... or knows an expert on, U.S. collegiate soccer eligibility rules as pertains to players who were previously affiliated with foreign clubs in various countries at various levels? If so, would you be up for sharing documentation/having an offline conversation with me/connecting me with someone who knows this stuff really well? (So, for instance, I'm generally wondering: If I played W seasons for the X team of club Y in country Z, which college levels would I be eligible or ineligible for? Does the level/country/amount of time matter? If so, is it clean-cut or a sliding scale? And, as a player, what resources exist for helping me figure this out?) Thanks for any input or help. Feel free to send a direct message if you'd prefer.
I'm sure others will chime in, but good luck truly trying to figure it out. There's not truly a perfect way to sort it out. All divisions do it a little different. It also depends on how one would input the career in any eligibility center/clearinghouse. It's caused a lot of this to be "grey area" due to some not reporting accurately and some just blatantly lying. Some of it also depends on when you may have graduated high school, so you can utilize a "gap year" that doesn't count against eligibility. Best bet is to create a profile on NCAA Clearinghouse or the NAIA Eligibility Center to determine eligibility. Downside is it costs money.
This is pretty much the answer I expected (and feared). Seems like something that isn't so easy to work out by reading publicly available documents, at least that I've been able to find so far. More's the pity.
As much as I'd say this is a possibility, my experiences with compliance officers isn't so positive. They have no idea on a lot of these things too. No one truly knows how NCAA/NAIA will rule on eligibility -- especially if it's in regards to a player who's been in some other "system."
I don't, to be honest. My curiosity was piqued when I realized that it seemed like a pretty big number of guys who spent time in Mexican academies were landing in junior colleges and then more or less disappearing even if they were pretty successful players. Of course there could be many reasons for this but I'd love to know more about the rules, broadly speaking, as they stand.
@Dave Marino-Nachison I'm not expert, but what level (Div 1 or juco) a foreign ELITE player plays has to do with a couple of things: the ability to market yourself and get a coach to look at your videos. Some top Div 1 coaches will only look at players with nat team experience. taking the required (16?) core subjects plus have good grades, SAT or ACT , TOEFL or IELTS score. Keep in mind coaches are looking for someone with good character that will fit in with the team's playing style and personality. Some coaches also want athletic, tall and fast. It sounds to me like the players you mentioned are very good technically, but for whatever reason (e.g. couldn't get a decent pro contract) they decided to go the US university route. They probably didn't have the grades or didn't take the right classes to go Div 1, 2 or 3 so they started with a juco team because junior college academic requirements are a lot lower. Maybe they dropped out because they were looking for a higher standard of play or maybe they weren't academic enough or maybe they realised that they wouldn't go pro and decided to move on with their life. They may still play in a local comp. There are plenty of international players who started with juco because they didn't have the grades/required classes to play Div 1/2/3. They played 1 or 2 years at juco and then transferred to Div 1 or 2 schools. So it's definitely possible if they got good grades at the juco. Not all kids are academic or had parents who stressed academic when they were young.
Thanks for this. It's certainly possible that these players didn't move to D1 programs for reasons specific to their own personal quality/qualities/interests. I was just wondering whether, on top of that, there might be some "structural challenges" around admissions/professionalism/etc. they face as well.
@Dave Marino-Nachison maybe their written English wasn't good enough or maybe they weren't disciplined enough, but I bet that they needed to go make money either playing soccer or not. You can't make money and play for a US university. Plus don't boys need to be picked up by a club by 18 or 20 if they are going to make it soccer-wise. A lot of the players on the men's team in US college are international so it's not that. How do you know they are not playing in Europe?
How old are you Dave? If you played any organized soccer after high school NCAA will take away one year of eligibility per year that you’ve played. Don’t know about AIA or junior collegeIf you played any organized soccer after high school NCAA will take away one year of eligibility per year that you’ve played. Don’t know about NAIA or junior college.