Nathaniel BEKAERT '23 Recruiting Profile

When I was five years old, my family traveled around the world on a shoestring budget for 2 years. For the first 8 months, we lived in Guatemala - that’s where I discovered soccer. One of the Guatemalan families in our complex there had a soccer ball and I spent many hours trying to kick the ball between the two trees we used as a goal. Running and dribbling became second nature to me. When I returned to the United States, I continued to pursue my love of soccer while getting straight A’s in school and winning the county spelling bee three years in a row. I’m a competitor on the field and in the classroom: I want to graduate at the top of my high school class and take as many AP classes as possible.

The location where I live, Mount Shasta, California, does not have a competitive soccer team so I travel an hour each way to practices for my comp team and almost every weekend for tournaments - often 4 hours each way. I juggle school work, school sports (soccer and track), and comp soccer all at the same time. I believe this intense schedule is preparing me well for college soccer.