Beau Dure writes of college soccer's continuing influence on Major League Soccer and the US national team.
College soccer is to American soccer what newspapers are to today's media. Fewer people are paying attention to it, top talent is being drained, and critics are lined up to shovel on the dirt.
Half of the 30 players in camp vying for 23 slots on the USA's World Cup roster, as shown in this compelling study of class and ethnicity at the blog Pitch Invasion, went to college but left early. Nine players -- including cornerstone players Landon Donovan, Tim Howard, Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley -- didn't go at all.
And yet the college game persists, catering both to late bloomers and prospects who placed an emphasis on education. A handful of schools have produced a steady stream of MLS players. UCLA has 19 former players currently in MLS, Maryland 13, Wake Forest 12, Indiana 12 and North Carolina 11, according to Rick Lawes, the league's ace stat man.
Colorado's Wells Thompson, one of those Wake Forest alums on MLS rosters, describes an idyllic environment -- the main season in the fall, games in spring, playing with different teammates in the PDL summer league, then coming back to campus to play pickup games and take a class or two before the fall. Those extra classes help players graduate in December of their senior years so they can be ready for the MLS preseason in February.
"We'll be prepared to go to the league," Thompson says.
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