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How To Move Past Not Playing College Soccer

May 28, 2024
By Hannah Cantrell

College soccer is a dream for many players, but it’s not always attainable for various reasons. Even if it was your willing decision to not play soccer in college, it can still be hard to accept that soccer will not be as big of a part of your life. Here are some ways to accept and move past not playing soccer in college:

Stay Active

One of the best ways to accept not playing college soccer is to not stop playing soccer. Even though you aren’t playing soccer for the school’s team, it doesn’t mean you can’t play at all.

Most colleges have club and intramural sports. Club soccer is a slightly more competitive and higher commitment than intramural soccer. While intramural soccer is much more casual.

You can also try out other sports that you never had the chance to try before. Many times there are tons of clubs and teams that you can join and test out. Either way, being able to play the game or just staying active and involved is a great way to move past not being able to play college soccer.

Form New Passions

One of the best things about starting college is the opportunity to try new things and find new passions. Finding new interests and activities such as service opportunities, art, yoga, joining a sorority, making films, or anything else you can think of, will definitely help to fill up your time so you aren’t feeling like you’re missing out on college soccer.

College is the place to find people with similar interests to yours. Meeting people and making friends within your new interests will help you feel like you’re part of a team, and help you accept that there’s more to college than playing sports.

Focus on Academics

Even though playing soccer in college may seem like the end all be all of your college experience, the reason for going to college is to earn a degree. Playing college soccer is not easy, the training is long and hard, and balancing sports with schoolwork is much more difficult in college.

Taking a step back, and weighing the benefits and drawbacks of being on your college’s soccer team will help you think about it differently. It may even help you come to the conclusion that it’s too much of a commitment, which is OK.

After all, college is about learning and growing academically, and college soccer takes up a lot of time each week. Realizing that being on your soccer team just won’t fit into your new lifestyle is perfectly OK, and it will help you feel at ease about not being involved in college sports.

All in all, college is much more than college soccer, and the opportunities to try out and learn new things are practically endless. College is a time to branch out, and it’s part of life to let passions go in order to grow in other ways.