James D'Alessio '19 Recruiting Profile

I have been a soccer player since the age of seven and I never realized how much of an impact it truly would have on my life. Playing soccer has been a major part of my life, it has given me outlets to meet knew people, forge connections and ultimately figure out who I truly can be. Soccer has made me realize certain personalities and qualities about myself that I don't think I would've ever discovered without soccer such as my desire to constantly get better and always improving my level of play, how much I love working with a group of young men to achieve a goal or result and also how I use my strengths to improve upon my weaknesses. Through years of playing and training I have developed the quality of being harder on myself then sometimes necessary but this has made me the player I am today because it allows me to recognize the areas of my game I need work on and I don't stop until I exceed my goal of all aspects of my game whether it be shot stopping. distribution or foot skills. I think one of the most influential moment in my soccer career occurred this year when my high school team won the Section 1 AA title, something that our high school has not been able to do for the past 27 years. The feeling of the final whistle blowing was the most gratifying feeling in the world. Knowing that all twenty nine players on our team contributed, trained hard, and performed in that game was the best feeling in the world and it is those moments that I live for. Another moment that I will forever remember was being able to play soccer in Italy over this past summer. This experience really opened my eyes to how much different the game of soccer is taught and played over in Europe compared to America. Playing over in Europe allowed me to take away certain strategies and different ways to play such as playing out of the back and not rushing to get rid of the ball. My future goals are to be able to play at a high level of collegiate level soccer to further develop my game and to be apart of team that will help not only allow me to develop as a player but also allow me to achieve goals with the whole team and maybe even possibly give me connections or outlets to play at an even higher level of soccer after college. I feel some strengths that I posses as a goalie are that I reflect on my mistakes and go back to training and spend more time on that aspect of my game to improve upon it, I take constructive criticism and apply to any aspect that it applies to and also my dedication to not only improving myself for me but being dedicated to the team and improving for them.