Student athletes garner scholarship attention for school, club participation

Year round student athletes at Airport High School, specifically soccer players, work by playing club and school soccer to increase their chances of being seen by college coaches and to garner scholarship attention. Now that the spring season has begun, our soccer players, especially the seniors, are hustling harder than ever.

Any athlete (freshman through seniors) wanting to play college soccer needs to know this information because during the spring season, whether at school or in club, is when the senior athletes sign to the college they choose to play at.

This issue is also important because to play club soccer costs money whereas school soccer is effectively free. The average costs per season is different depending on the club. For example, one of the cheaper ones, LCGSA (Lexington County Girls Soccer Association) is $225 plus the uniform fee. Club also keeps you on teams with other players your age and skill level. School soccer is free other than the athletic fee of $50 but has the added benefit of allowing players to interact on a team with a variety of ages and skill levels.

When a person plays on a club soccer team, he or she will likely be seen more by college coaches. Depending on the club and the coach one plays for depends on how many college showcase tournaments one will go to. For example this past season, playing for TSC, the coach took the team to the Gatlinburg College Showcase Kickoff where there were 42 college coaches from all over.

“If a player wants to be recruited by a certain college,” said Keith Morris, the head coach for Varsity Girls’, “I’ll email the coach and invite them out to games and send them Hudl film.” Coach Morris has served in this role for at least fifteen years.

Dale Bacino, club coach at TSC and Varsity coach for AC Flora, said, “The biggest difference is the purpose in why the players play. School pride vs athletic pride.” Coach Bacino has been a coach for seventeen years.

“The more you put yourself out there gives you more chances to be seen,” said Coach Morris.

The people who play club in the fall are usually the ones who for sure want to play in college and improve skill levels, whereas if they play just high school soccer they usually just do it for fun and to play with friends.

According to the 2014 statistics from US Youth Soccer, 3,055,148 teens in the US play soccer, so the odds of a college scholarship are low to begin with.

The top five soccer clubs in the us are United FC, Bulls soccer club, Rapid, Technical Soccer Club, and GPS Lexington. For more information you can visit their websites.