Friedman, shown here in earlier action, led the Crimson to its best finish in his college career. Harvard fell to Penn in the Ivy League Championship match.

On the day he turned 22, senior Ross Friedman got a present he had only ever dreamed about: a contract from Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew.

“I have been thinking about the Crew since I was young,” Freidman said. “I was super excited. It’s been a dream of mine for a long time.”

Friedman, a Columbus native, has trained with the team’s developmental academy since he was a freshman in high school. Although the MLS SuperDraft is not until Jan. 16, Friedman was signed early using the league’s Homegrown Player rule. The rule says that if a player has trained with the club’s youth development program for one year, then he can sign his first professional contract without going through the SuperDraft process.

“They invested in me at a young age when I played at their youth academy,” Friedman said. “They take that investment, and MLS rewards them with first rights to the local players.”

Friedman began to talk with the Crew after the Crimson’s season-ending loss to Penn. In his senior season, the co-captain led the Ivy League with 10 assists, good enough for seventh nationally. He will be the third Crimson player in the MLS, joining Andre Akpan ’09 (New York Red Bulls) and Michael Fucito ’08 (San Jose Earthquakes).

The Crew, who also announced the signing of Xavier midfielder Matt Walker on Tuesday, has signed seven players under the provision in the last six years. Walker played with Friedman on the 2011 Crew Juniors Super-20 team, which won the national championship.

“The youth program benefits from it since little kids from my hometown can look and see [hometown players] playing on the Crew,” Friedman said. “It builds on the local environment, and it’s exciting because we are number one in the league with the most homegrown players. These are guys that I played with in high school—it is a familiar environment.”

—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @CrimsonDPFreed.