Kyle Martino was a first-round draft pick of the Columbus Crew in 2002 and promptly won MLS Rookie of the Year and a Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup title. Now he’s on-air talent for NBC’s coverage of the English Premier League and the initial instigator of the epic Crew Legends Game from this past October.

On Wednesday night, he picked up the phone near the end of a break in an acoustic musical performance he was attending and we squeezed in some quick #SavedTheCrew talk.

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On how it feels now that the Crew are 100% officially saved:

Honestly. My first reaction is it feels similar, and I can’t find the words just like when I was drafted, but it feels similar to that day. I was in Italy with the Olympic team and I was with Edson Buddle and Brad Davis. Edson was already in Columbus and Brad and I were refreshing the MLS website trying to see where we would go. The internet connection was not great and it took a while to refresh. Brad went to New York before me, but then I found out that my dream was going to come true and I was going to play professional soccer. The Columbus Crew gave me that dream. Whatever it was that I felt on that day, in terms of the materialization and realization of a dream, this feels like that. To protect and save and continue something that means so much to me, it’s just personal. And as someone who can never shut up, I don’t have the words for it.

On Dr. Pete being part of the ownership group:

I would say it’s perfect. Dr. Pete used to fix us to get us back on the field, so of course he should be the one to fix the situation to keep the team there.

On what he’d say to the fan-led #SaveTheCrew movement:

You did this. Thank you.