Forget about college soccer already
I’m all in favor of overhauling Title IX and think it has had an adverse affect on male athletes in some sports, including soccer.
But the leading group devoted to Title IX reform deserves a yellow card for cynically issuing this study on the eve of the World Cup while trying to make a fledgling case for college soccer’s role in American player development.
The limited nature of collegiate sports in America is the reason why the U.S. Soccer Federation has undertaken other measures in recent years to accelerate male player development.
(Because of the underdevelopment of women’s soccer around the world, women’s college soccer in the U.S. has been quite an advantage for the powerhouse American women’s team.)
To be sure, there are many top players on the U.S. men’s team and in Major League Soccer who have benefitted from playing college soccer.
But the sport at that level, and in that environment, cannot foster the development that is needed to make the American game what it needs to be in order to seriously compete at the World Cup.
The closest thing the U.S. team has to a world-class player, Landon Donovan, purposely skipped college in order to enroll in the USSF’s then-novelty residency camp in 1999 before turning pro as a teenager.
That should be enough proof that the college game is not as integral a part of the developmental ladder as Title IX reformists want you believe.
