Soccerista United’s 2023 Summer Session is Live!

May 4, 2023
By Samantha Cary

It’s been a whole year since we launched our NIL-based mentorship program, Soccerista United, and we are ecstatic to announce that our summer session is now open for registration! If you don’t already know, this program allows girl soccer players to grow their game by being mentored by elite college athletes from across the country. The program is specifically tailored for girls ages 9 to 15 andd will be a combination of small group meetings and one-on-one time with your Squad Captain (the college players). SPACE IS LIMITED!

This year, we’re super excited to have SOCCER.COM as an official sponsor of SU! They have committed to buying 20 sponsorship packages, one for each mentor, to support the program, as well as supply t-shirts for each mentor and girl who is part of the program.

How It Works

This year’s SU follows the same format as last year’s; it’s a virtual program that consists of our Squad Captains (college players) mentoring our Socceristas (girls in the community). Each month there will be a different theme that the programs will be centered around. The month will start with a SU team meeting led by the Squad Captain, where the topic of the month is taught, and small group discussions take place. The following week will be a 1-on-1 session between the Soccerista and Squad Captain to further grow this personal relationship, offer specialized advice, and work on goal setting as well as other aspects of the game. June’s theme will be “Confidence on the Field,” and July’s theme will be “Tips for Club Try-Outs and College ID Camps.”

This opportunity is available for $80 for the two-month period of June and July. Buy the program here.

During the month, SU members will have access to Girls Soccer Network’s badge system. These badges cover three categories: serious skills, student of the game, and ultimate teammate. The categories focus on developing a player on the field, classroom, and community and are filled with fun assignments, challenges, and soccer lessons that are developed and taught by the college athletes themselves!

How We Pick Our College Mentors

People ask us, how do you pick your mentors? Our secret sauce for acquiring our mentors is this: we watch a lot of college soccer and get referrals from coaches and teammates. It’s important that our mentors perform not only on the field but in the classroom and community as well. Perhaps the most important thing is that each of these young women wants to teach the future generation about aspects of the game not typically covered in practice, things like; the do’s and don’ts of ID camps, creating confidence and empowerment, fueling your body for games, and staying in shape for the offseason!

Here are five of our twenty summer mentors!

How We Pair Our Mentors With Socceristas

We have a form that both the girls and mentors fill out, and we use that form to match players with mentors. We also do our best to make the pairings as geographically desirable as possible. Because we don’t have mentors in every city across the country, we do our best to make it logistically desirable. For example, last summer, we had several players go to their mentor’s preseason games or a camp they were working at and meet them! That was totally thrilling…for both parties!

We also listen to the needs of the girls and parents as to what they are looking for. If having a goalkeeper as your mentor is the top priority, but the two keepers are across the country, we will work that out. If you want to learn about what goes into playing at a Division II or III school, then we will absolutely make that a priority.

How We’ve Evolved

As with any new program, we’re always looking to improve the experience. Whereas last year, we had exclusively ten Division I athletes across the country, we’ve added Division II and Division III female soccer players into the mix for a grand total of 20 Squad Captains. While many girls aspire to play DI, there are so many great options to continuing your soccer at the college level, and we want to highlight that.

Another update is that we’ve shortened the duration from three months to two. We realized last year that all of the mentors have preseason starting August 1, so it became harder for them to find the needed time to work with the girls. Plus, many socceristas start back to school in early August, so this made total sense.

The college athletes chosen attend schools across the country spanning from Stanford University, Florida State to reigning NCAA DI National Champions UCLA. There is representation from the Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, and Ivy League. The college athletes will also earn from this experience through NIL contracts.

It’s a testament to the program that all who were eligible to continue with our program are back with us!

Soccerista United is an exciting opportunity for young Socceristas to grow their game and learn from the best, and we are so excited to launch this.

Purchase Soccerista United here!