope the program’s first top three finish on the men’s side.

“I would say I'm very happy and excited about the way that the tournament has gone, so far, and the way I've been playing, the opportunities that I've had. At the same time, understanding we can't be satisfied. The job is not done. We want to medal. We want to be standing up there at the podium.”

While that is important, Yow is also hopeful that continued success will bring enthusiasm for a program that has had a tough year on the men’s side after a tough Copa America campaign on home soil, and the dismissal of head coach Gregg Berhalter.

But the Olympics has a way of uniting American fans of all sports and Yow would love for his team to take advantage of this unique spotlight to give the fans tangible reasons for optimism for the future.

“We're here representing the United States of America -  not only the fans, but everyone that's in America,” Yow said with a smile. “We just want to make them proud. We want to make them feel optimistic. We want to make them feel happy. We want them to have hope in us and our team and the whole program.”