By EDWARD SEVERN, Staff Writer
Former Brownsville Veterans Memorial and Edinburg IDEA Toros goalkeeper Garrett Wild is fresh off his best season at Colorado State Pueblo, an NCAA Division II program that participates in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
Wild helped his team to a 13-5-2 record and a first-round playoff win against Seattle Pacific, when Wild kept a clean sheet with an impressive seven saves. It was the first win by the school in an NCAA tournament.
In the spring, Wild will gradate from CSU-Pueblo with a degree in business management. He has a 3.95 GPA and was on the academic all-district team as well as honorable mention for his on-field exploits.
Wild is not done with soccer.
“I put my name in the transfer portal,” he said. “I have another semester of eligibility left, and I hope to go somewhere that I can challenge myself. I am looking for something other than Texas or Colorado, something different.”
Before attending Edinburg IDEA during his senior year in high school, Wild played at Brownsville Veterans and helped lead the Chargers to a regional final appearance.
“Soccer is huge in Brownsville,” Wild said. “I always wanted to be a goalie, and when I got to BVM I had to go all in on one sport. Coach Albert Vasquez gave me a chance. I was able to perform well at BVM, and there the Toros came, they scouted me and offered me a spot.
“The Toros opportunity was amazing. They have (an) amazing amount of resources, and it helped me get to college. I am forever grateful for those programs.”
The soccer landscape has changed in America during the past decade. Major League Soccer is expanding, colleges are recruiting harder in Europe and leagues like the United Soccer League, the league in which the Rio Grande Valley Toros play, recently sold a player to a big club in Europe.
Wild has seen that rapid growth first-hand.
“At Pueblo, we had a lot of players from Germany, England and other parts of the world there,” he said. “Majority of the teams we played against had a good amount of players from overseas, too. Even NAIA schools are grabbing players from overseas.
“Players were always super athletic, but a lot of teams got better with the ball. The level of talent grew immensely in the last few years.”