Few in-state options for local talent pool

As one of the top high school soccer players in the nation in the late 1990s, Chris Gbandi had quality options for where he could play in college.

The Cypress Falls senior had scholarship offers from St. John’s, Connecticut, Cincinnati, Alabama-Birmingham and Rhode Island, but not a single offer from an in-state school.

That was not because he wasn’t good enough. At the time, Texas had only one Division I men’s soccer program.

As the NCAA men’s College Cup kicks off at BBVA Compass Stadium on Friday night, Gbandi still would not have many choices if he was a senior today.

Four teams — Denver, North Carolina, Stanford and Wake Forest — will play for the NCAA championship this weekend. That is the same number of Division I teams — SMU, Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word and Texas-Rio Grande Valley — in the entire state of Texas.

“I never even thought about staying in Texas,” said Gbandi, who is the head coach at Northeastern in Boston. “It is unfortunate that all these kids growing up in Texas who want to play don’t have many options to play in Texas.”

There are 18 Texas kids on the rosters of the four teams competing this weekend. Nine of them play for North Carolina, including brothers Tucker and Walker Hume from San Angelo. Tucker leads the Tar Heels in scoring. Walker is an all-ACC second-team pick.

Denver defender Reagan Dunk, a Dallas Lake Highlands graduate, is a two-time Hermann Trophy semifinalist. Stanford winger Bryce Marion has started all 21 games this season for the defending NCAA champions, three years after graduating from Cy Ranch.

When Gbandi won the NCAA title with Connecticut in 2000, four of his teammates had played on his club team in Houston.

A numbers game

Glenn Davis, a national television soccer broadcaster and host of the Houston radio show Soccer Matters, was the director of the club Gbandi played for. During his days as a youth director, he said he saw a steady stream of players leave Texas because of the lack of opportunities.

He said the fact more Texas schools do not have Division I programs is inconsistent.

“These are international universities that don’t have the number one international game,” Davis said. “You have so much in-state talent to pick from. The University of Houston could be a power right here in our city.”

The main obstacle for adding men’s soccer programs is Title IX, which in part says there have to be as many scholarships for female athletes as there are for male athletes.

Rice and UH said this week the reason they sponsor women’s teams but not men’s teams is because of Title IX.

Since many NCAA Division I schools field football teams that can use up to 85 scholarships, it is difficult to offset that number with women’s teams. So most schools have more women’s teams than men’s teams.

Popularity growth

.be surprised if, in the future, you saw a growth in college soccer. What makes it more difficult (for colleges) is the proportionality in numbers you have to have.”

Until Texas colleges add the sport, however, the majority of local kids may have to take the same path as Gbandi, who parlayed his college success into becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the 2002 MLS Super Draft and a nine-year pro career.

“You could have kids say, ‘If we all stay here and play for this one school, then we might be able to do something big,’ ” Gbandi said. “That is something, if it would have been a possibility for us, we would have at least considered it.”

Rice deputy athletic director Rick Mello served on the NCAA’s men’s soccer committee for two years in the early 2000s and said there was always discussion about growing the game nationally.

He said the committee knew it would have to start at the youth levels, which Mello said is happening throughout the country.

“It is gaining in popularity,” Mello said. “I wouldn’t