After a month long vacation from writing, I am coming back with a new category: The Passed Over Spotlight. In this category I will write solely about soccer events, players, or occurrences that are simply passed over. Most of these events are actually big events and should be heard of.
This week’s Passed Over Spotlight will look at College Club Soccer. Many people think of college sports as the one’s that are sponsored and paid for by the school. However, many schools are unable to field teams in all of the major sports. For instance, soccer is sometimes passed over in order to cut costs. Or in other cases, there are not enough women’s sports teams, so a men’s team is cut in order to field a women’s team.
The National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association is very similar to the NCAA, NAIA, and NSCAA. NIRSA is the governing body for collegiate club sports. For soccer, the NIRSA currently has two major tournaments. In california, the Aztec Cup is held every year and many collegiate club teams make the trip to San Diego, CA. The National Cup is held every in a different location. This year the National Cup will be held in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
College Club soccer is often looked over because of NCAA teams that are in the spotlight in the soccer world. However, most of the players on club soccer teams could have played NCAA soccer. Teams that are in the Elite 8 have players that can be Division 1 starters. For whatever reason, maybe money or education, players choose to attend a college that do not have NCAA, NAIA, or NSCAA teams. Whatever this reason maybe, College Club Soccer deserves to be looked at a little bit more. Finally, without college club soccer, the likes of Shalrie Joseph and Justin Braun might not be known or heard of.
