As the end of the year approaches, several senior athletes are looking ahead to their futures on college teams. Below are two of their stories.
Abbie O’Shay
Abbie O’Shay will be attending Colorado School of Mines, where she will be playing Volleyball. From the beginning of her volleyball career, she has moved up to more competitive league.
“I’ve been doing it since elementary school,” said Abbie O’Shay. “I started club volleyball in eighth-grade.”
Abby being accepted into Colorado has been nothing but a dream come true. Abby has had a career high of 492 kills, and a total of 110 blocks in her high school career. Information from the NCSA suggests that only 5.7% of high school volleyball players can play in college. An athlete’s high school career can decide whether or not they can play in college.
The NCSA data also shows that 20.9% of athletes have medical disqualification that results in athletes quitting or forced retirement.
“I’ve had minor injuries,” said Abbie. “I’ve had some ankle sprains and stuff that have taken me out of crucial parts of the season, but nothing other than that, which I’m thankful for.”
Volleyball has six core positions, with only six players being able to play at a time, the sport is very selective.
“For volleyball specifically, I would say, learn to play multiple positions because I’m a middle at heart, but I learned to play right side too,” Abbie said. “That helps me at school because I play on the right at school here.”
Abbie also shared some of her ambitions for college volleyball, including being named All-American, an annual honor bestowed on outstanding athletes in the United States who are considered to be among the best athletes in their respective sport. It’s a big honor that recognizes the athlete for his or her outstanding work.
“I wanna be an All-American, and I don’t know if that’s gonna happen necessarily, freshman year, but I think hopefully by my upperclassmen years, I can get it,” said Abbie. “For a short-term goal, definitely, to play my freshman year would be fun.”
Many athletes only dream of being able to play in college. Abbie has made that dream come true, but she put in hard work and determination to reach her goal. She says that this is the most important advice she has for younger students with ambitions to play in college.
“I would just say, don’t give up,” says Abbie. “Not everyone has the opportunity. If that’s your dream and you wanna do it, don’t give up and work hard.”
ADIEN EROL
Aiden Erol finished his last and final year of soccer at Jordan in early March, when the boys’ varsity team made it to the first round of playoffs. He was able to score nearly 40 goals in his career as a forward here at Jordan. College on the way, he is ready to pack up and head to UT Dallas.
“They were one of the first colleges to reach out to me, and then,after researching it and looking at the scholarship and the opportunity they gave me, I decided that’s where I wanted to go,” said Aiden Erol. “UT Dallas will provide me with a good opportunity to showcase my skills at a high level.”
Aiden joining the Dallas Comets he will be joining the team as they go into the 2025-26 season. One of the students being eligible for MLS at UT, Aiden is shooting to be the same and play professionally during his college career.
“My goal for just playing soccer in college is to hopefully make the MLS next year,” said Aiden. “I‘ve got to get good enough over there, show what I can do, and then apply for the draft and hopefully go play MLS from there.”
Since Aiden started playing at Jordan, he has had the utmost support from his coaches.
“Coach Courtney, my freshman year, when I was on the JV team, he believed in me and he gave me all the playing time I needed to grow and develop,” Said Aiden. “And then, obviously, Coach Meekins and Coach Wallace, the varsity coaches who believed in me and put me forward at the start of my sophomore year, which is when I started playing forward and started scoring goals for them.”
Most soccer players have a 1 in 10 chance of playing soccer in college, and the probability of playing division one is low, especially for men. Athletes must put in hard work to see results.
“I think my junior year, I had two practices every day for the entire year,” said Aiden. “So if you wanna do it, you wanna play soccer at the next level, especially college level, you gotta you gotta work for it, you can’t be easy on yourself.”
