Soccer’s Full Ride Usually Eastward Bound : Local High School Stars Know Scholarship Prospects Are Bleak

Having surveyed the situation, Marina High School soccer player Ben LeFrancois sat down and did what he had decided was necessary: He made out a resume.

Convinced that a soccer scholarship was going to be hard to come by, LeFrancois has decided to be businesslike about his soccer future.

“I just put my name, height, weight and all my achievements and club records on it,” LeFrancois said. “I did it just like for a job.”

Later, like an eager job-seeker angling for an interview, LeFrancois sent Marina schedules to college coaches, asking them to come to a game or two.

LeFrancois is doing all this, yet he is not a marginal player on a little-known team. He plays for Marina, the Southern Section’s top-ranked 4-A team, and after scoring 18 goals in his junior season, he has eight goals and 10 assists already this year.

But LeFrancois knows that he is one of many seeking one of few, and he is doing what he can to help his chances. He said he has received several replies but nothing that has sealed his future.

An informal survey of some area colleges and a few of California’s most prestigious soccer programs shows that while most schools with varsity teams offer scholarships, they don’t offer many and they split them among as many as 18 players.

A “full-ride,” that glorious-sounding, all-expenses-paid education, is next to nonexistent in West Coast soccer.

Among the men’s programs, Fresno State, which advanced to the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. semifinals last season, is the only school contacted that offers the NCAA-limit 11 full scholarships, and it divides the funds among most of the players on the team. The University of San Francisco, which won the 1980 NCAA championship and until recent years had few U.S.-born players on its roster, divides a total of 9.5 full scholarships.

Even UCLA, which won the 1985 NCAA championship, funds only eight, which are divided among 18-20 players, usually providing enough for books plus a few hundred dollars.

Cal State Fullerton provides no school funds for soccer, but money raised in a summer camp and from donations funds a total of eight, divided among as many as 28 people, providing a minimum of tuition and fees.

These are the standouts, among them several high-profile programs. Elsewhere, funds mostly are limited to a very few full scholarships.

At UC Irvine, there are no soccer scholarships.

Scholarship allowances are not per class, but for the entire team during one year.

Eastern and Midwestern soccer powers such Duke, Clemson and Indiana offer full scholarships, but as John Coppage, the Esperanza boys’ coach, notes, not many California players seem willing to leave the region to play.

Among the women’s programs, the high is two full scholarships, at Cal State Long Beach and UC Santa Barbara. Once again, it is mostly Eastern soccer powers that offer the NCAA-limit of full scholarships.

Many schools require students to tap other sources of aid, such as state and federal financial aid, before receiving athletic scholarship money.

Brian Wiesner, the women’s coach at Cal Poly Pomona, uses a discretionary method to distribute funds.

“If they (players) show up with a minimum-wage part-time job, I can come up with from three to five hundred to help pay for books,” Wiesner said. “But I usually make the athletes ask me; I don’t offer money. If they say, ‘I need this science book,’ we come up with an agreement.”

With California soccer, the talent runs deep, but the money flows shallow.

“You get (college) coaches out to see the teams and they say, ‘Yeah I’d like you to come, we have a good program, we have some financial aid,” said Colleen Silva, Edison girls’ coach.

“They want you to come, but they don’t have anything (substantial) to offer.”

Silva, who coaches a softball team, the Southern California Raiders, during the summer, said the softball players are much more sought-after.

“Softball players are being flown here and there for visits, and I’m begging people just to take a look at these soccer players. In softball, I say, ‘Look, this is business. They won’t go for less than a full ride.’ ”

Many area coaches tell of players who accept partial scholarships, but are unable to pay the remaining costs.

Janell Rogers, an all-Southern Section player at Edison last season, was recruited by California and UC Santa Barbara. She decided to attend Santa Barbara, where she had been awarded a partial scholarship.

Rogers said she expected the school to pay room and board, and that her costs would be about $3,000.

“All I got from Santa Barbara was like $800 tuition,” Rogers said. “It was going to cost me like $6,000, living expenses. I decided I couldn’t pay that.”

Rogers enrolled instead at Orange Coast College.

Jean Teurck, chairman of the NCAA women’s soccer committee and an associate athletic director at the University of Cincinnati, theorizes that women’s soccer scholarship funds lag behind those for other women’s sports because most of the growth has occurred since the implementation of Title IX, which promoted spending on women’s athletics.

“When we went through that time in the thrust of Title IX, the impetus gave opportunity for women in basketball and volleyball, which were identified as primary sports,” she said. “Since then, there’s been a lot of development in soccer but not an increase in funds.”

Dave McLeish, who coaches boys at Marina and the men’s team at Southern California College, said he thinks prospects for scholarships are improving, but attributes the lack of funds to soccer’s lack of acceptance by the general public.

Although scholarships, and particularly those of substantial value, are not abundant in soccer, some Orange County players have been successful in the scholarship chase.

Joy Biefeld, an Edison graduate and The Times’ 1986 girls’ player of the year, is on partial scholarship at Cal. Ed Quigley, an Esperanza graduate and a 1986 first-team all-county player is on partial scholarship at UCLA, although he redshirted last season. Eric Biefeld, 1983 Edison graduate, was a senior co-captain of the Bruins last season.

As with any sport, many area coaches cite instances in which players could have received scholarships but could not meet the academic standards. But several coaches say this is more of a factor for soccer players than for athletes in some other sports.

“It’s not like football where it’s a revenue sport and you can take a chance,” said Vince Ropnca, Dana Hills coach. “For football, they have tutors and extra help. But for soccer, grades are of major importance.”

Pat Penner, a Marina graduate who played for two years at Golden West College, discovered how important grades could be when he had to choose a junior college instead of UCLA, which recruited him.

After two seasons at Golden West, Penner now is trying to decide whether to pursue soccer at a four-year school or to try out for National Football League teams as a kicker.

“I could have been an outfielder in baseball. I could have been a great basketball player,” Penner said. “But like my mom says, I picked the wrong sport.”

Prospects of scholarships sometimes appear so unpromising some players may rule soccer out by the time they reach high school.

“Soccer was always my best sport,” said Rog Middleton, a star basketball player at Tustin High School who played AYSO and club soccer until high school. But he gave it up because soccer was played in the same season as basketball and he realized his chances for a scholarship in basketball were much greater than in soccer.

“He made the right choice,” said Tustin soccer Coach Don Feldman. “If anybody wants to make a college or professional career in sports, the one sport they shouldn’t pick is soccer.”