In soccer, talent divide grows between high school and club teams – The Denver Post

Half the beauty of high school sports is being able to see athletes at their genesis: think Valor Christian’s Christian McCaffrey before he became a Heisman Trophy front-runnner, or Mountain Vista’s Mal Pugh before she ascended to soccer stardom on the U.S. Women’s National Team.

But what if the best athletes in their respective sports didn’t play for their local high school? What if we missed that first fleeting look into the window of greatness?  What then? Would the importance of Colorado High School Activities Association games become diluted? Would prep teams serve as a junior varsity level of sorts, while all the top-tier talent flocked elsewhere?

Right now, such a phenomenon can be seen clearly in boys soccer, which is in the midst of the regular-season home stretch with the start of postseason looming Oct. 26.

While there are certainly NCAA-caliber players competing for their local high schools around the state — take last season’s 5A player of the year in Broomfield graduate and current Regis University freshman Porter Milner, as well as seniors this year such as Ponderosa goalkeeper Kobe Gray (University of Denver commit), Valor Christian striker Jared Jungjohann (University of Denver commit) and Vista Ridge striker Joel Walker (Oregon State commit) — the fact remains that high school rosters continue to be drained of their most prolific players.

The reason for the exodus of the likes of Rhys DeSota (a Stanford commit and Grandview student who is widely considered the best senior player in the state) is because of club soccer and, more specifically, the U.S. Soccer Development Academy.

Here in Colorado, many athletes elect to play year-round with their respective clubs (Real Colorado, Colorado Storm, Colorado Rush and others) because they believe it pays off via higher-level competition and increased college prospects. In that same line of thinking, the cream of the crop of boys soccer players join a development academy club team.

And for guys like DeSota, a member of the Colorado Rapids’ Development Academy squad, there is a definitive choice to be made, per the program’s rules, “Development Academy players for all teams must choose to participate in the Academy full-time and forgo playing for his high school team.”

While some local high school boys soccer coaches have lamented to me that the development academy is breeding the wrong type of athlete — which I believe to an extent, as I favor multisport participation over athletic hyperspecialization — it’s hard to argue with the exposure playing year-round can provide.

That includes the opportunities to travel and be seen at national tournaments with sidelines packed with college coaches. So it’s easy to see why across the state high school-aged guys and girls (thanks to the rise of the Elite Clubs National League) are choosing to pass on their preps experience.

This current trend is certain; the future is less clear. But if the Development Academy and the Elite Clubs National League continue to proliferate in popularity at the pace they have over the past half-decade, one thing is for sure: local high school programs are in trouble.

And just like the athletic capitalism that manifests itself in other facets of preps such as an eighth grader’s right to choose a school based off athletics, thanks to Colorado’s open enrollment policy, more and more elite soccer players will continue to select the immersive club experience over donning their high school uniform.

As bad as that shift might seem for local preps, the silver lining of all this is that it’s ultimately good for the sport. After all, it’s another avenue for players to get to the next level. It’s going to raise the bar for individual talent in the high schools. And, perhaps most importantly, it signals the growth of the game at the grassroots level.

Sometimes the end justifies the means. This is one of those times.