You can make the case that college soccer is the most important thing that ever happened to American soccer.
At the very least it was there in the 1980s to provide the early infrastructure, support the USSF’s development program — the regional teams — and spread the word when there was nothing.
It’s hard to appreciate what soccer was like in the early to mid-1980s. The North American Soccer League got the ball rolling, but it came and went, burning through a ton of money, without building a foundation for the sport.
College soccer coaches began a lot of that serious work. Many of the names you might not have ever heard of. Joe Morrone, Jerry Yeagley, Steven Negoesco, John Rennie. Others you know. Bruce Arena, Sigi Schmid, Anson Dorrance. All worked at big sports schools and benefited from their school’s name and its backing to develop their programs.
They benefited from being close to the action. In Arena’s case literally. The Virginia soccer office was adjacent to the visiting men’s basketball locker room. And Arena would silently listen as Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski and Jim Valvano, ACC legends, gave pep-talks to their players before they faced the Cavaliers.
This is the Virginia soccer office that produced three future men’s national team coaches with 15 years of service to U.S. Soccer.
But college soccer was never going to be perfect. The infrastructure being built up — the little soccer stadiums — was ground-breaking. It will be shown off to fans around the world as national teams set up camp on college campuses around the country for the World Cup this summer. But these soccer stadiums were not soccer-owned or exclusive to the sport. The college soccer season was short. And college sports were outside the FIFA system.
Forty years later, nothing has really changed.
There are some amazing connections. The University of Vermont, the 2024 men’s champion, and the 2025 USL League Two champion Vermont Green in Burlington. The 2025 men’s champion University of Washington and 2025 USL League Two runner-up Ballard FC in Seattle.
Elsewhere in the world, they would operate as one sports club. Here amateur soccer is as good as anywhere in the world in terms of support. But it’s splintered. Three months in the fall, a couple in the summer.
The 2025 Men’s College Cup in Cary, North Carolina, was a hit with hometown NC State making its first trip to the final four since 1990. The women’s final four at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City was poorly attended. Still way too much hit or miss.
College soccer was a big part of my soccer journey.
I caught the soccer bug in the summer of 1971 on a family trip to Spain. I attended boarding school in Pennsylvania and the first outlet for my new passion was listening to the radio broadcasts of Penn soccer. For a couple of years, Penn soccer was a big deal with players like Stan Startzell, Steve Baumann and John Borozzi. The Quakes drew huge crowds at Franklin Field. But interest faded as quickly as it started. Then like now, way too much hit or miss.
I went to college in upstate New York. Colgate University had a soccer program but football and ice hockey were the big sports. I did not have a car so on Saturday afternoons, I’d listen on the radio to the broadcast of Hartwick games in nearby Oneonta, type up a short game report, run down to the Hamilton post office and send my story off to Soccer America. For a couple of bucks, the postal service had some kind of special delivery option, and the letter would arrive in Berkeley by Tuesday. SA basically published whatever it received.
I moved to Richmond, Virginia, in 1978 to go to law school. I had been writing for Soccer America for four years and just became a correspondent for France Football. Richmond did not yet have much soccer but it was perfectly situated to reach college towns, Charlottesville an hour to the west, Norfolk and Williamsburg an hour to the east, Durham and Chapel Hill two hours to the south. Most of my Sundays in the fall were spent on the road watching college soccer, not in the law school library.
College soccer was a big part of Soccer America’s growth. With the staff and resources, we built up crazily deep coverage, and it paid off on the subscription front (for the four years a player was in college, parents would take out two subs — one for them at home, the other for the kid at the dorm address). At the national level, college soccer peaked in the early 1990s with big crowds for the final four in Richmond. SA launched a FanZone before there were soccer fan zones.
But the importance of men’s college soccer faded once MLS started. The advent of Title IX enforcement stalled the growth of the men’s game. But soccer was never going to grow out of the shadows of football or basketball. It never grew to at least the importance of college hockey, a big deal at many schools in the Northeast and Midwest.
A few USMNT players still have backgrounds in college soccer, but that’s more happenstance than a serious development effort. The number of males who turn pro without ever playing college soccer has exploded as MLS launched MLS NEXT Pro.
Enjoy free unlimited access for 30 days.
‣ Daily TV listings for U.S. and global soccer.
‣ Inside access to USA’s 2026 World Cup prep.
‣ Exclusive interviews with players and coaches.
‣ Expert analysis of top soccer headlines.
Cancel anytime.
Every player on Dorrance’s 1991 U.S. Women’s World Cup team played in college. Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly were students at UNC as was Julie Foudy at Stanford. Lindsey Heaps was the first USWNT star who did not play college soccer, deciding to pass on UNC to sign professionally with PSG in 2012. Few of the key players on the current USWMT have gone to college, at least not for all four years.
Foreign students were important contributors to college soccer, especially on the men’s side. That dates back to the early 1960s with Nigerian Chris Ohiri at Harvard. Inevitably, the men’s college game has seen a huge influx of foreign players who now account for more than a third of the players on Division I rosters.
Vermont had 10 foreign players on its roster when it won the 2024 national championship. N.C. State, the 2025 runner-up, had 11 foreigners. Informal pathways have been formalized. The FFF, the French soccer federation, spends serious money and resources getting players into the U.S. college pipeline. It’s important to provide soccer opportunities — and education — for those kids who won’t make it as pros.
U.S. Soccer and the NextGen College Soccer Committee released a comprehensive white paper outlining recommendations to modernize Division I men’s and women’s college soccer. U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson says college soccer can be positioned as a U-23 league that’s “the best in the world.”
But many of the old challenges still remain. The things that were uniquely valuable for college soccer’s growth are still all shared. The stadiums, the training and rehab facilities, the support staff, the media and marketing teams. No one knows what college sports will look like in five years so we can’t predict the future of college soccer. But we know that soccer remains at the bottom of the totem pole.
I am writing from Philadelphia. where I am attending the United Soccer Coaches convention. When I think of the coaches convention, I think of college soccer. Meeting up with the coaches I got to knowing living in Richmond. Seeing the families come in on Saturday for the All-America lunch. In the “small world” moments that are so amazing about the sport we live and work in, one year I got to meet my dad’s dentist and his son, a Division I All-American, and another time I got to see a young woman whose mother came to our house each week to give communion to my ailing mom claim her Division I All-American plaque.
On my connecting flight from Denver probably a third of the passengers were headed here for the coaches convention. My first stop after my morning meeting today was to the Reading Terminal Market. It is a big Philadelphia tourist destination but was packed with convention goers for lunch. All so familiar and so reassuring.
College soccer will never be as big as college basketball or college football — probably a good thing — or as important as it once was, but today, even in a very small way, it remains soccer’s engine.
10. Scroll to the bottom/sidebar where it says “Memberships” –> check box that says Disable Restrictions”
11. Scroll to where it says “Yoast SEO” –> “Advanced” drop down –> “Allow search engines to show this content in search results?” – select NO.
12. Click the green thunder symbol in the top right (ie. Jetpack menu) –> click “Share This Post” drop down –> toggle OFF “Share When Publishing”
WANT TO SHARE THIS ARTICLE?
Enjoy free unlimited access for 30 days.
Cancel anytime.
