MLS Commissioner Don Garber in January "signed a new five-year contract that will keep him in his position" through the end of '18, according to Grant Wahl of SI.com. The deal means Garber, 56, "will have served 20 years as MLS commissioner by the end of the contract." Garber will be 61 at the end of the deal, but he "demurred on whether he’d like to stick around beyond that." He said, "At some point in year three or four I’ll sit down and determine whether I go beyond 20 years, but 20 years is a long time to do any one job." Meanwhile, Garber "received good news on another front last Tuesday: He is now cancer-free and needs no further treatment after undergoing surgery for prostate cancer in July." He said, "I’m feeling good. I took a break during the month of August that allowed me to effectively recover. Now I’m back in the saddle and energized" (SI.com, 9/11). In L.A., Kevin Baxter noted Garber, who "joined the fledgling league in 1999 when it was [in] danger of sinking under heavy debt, guided MLS through several waves of expansion that has nearly doubled its size from 10 to 19 franchises." Two more teams -- NYC FC and Orlando City FC -- will join next season. It was also "under Garber's watch that MLS adopted the 'designated player' rule, which allows teams to go beyond the league's salary cap to sign up to three DPs" (LATIMES.com, 9/11).
