Abraham TiLaye '24 Recruiting Profile

I plan on going to a 4-year university where I can pursue my interest in playing soccer while I pursue a bachelor’s degree in business administration. For me this is more the experience I want to get out of being in college since playing soccer at a high level matters to me. No matter the college I get in to, I hope I get a great experience from being on the soccer team and from my education. Campus life is very important for me. I love to be in campuses with great people to interact and to also help guide when I’m lost in a new experience. I also am looking forward to the dorm rooms to feel the experience being in what is “my home” for the next four years. I want to get out of this college experience a degree in business and get further in my soccer career. I don’t know yet what I want for my business to look like, as I take more courses, I would develop a business focus.

Now you may be thinking, how did this sort of ambitions begin? I think it began at the start of my high school year. It was online all year because of COVID-19. I remember how just strange the whole year was — like waking up and going straight to my computer all year. I remember in my Career connects class; we were told to create resumes to hold on to for initially our senior year. In my head at the time, I just wanted to get it over with. We’d been told to put the resume into Naviance. Personally, I remembered clearly in how annoying it had been to be using Naviance. It was just the name of it that threw me off, and assumed it was going to be boring and useless. It was like for me, looking at a blank screen when your computer dies, nothing but boredom. I of course went on with it anyway, as it was a graded assignment. I remember how fast I was pacing through each part knowing I did not want to be on it for so long. As I now write this essay, I feel apologetic to not just my teacher, but to myself in the past for not putting in enough time and effort. Naviance had so many things besides filling out resumes. It has planners, goals, etc. I have started thinking more clearly about my pathway out of Highschool

Moving on, I bring into the future my focus on four things: on God, family, soccer and college. The thing in common is that I have trust and faith in God that I WILL fulfill these. Let me explain my past. I had not been with God. I feel like the biggest regret I have ever had was not being in relationship with God sooner. With soccer, I always had thought from when I stepped in “this is what I am destined to strive for”, I felt in the moment everything being clear in what I pray for in the future. I knew it was going to be hard, but I fulfill it anyway. With family, I will love them always. Ahead in the future, I can strengthen my relationship with God because I feel most safe and most helpful to be with him. With my family, if I do end up going to the campus, I only pray for safety and protection for all. I will try coming home over the weekends to spend time with them. With soccer, I pray to play college soccer at the highest level and show full commitment on and off the pitch and give everything I can offer that can help me reach higher limits beyond college soccer. After graduation, I will work hard to be accepted into a college to go towards a degree in business.