Ivy League Soccer Highly Rated

This fall four Ivy League soccer teams were invited to participate in the NOAA University division regional playoffs: Harvard, Brown, Columbia, and Penn. Three of those teams were ranked in the top twenty of the nation: Harvard third, Brown eighth, and Penn seventeenth.

Yet, only one team in the Ivy League standings has won more than half of its first six games. Dartmouth beat both Columbia and Brown; Yale forced Penn into overtime; Harvard beat Cornell with only 55 seconds remaining in the game, and Princeton outshoot Columbia and had three shots hit the post in its loss to the Lions.

Perhaps then the Ivy League is generally overrated in the national polls. But consider the record of the top four Ivy teams against non-league competition in the last two years. Last fall the first-division Ivy teams were 24-2-1 against non-league schools, including a 6-2 record in the NCAA playoff.

This fall the four-representatives to the NCAA tournament have a combined 23-1 record against non-league competition. The only defeat was a 1-0 Penn loss against Navy, ranked ninth in the nation.

Why is the league so much stronger this fall?

Harvard coach Bruce Munro calls the Ivy League "the toughest soccer league in the country," and the reason he gives is the quality of arriving freshmen.

From the Crib

"The prep schools are developing better and better high school soccer programs," he said. "It has gotten so that if a player comes to Harvard, and he hasn't played for eight or nine years under qualified supervision, he won't make the squad.

"There are guys I had ten years ago who were outstanding players and who even set records, but if they showed up this fall they wouldn't have made the squad."

Yale coach Hubert Vogelsinger agreed that the big difference in Ivy League soccer this year is improved training.

"America has always been a country of great athletes," he said. "The raw material has always been there. Americans can run just as fast as anyone, and certainly the equipment and facilities in this rich country surpass most other areas.

"But there has always been a need for quality coaching. We are getting more and more players from private schools who have reached a higher level of sophisticated play because of better training."

The presence of foreign-trained players in the Ivy League has greatly advanced the quality of play. Munro does not deny the importance of foreign-born players on the Harvard team, but he was quick to emphasize that international personnel is not the only factor in the Ivy's success.

"Certainly foreign players have helped our team a great deal," Munro said. "They have an excellent background in soccer experience, and they add a professionalism to the team."

The American Way

"But look at Brown. It's right up there in the nation's top ten, and it probably doesn't have a single foreign player," he said Penn's roster lists only one foreign starter, Harvard has five, and Columbia has six.

So rather than just the foreign element, it seems to be the improved prep school training that has raised the level of Ivy soccer. St. Louis has been producing soccer stars for years, and now prep school soccer experience is becoming a national phenomenon.