soccer – Sports & Study USA

11Apr 2025 by admin No Comments

The Sports & Study USA Hot Seat (#3) – 10 questions for our soccer expert Timo Suerstedt

1. Where did you go to college and what sport did you play? I played college soccer at Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina. 2. What made you come to college in the US? My former coach told me that there is an opportunity to go to the USA and attend a university over there. His best friend was a coach, and he connected us. He introduced me to the world of college sports in the US and ever since then I knew I wanted to come to college and play soccer over here. And it is definitely one of the best decisions I ever made. 3. What do you enjoy the most about helping young athletes with the transition of coming to college? The experience I made was so unforgettable…

28Mar 2025 by admin No Comments

The Sports & Study USA Hot Seat (#1) – 10 questions for our founder Patrick Hanauer

Where did you go to college and what sport did you play? I played four years of college golf at Abilene Christian University in Texas followed by a couple of years as a college golf coach.What made you come to the college in the US? To be honest, it was a difficult decision. And I feel like most young athletes struggle with the decision and almost everyone is going to have some doubts and concerns. But in the end, after doing one year of university over in Europe, I knew I needed to come to college in the US, as it was impossible to combine university studies and golf in Europe. And when I say impossible, I really mean it. And let’s face it, who is good enough and ready…

18Dec 2024 by admin No Comments

The importance of maximizing exposure

The competition for sports scholarships in the United States is extremely high. As a matter of fact, it has grown tremendously over the past decade and will continue to do so. We always talk about the importance of an athlete standing out in the recruiting process and doing all the right things in order to impress coaches and to beat out other athletes of the same level. This is definitely true and an extremely important thing to keep in mind. However, in this blog post we want to talk about the importance of exposure and how you can further improve your chances of getting that dream scholarship that you are seeking. While this does not necessarily apply for team sports as much as it does for individual sports, it still…

29Aug 2024 by admin No Comments

Don’t just go for the biggest scholarship, go for the best opportunity!

Picking the right university when you have several offers can be very overwhelming for a young student-athlete. As a matter of fact, it can be one of the hardest decisions you will ever be faced with. Coaches are all great salesmen, as it is a big part of their job to sell their program to recruits and to find the best possible athletes for their teams. So it can get very difficult to figure out which option might be the best one for you. What we see happen a lot, is that athletes tend to go for the cheapest option or for the biggest scholarship. While there is nothing wrong with that approach, it can also lead to you not picking the best opportunity or the best fit for you.…

25Jul 2024 by admin No Comments

Starting early and the importance of June 15

As most of you probably already know, you should always try to start the recruiting process as early as possible. You really cannot start early enough. It gives you more time to do all the necessary steps properly, it allows coaches to follow your progression over a certain period of time, and there are just more scholarships available if you start 2-3 years in advance rather than a few months prior to your college start date. If you are still unsure about when exactly you should start the process, one important date to keep in mind is June 15 of your junior year of high school, so a bit more than two years before you are supposed to start college. So why is that date so important? The answer is…

01Apr 2024 by admin No Comments

What can I do to stand out in the recruiting process?

As you can imagine, college coaches have very busy schedules. Some of a coach's regular duties include running practices, traveling, planning trips, ordering team gear and recruiting. It is almost like running a business for these coaches and as you can see they have a lot on their plate. On top of that, they get contacted by a lot of potential recruits on a daily basis. It is also not uncommon for coaches to recruit several players at the same time, as they know that not every player that they recruit will end up signing with their team. So very often coaches will be speaking to dozens of potential athletes at the same time, which means that you need to stand out from your competition in order to receive an…

30Jan 2024 by admin No Comments

Meet our Founder Patrick Hanauer

At Sports & Study USA, we pride ourselves on always providing our clients with top notch service that is based on exceptional expertise as well as experience. Our founder and president, Patrick Hanauer, is no exception to that rule as he has been involved in college sports for almost 20 years now. Patrick came to the United States in 2005 to play college golf at Abilene Christian University in Texas on a golf scholarship. He played all four years for the Wildcats, winning one tournament and recording numerous top 10 finishes, all while receiving a bachelor's degree in business management. Along the way, he also collected several academic awards both from the university and from the NCAA. After his playing career at ACU, Patrick then went on to coach at…

07Jun 2023 by admin No Comments

Going to College vs Turning Pro, what should I do?

This is the million dollar question that we get asked almost on a daily basis and as always, there is not only one right or wrong answer! Every case is different and while some athletes peak earlier than others, there are definitely some undeniable benefits of going to college. First of all, it gives you the security of having a college degree, in case the professional career does not work out. There have been numerous young athletes who were at the very top in their respective sport at age 15 or 16, but then were never able to breakthrough at the professional level. Secondly, in a lot of sports, past and current examples have shown that college can be the ideal preparation for a future professional career. College will not…