Sydney Hughes '25 Recruiting Profile

My name is Sydney Hughes and I am a 16 year old soccer player. I go to Mahopac High School and I live in Mahopac, New York. Both my mother and my uncle played soccer when they were younger. Since it was in my family, I started playing when I was very young. As I grew up, the sport always stayed with me and I want it to become a larger part of my life as I head toward my future. I want to play at the collegiate level purely because of how much I love soccer. I also take my academics very seriously because I am the type of person who wants to succeed in the classroom just as much as I want to succeed on the field. I have a 4.0 GPA and am involved in various extra curricular activities like the school Symphonic Band and the Italian Club. I currently play soccer at my club, Steel United. It is a great club that has a national program. The club is in 9 different states with all different age groups. The national coaches go around to all the states and teams to select the players they want to work with all together. The selected players go to a camp in early August to train together and tryout for a spot on the national team that will attend a national tournament. I have made it to the national camp and played in this tournament every year that I was able to make it. I have traveled far across the country to attend the camps and tournaments and it has been a tremendous experience for me. I am very grateful for this and many other accomplishments. There was a girl named Jenna Nolan who lived in my town. She was an amazing person who had a tragic accident in her 8th grade year of middle school. She sadly passed away that summer. The Mahopac Middle School created an award from then on to honor her memory and those students who did the amazing things she used to do. The award is called the Jenna Nolan Award and it is given to one boy and one girl. I won this award on my 8th grade graduation. I had never been more honored to win something this big. I also had a personal connection to Jenna so it made this moment even more precious for me. This is a personal accomplishment of mine and I hope to continue to spread Jenna's kindness and empathy throughout the world. She played soccer as well and she was very good at it. I want to spread her message through my own successes in soccer and in the real world.