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Not every kid can pay to play. But every kid goes to school. If you coach high school soccer and you want your metro's best teams meeting for something that matters, this page is the pitch, the playbook and the phone number.
Talk to Jim Harte
Director of the US High School Champions League. One conversation is how Tampa Bay, St. Louis, Polk County and South Florida each got started.
Get in touchAthletic directors will tell you straight: on the current trajectory, high school athletics might not exist in ten years. The people downgrading high school soccer aren't making a philosophical argument. They're making a financial one. We're in the way of twelve months of fees.
Playing for your school is the closest most kids will ever get to playing for their country. Instead of yelling at the clouds, we built something the best players don't want to miss. Here's what it does for a coach.
State brackets are sorted by school size, so the two best teams in your metro may never meet. The Champions League puts Class 3 against Class 4 for bragging rights, keeps a table, and makes a regular-season Tuesday count for three points.
It's hard to sell a top player on a season of mercy-rule wins. Give them a night they don't want to miss and they choose high school soccer. Club develops individuals. High school teaches kids how to win.
The metro is the league. Every high-level match is a bus ride away, seated inside games your school already budgets for. Nobody flies to Phoenix and books the mandatory hotel.
The papers stopped covering high school soccer. We stopped complaining about it. Your region gets its own page here, with standings, fixtures, reporters and photos, and the kids get a kick out of it.
“When my teams play in the Champions League, they care. We already play Vianney. But now we're playing Vianney with a semifinal on the line.”
David Aronberg · Coach, St. Louis Champions League
It doesn't make sense for Jim Harte to tell St. Louis how to run St. Louis. But the way a region gets off the ground is the same everywhere. Every metro comes down to one or two coaches everybody respects, and one athletic director.
Every coach who could be in it, ranked from most enthusiastic to loudest naysayer. Don't send a mass email. That's open season for the armchair expert.
“My school's in. What about you?” Each yes becomes the next call's leverage. By the time you reach the naysayers, their objections are already answered and there's a spot waiting if they want it.
This is the hurdle and the unlock. One AD with skin in the game, often at a program that will be in it every year, who can explain it to the other ADs and the county office. Everything else is easy.
Group stage games are games you were already going to play. The only variable is the opponent. Coaches care who they play. The bean counters only count games.
Population sets the format. Two to three million people runs 16 teams. Six million wants 24 or splits in two. Chicago is building four leagues and a Final Four. We'll help you pick.
That's the secret. Keep the league seated inside the regular season and the school has already paid for it. For four years we sent teams referee grants for their home games. Then we stopped, because no team had ever stayed out over money.
When you do want more, a scholarship, a photographer at the Final, a 501(c)(3), the funding source is one you already have: former players who are doing well and remember what the game gave them. They are a very willing audience.
Admin access to your own page: teams, standings, fixtures, news, match reports and photos. Built and hosted for you.
Every team gets a ball bag and game balls stamped with your regional crest. The same ball the USL Championship plays with. Plus the Select Virtuoso Award for the best player in your Final.
Jim Harte walks you through your first year, from the coach list to the AD search to the format. He's done it in five regions.
A bimonthly Zoom with the coaches and organizers already running this. Nobody figures it out alone.
What we don't have: a polished pitch deck. What we have instead is a director who has made every one of these calls himself, and a room full of coaches who will tell you what worked.
Every metro builds a league that fits its local soil. The spine is the same everywhere. Commit to these, show up to the calls, keep your page alive, and you're in.
No entry fees, no pay-to-play tier. A family's bank balance is never the gate.
Every spot earned. Selection criteria are objective, public and the same for every team.
Your rivals are your neighbors. Less travel, more home crowd.
Colleagues, not adversaries. Share what works. Protect the kids' experience over your own program.
The players carry the crest. The season is built around what they take from it.
You run a team. You run training. This is the same skill set at a bigger scale. You aren't creating a league; you already have a regular season. The real work is getting coaches to agree that these particular games mean these particular things.
They return each other's. Ask your colleagues who loves their AD, and whose AD loves their program. Make the hard sell there. We help with the search; it's headhunting, and we've done it before.
It runs during the high school season, so it isn't their turf. We can't control what clubs like. We control what we do, and the kids decide. Santiago Castaneda was Tampa's 2021 MVP and plays in the Bundesliga. Matty Di Maria was St. Louis MVP and scored a hat trick for the U.S. Under-17s. Tim Ream played at St. Dominic and went to a World Cup. High school soccer didn't mess them up.
No. State is still top dog. This is another feather in the cap, another bragging-rights trophy, and a reason for the best players in your metro to stay in the high school game.
Jim Harte has spent hours on the phone with every region that exists today. Tell us your metro, your school and how you get along with your athletic director. He'll take it from there.
Get in touch“If they're not going to cover us, we'll cover ourselves.”
Jim Harte · Director, USHSCL