Matt Haefner has seen a lot in his time as the Penn men's soccer team's starting goalkeeper.
He has led the Quakers to three straight Philadelphia Soccer 7 titles, their first Ivy League Championship in 22 years and their first NCAA Tournament win in 29 years. He has won first-team All-Ivy and third-team All-American honors, and was the program's first-ever Ivy League Player of the Year in 2002 when he posted the sixth-lowest goals against average in the country.
Now he is ready to test himself at an even higher level.
On Jan. 12, Haefner will participate in the 2004 adidas/Major League Soccer Player Combine at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. He is the first player in Penn history to ever be selected for the combine, and if his name is called at the Jan. 16 draft in Charlotte, N.C., he would be the first Penn player in MLS history.
"I just want to go and be as good as I can be and play at the top of my game," Haefner said. "It's pretty sweet to think that I'm going to this thing, something that I never would have thought of doing three or four years ago."
The Amherst, N.Y., native will play on the adidas Supernova team, one of four at the event. He will be goalkeeping with some rather prestigious company, including UCLA star Adolfo Gregorio and University of Maryland standouts Abe Thompson and Sumed Ibrahim.
"All these guys are definitely above the average player," Haefner said. And although he spent time with some of the Maryland players over the summer -- and faced them again in College Park this past season -- he admitted that "it's still going to be crazy playing a game where everybody's at that caliber."
Penn's rise to prominence in college soccer has coincided with MLS coming into its own as a place for young American players to develop professionally instead of searching for work in hard-to-crack European leagues.
"Obviously the league hasn't been around that long, but it's an honor to see your school up there on the list of people who have been selected for this thing," Haefner said.
Haefner is not the only Ivy League player who will be heading to Carson. Yale midfielder Jay Alberts, Harvard midfielder Kevin Ara and Brown midfielder Adom Crew -- the Ivy League Player of the Year this past season -- will also be representing the Ancient Eight as they try to enhance the league's reputation.
"It's good to see the Ivy League as one of the top divisions in Division I," Haefner said. "We've still got a ways to go, there's still a lot of guys from the ACC and Pac-10 out west but we're representing to some extent."
Haefner is also well aware that two former Ivy League coaches will be watching him and the other players at the combine. The Chicago Fire's head coach, Dave Sarachan, previously coached Cornell, and the New York/New Jersey MetroStars' Bob Bradley came to the MLS from Princeton.
"I'm sure they keep tabs on the Ivies," Haefner said, adding that the Penn coaching staff is "definitely on a pretty friendly basis" with Bradley.
In the end, Haefner doesn't mind where he ends up playing as long as he gets drafted, although he knows that some of the league's star goalkeepers, such as Chicago's Zach Thornton and New England's Adin Brown, have their positions pretty well cemented.
"Obviously it's cool to back up a top-notch keeper," he said. "I would definitely take a chance where I would have more of a chance to get to play in games, for sure."
