BEWARE of what is ahead of you, it is not as easy as you may think.
Girls on high school soccer teams like to talk about playing in college, but they do not understand the amount of work that it takes to play at that level. Becoming a collegiate soccer player is a lot harder than people think. Girls believe they can just show up and be the best person on the team. They could not be more WRONG.
Soccer requires a high level of fitness. Just coming from high school and going to play is not going to cut it at all. You need to be in SHAPE. There have to be hours of training to get even close to being in the shape you need to be. My team trains twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday morning 7-9 am, just working out hard for two hours straight all the way till August 1st, and that still is not enough. We have to do training on our own as well, and we have to post sweaty selfies, selfies of us after we work out. The sweat proves that we worked out. We send the pictures to our soccer group chat for proof that we actually were working. It will show on the field if one person does not do training outside of team workouts. If one does not prepare on their own they will not be able to play their best.
At the collegiate level, the skill level of the players is much higher than in high school. In high school certain girls were the “IT GIRLS” but in college, everyone was the “IT GIRL” at their high school. So it is literally the most skilled players competing against each other. No matter how good a girl thinks she was in high school, there is always another girl better than them. So, incoming freshman, there is not an automatic spot on the team waiting for you. That spot has to be earned, it will not be given to you. My team is very technically skilled. We have really good foot skills and play very well together. We practice our technical skills every day, but they still are not better than the best. In district, finals my team lost to a team from New York. Several of their players were from Europe, those girls get special scholarships to come and play.
Class load will be another adjustment for incoming freshman. The classes are a lot harder regardless of what classes you choose. The class size is much bigger in college. There are no longer twenty to thirty kids in the class, there can be over a hundred kids in the class. The only way to get special help is to ask the professor for it personally or get a tutor. The coach can get a player extra help as well. Grades are very important. It is all about the degree now.
So to any high school players with aspirations of playing in college, make sure you work your ass off. Just because you were the “IT GIRL” on their high school team, that does not mean you will be the IT GIRL on the college team. So put in the effort, get good grades, and save your money and you will be a successful girl college player.
