NSR Australia was recently in touch with one of it’s Prospects, Luke McCallum who has just completed his first season in the USA at Century College in MN.
Here is Part 1 of Luke’s story from the time of departure to now. Enjoy!
I moved to White Bear Lake on the 9th of August 2013. I flew from Melbourne to Minneapolis. It never really hit me until I boarded the plane and realized that this was it, and that I had pretty much packed my entire life up into two giant suitcases and was moving overseas. Right away, it was such a big change. I realized that I was completely independent and that I had nobody else but myself to rely on. It took roughly 27 hours including stopovers to get from Australia to Minneapolis. My soccer coach from CenturyCollege was there to pick me up when I arrived in MinneapolisAirport. He took me from the airport and drove me to my apartment where I would be living throughout the next few years. On the way there, we drove past both of the CenturyCollege campuses and he gave me a brief overview of where everything was. He then told me that he would give me a proper tour of the entire school however he would do so in a few days so that I had a bit of time to get some rest and adapt to my new surroundings. I live in a four bedroom apartment on the third floor of the century commons which is located less than 100m from the college’s campus. I share my apartment with three other guys who are also a part of the century college men’s soccer team. We got along really well with each right from the get go which has been a huge part of my success, coping with living so far away from all of my family and friends. Living with two other guys who share the same passion and love for soccer as I do, makes everything so much more enjoyable. I am enrolled at CenturyCollege full-time majoring in Business Management. The school facilities at CenturyCollege are actually better than what I was expecting. The school currently has over 15,000 students enrolled this semester. I am currently half way through my first semester here and so far I am doing very well. I hope to keep my grades up and plan to excel further each and every day. I am living on a very busy schedule. Because I am attending college full-time as well as being a part of the Century College Men’s Soccer Team, I have a lot to do each day. I attend lessons from 10am-3:30pm and then go to soccer training from 4pm-6pm Monday to Friday and then of course I have homework to do later during the night. Although all of this is very time consuming, I do really enjoy it.
The semester I am currently in is called the Fall Semester. During the fall season, our means soccer team had a very busy schedule. We played 19 season matches within a two month period. Some weeks we had to play four games within a space of only seven days! We have a roster of which is made up of 26 players ranging from the ages of 18-20. The standard of soccer I am playing against is better than I had initially thought. Over the past few years, the Century College Men’s soccer team has been reasonably successful making it to the final each and every year however not being able to progress any further due to not winning the regional championship game. This year though, we have been more successful than ever. From the 19 season games we played, we came away with 16 wins, 1 draw and only 2 losses! We went into the Regional Championship match against our Rival team from across the city and managed to come away with a 2-0 win. It was the first time in history that Century College had been able to do so. Because of this victory, we were then named regional champions for our region for 2013. The next step after Regionals is the District tournament. This means we played against the winner from another Region which happened to be the Men’s Soccer Team from Jolliet College, Illinois. The game was scheduled to be played on Saturday, the 2nd of November. The game was quite difficult however a goal scored by Century College in the last few seconds of the match secured the three points and gave us the victory, winning 1-0. Due to winning that match we were named, District C Champions and we progressed to the National Tournament. The National Tournament is a tournament held in New York on the 14th-17th of November 2013. The National Tournament consists of the best eight college soccer teams from across the entire United States. All of the hard work our soccer team has put in throughout this season has helped brought us to where we are now. It is a super exciting feeling knowing that I am a part of one of the best college soccer teams in the United States. Although it is very nerve racking, I cannot wait to play against some the highest standard of soccer the United States has to offer.
It has been an incredibly exciting experience so far and I am loving every bit of it. Of course there are days that I miss home and wish that I could just spend time with my family, girlfriend and friends however as hard as it is, I try not to think about it because it only makes things worse. I am trying to focus on all of the good things that are happening because I want to make the most out of this experience and I know that before I know it, this will all be over. I cannot wait for Christmas to come around because I am flying home to Australia for two weeks. It’ll be the best Christmas present I could possibly ask for. I fly back to America on the 12th of January so that I am back for the start of the spring semester starting on the 14th.