Jihwan Shim '23 Recruiting Profile

Soccer has been my biggest passion for as long as I can remember.

One of my family’s favorite stories to tell is that I stared kicking a roly-poly toy before being able to stand up by myself. 

Most kids usually switch their dreams up as they grow older, but I can confidentally say that I have always been on track to pursue my life-long dream of becoming an amazing soccer player.

Things became more serious when I joined a regional junior soccer club of a Korean professional team, FC Seoul, in 2014. The coaches strongly recommended me to become a goalkeeper, because they highly valued my wide vision and gut to take responsibilities that other kids tended to avoid. 

It didn’t take long to find out that I had met the right position, because I fell in love with the fact that the goalkeeper with a wide vision and high soccer-IQ could contribute to the team as the initiater in offense, and the last player on defense. It felt like I became a conductor of the team.

My strengths as a goalkeeper are the ability to read the flow of the game and to organize the defense, along with strong feet to distribute, and lastly, very consistent shot stopping ability.

My short term goal is to become a college student athlete, and major in business management. I would like to learn the advanced system here in the US, especially the virtuoso cycle from the youth to the industry.

While I was back in South Korea, I never had enough time for my academics because their system did not allow student athletes to experience a balanced growth between training and study. The opportunity for the balanced development attracted me to fly over to the US this Summer as well as the rapid development of soccer as a sport here. 

My long term goal is to contribute to the development of the overall industry of the sport with the knowledge and experience I will be able to learn in the well developed system in the US.