Is college soccer too much of a risk for rising U.S. talent?

By: Tisha Thompson, E:60

ERYK WILLIAMSON STOOD in front of Albany’s soccer goal and took a deep breath. The Maryland students chanting in the end zone, throwing taunts at the goalkeeper below them, went still. His coach crouched down on his heels, hand over his mouth, in silence. Even the brittle wind, the kind that digs deep into your bones, settled down just long enough, as if it too had to hold its breath in anticipation for what was about to happen.

Would this be Williamson’s last college kick?

Williamson is a vanishing sight in collegiate soccer. The 20-year-old midfielder had a brilliant summer in 2017, scoring a critical goal against El Salvador to secure the U.S. a spot in the FIFA U-20 World Cup. A junior at the University of Maryland, he was then named Big Ten Midfielder of the Year. Now, as he placed the ball carefully on the grass on this frigid November night, he had his sights on the College Cup, the NCAA’s national soccer championship.

The midfielder focused on Albany’s goalkeeper bouncing between the posts, the one man who could keep him from advancing to the second round of the tournament. Williamson silenced the voices that had been whispering in his ear all season, telling him he was making a mistake by standing here on this field. The voices of agents, scouts and coaches from all over the world insisting the time had come. He needs to go pro now. Not tomorrow, not next year. Now. The college game is killing him, they said, by making him injury prone. The spring season, they said, is a waste.

College coaches from across the country say it’s the same mantra being preached to many of their best players. College soccer has dramatically changed in the past three years as more and more players choose to forgo the college experience in favor of a pro career. In response, a powerful group of college coaches wants the NCAA to make a radical change to the college game. “College soccer is the laughingstock of the soccer world now,” said Sasho Cirovski, Williamson’s coach at Maryland.

If the NCAA doesn’t do something soon, Cirovski warns, “it will kill our sport.”

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