Kayleigh Garlin '22 Recruiting Profile

Hi, my name is Kayleigh Garlin, I am 17 years old and my graduation year is 2022. My most played position is center attacking midfielder and center defensive midfielder and I used to play center defense but I generally can play any position on the field well. Here’s a quick rundown on my soccer history; I began playing on my travel team “Longwood Herricanes” since I was about the age of four to seventeen and I was captain on that team for as long as I can remember. My whole life all I’ve known was that team and they became my family and I give most of the credit to them for getting me where I am and to where I may go. Being on that team genuinely taught me that soccer is really so much more than just a game and it takes more of mindset to win than just simply “play and win”. To win you need to have a bond with your team, you need trust, have compassion, drive, love, fearlessness, etc.. The only way you can obtain those things is from each other, you need to push each other, help each other, communicate with each other, and overall have an equal understanding with each other. We all simply taught and helped each other learn how to find love for the game which I think is a really amazing thing. I also began playing on my school team “Longwood Varsity Girls Soccer” in eighth grade. I got pulled up to Varsity when I was still in Jr. High School and became a starter on the team from the get go. In the following years; 9th,10th,11th, and 12th grade I continued to be a starter on my school team and this year, my senior year, I got the opportunity to be captain. In the beginning years of my time on that team, I don’t feel that we had any sort of bond or connection hence why our record wasn’t the greatest. As the years went on, my 11th and 12th grade year, our team has had such a great bond and we all grew so close with each other and eventually restored the Varsity team and made it to what it should’ve been. We all found the love for the game and for each other again and that has reflected greatly on our record both years. We even made it to playoffs my 11th grade year which hasn’t happened to this team in I believe ten years and this year so far we have a great chance of making playoffs. Overall, playing on these two teams with amazing people and having the connection with them all that I had, is exactly why I am the player and person I am today and I owe them my life for that. And if you’re wondering what kind of player I am, I’m wondering the same thing too. My thoughts of myself as a player are that I always play my heart out,  I play with no fear, I am very hardworking, I am a very helpful person, I am a great leader, and much more, but the biggest thing is that I love the game, that’s what makes me a great player.