Katie Schoepfer's transition from draft hopeful to professional soccer player took only a matter of seconds.
After hearing her name called, Schoepfer gave her parents a hug, walked on stage and shook hands with her new coach and general manager, paused for a photo and was taken backstage for interviews and even more pictures.
"It was so surreal because it was something I had been waiting on for so long," Schoepfer said. "They just immediately start treating you like a professional soccer player."
Schoepfer and teammate Alyssa Naeher were selected in Friday's Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) Draft in Philadelphia. Naeher was taken by the Boston Breakers with the 11th overall pick of the first round while Schoepfer went sixth in the third round, 26th overall, to Sky Blue FC.
Naeher was the first goalkeeper taken in the draft and was Boston's second pick in the first round after it selected UCLA forward Lauren Cheney second overall. Breakers head coach Tony DiCicco also coached Naeher in the 2008 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup and knew what kind of player he was getting when Naeher was selected.
"I think she has some really special qualities. She's a winner, and I think there's another horizon for her to be as a goalkeeper," DiCicco said. "I think this is a great environment for her, and it's great for us, too, to have a player with her quality competing for the starting position."
With the WPS season starting in March, Schoepfer said she and Naeher are taking a leave of absence from Penn State this semester to play. Though some pre-draft rankings on womensprosoccer.com had Schoepfer projected as high as the sixth pick and as low as the late third round, the forward went into the draft without any expectations.
Sky Blue FC plays its home games at Rutgers University and is based in Piscataway, N.J. Schoepfer, a Waterford, Conn. native, is glad to be close to home. While her overall goal was to be drafted, Schoepfer admitted to holding her breath a little bit whenever one of the West Coast teams was selecting.
"Everything on Katie is that she's a presence up top. She plays with her back to the goal, good passer, strong and physical," Sky Blue FC GM Gerry Marrone said. "The one challenge that is concurrent with any of these players coming in is the speed and physicality of our game is a lot different at this level."
Unlike football, where teams can brand universities for a certain type of player, Marrone said collegiate soccer hasn't reached that level yet. Therefore, when WPS team are scouting prospects, they have to find all around players, and Marrone said Schoepfer fit that description.
Naeher said she was excited and relieved when she heard her name called in the first round. Schopefer said her normally calm teammate was "freaking out" when she was taken as the first goalkeeper in the draft.
"It was an honor. There were a lot of good goalkeepers in the group," Naeher said. "To be going up first was something special and something that was pretty exciting."
While both players will find themselves competing for minutes, they said the chance to play professionally is enough motivation for them to work every day to make a WPS roster.
"I think it's going to be a tough transition because mentally you have to be in every practice and every single session 100 percent and giving everything you have," Schoepfer said. "If you don't, you have someone who's just as good as you right behind you waiting. I'm really looking forward to the challenge. I think I'm going to learn a lot this season."
