The former NFL man who saved professional soccer in America

The Soccer Don is going to the Hall.

Longtime Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame on Thursday in the "builder" category, in recognition for his work as the league's second commissioner, a stint he began in 1999.

Garber was typically self-effacing in his statement.

"Thanks to the commitment and hard work of many people, our sport has grown significantly during the last few decades and there is no doubt the United States is a true soccer nation," he said. "It is an honor to be inducted alongside Brandi Chastain and Shannon MacMillan, two iconic figures in U.S. Soccer history who have impacted the sport at so many levels. I am also thrilled that F.C. Dallas and Toyota Stadium will serve as the new home of the National Soccer Hall of Fame, providing soccer fans the opportunity to pay tribute to many of the great players, coaches and leaders in U.S. Soccer history."

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There wasn't a whole lot about Garber himself in there, but then again he has put his career in the service of his league for almost two decades now. And if he won't bask in his own glory, his recognition is nevertheless richly deserved.

When Garber took over, MLS was a 12-team league that was hemorrhaging money. Before the 2002 season, the upstart operation wasn't terribly far from going the way of the old North American Soccer League and folding. Instead, it contracted its two teams in Florida and pressed on with just 10 teams and three remaining owners. At the same time, MLS opened a new division, Soccer United Marketing, to monetize other live and televised soccer in the U.S., diversifying the league's revenue streams.

Under Garber's deft leadership, MLS doubled its number of teams in a decade, rid itself of problematic owners and most troubled stadium situations, grew its brand at home and abroad with a truckload of big-name signings, began developing its own players, built a nice portfolio of soccer-specific stadiums, kept the labor peace with the players, brought in a host of ambitious new owners, signed better TV deals and broke one attendance record after another.

Today, cities are lining up to pay a nine-figure expansion fee to join MLS. Within the next half decade or so, MLS will grow to 28 teams.

Perhaps somebody else would have done just as well – it's hard to say – riding the wave of soccer's cresting popularity in America. But there's little arguing that Garber has done a stellar job. Yes, salaries for the bulk of players remain stubbornly low, MLS's rules are ad hoc and its finances opaque, and he has refused to budge on the notion of creating two divisions and a promotion and relegation system, or opening the league up to lower-league winners. However, he works for the owners who have an investment to protect – an expansion fee and, in plenty of cases, years of losses – and he stabilized a wobbly league. As for the rules, he has acknowledged that MLS has to figure things out on the fly.

You can hypothesize what MLS would look like had Garber never left his burgeoning career at NFL headquarters. But in an intellectually honest and realistic assessment of things, plenty of alternative scenarios end with the league collapsing. Or at the very least being a good deal worse off than it is now.

It isn't much of a stretch to argue that Garber saved professional soccer stateside. Certainly, he had plenty of clever and capable men and women advising him. But he was the face of the league, preaching and practicing caution where it was warranted, and demonstrating boldness when it was time to ramp things up.

Which is all to say that his place in the Hall of Fame is well-earned.

Garber turns 59 later this year and has already survived a battle with cancer. He has hinted that he might retire when his current contract expires after the 2018 season. He will have put in almost two decades then. That strikes him as a nice time to call it quits. He'll have earned his rest, spending all these years crisscrossing the country, lobbying cities for venues, recruiting prospective owners and spreading the good word about his league.

But until then, there is more work to do.

With every passing round of expansion, the stakes are raised. For a while there, the picks were logical. Of course, Toronto and Philadelphia and Portland, Seattle and Vancouver should get teams. Bringing soccer back to Florida in Orlando was a no-brainer. And, yeah, another team in New York and a return to San Jose made eminent sense. But from there, things have gotten murkier. After Los Angeles gets another team, and Atlanta and Minneapolis do as well, the riskier proposition of Miami is likely next.

And then it might be the turn of Sacramento, St. Louis, San Antonio and Detroit to fill out those final slots – for now. How they would fare is hard to assess. Garber will have to guide the league to the right ownership groups, the right stadium situations. The strictness of the latter, once an ironclad prerequisite for a spot, has been diluted somewhat in recent expansions, leading to headaches in New York City and Miami. If Garber lets the standards slip now, he might undo a decade of good work with a few imprudent calls.

Meanwhile, he risks letting some of the league's older teams fall behind. D.C. United and the New England Revolution still play in wholly inappropriate mega-venues. The Columbus Crew, builders of the first soccer-specific, big-league stadium in the country, are due for a new facility. The Chicago Fire and Colorado Rapids are stuck in facilities too far from their downtowns, albeit nice ones, and have yet to gain significant traction with locals.

And then there's that objective of making MLS one of the world's best soccer competitions by 2022. That still feels very far off. The league may have crept into the top 10 globally in average attendance, but the playing product isn't yet near that.

But if Garber reads this, he likely won't be offended by the assertion that he still faces a mountain of mostly anonymous and thankless toil in his last years, however many there remain. He knows all this. And he'll get back to working on the once-monumental task of building pro soccer in the U.S., the scope of which he has painstakingly reduced to being merely manageable. Just as he has every day for almost 17 years.

He's a Hall of Famer now, recognized as a builder of our sport, but there's more building to be done yet.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.