Theo Otteson committed to University of Pennsylvania as a junior after playing ECNL and MLS NEXT. A hat-trick at an ECNL showcase got a recruiting coach's attention, who then invited him to camps and verified his academics before securing the commitment.
How did Mr. Theo Otteson commit to Penn as a junior? I'm the College Soccer Guy and I help you play college soccer. So I actually coached him personally at Harvard-Westlake for a period of time and always thought he was a very high-level player. There's an interview here, I'll send it, put a photo right here of when we did the interview a number of years ago, and we were talking about getting the process started as a freshman and why it's so important to start as a freshman. Now this particular player was playing ECNL at the time, and the coach is explaining, look, we like ECNL players, they're very high level, but if we're going to see you more often, eventually we probably are going to have to see you play in MLS NEXT. So eventually he made the move to MLS NEXT, and the way the coach saw him is he actually was going to recruit somebody else at an ECNL event. He scored a hat-trick. Mr. Theo was— the coach was like, who the heck is that guy? Needed to see more of him, wanted to talk to him, needed to see him at camp, had to make sure he had the grades to get in. Theo is a very high-level soccer player, and then his junior year he was able to commit to Penn. If you want more help playing college soccer, comment "call" and we can schedule a call with you and your parents and figure out whatever your situation is.
