Staying home: Dalton State providing collegiate outlet for stars of Soccertown

Apr. 7—The roster of the Dalton State College women's soccer team is full of Fernanda Sierras.

The names, the schools, the positions and the ages may be different, but so many Roadrunners share a similar story.

Sierra is a former Dalton High School Lady Catamount. After growing up in the youth circuits of what has become known as Soccertown, USA, and starring at Dalton High, Sierra faced a choice of college.

Fortunately for Sierra, and for so many like her, Dalton State has the ability to check all the boxes for Soccertown's finest.

First-rate education? Check. Close to home? Check. High-level soccer? Check.

"For me it was really important to get a college education, but I didn't know if I could get to the level of playing in college," Sierra said. "I just thought what better of a way than to go to college and play for my hometown. It's like a win-win being able to stay at home and play soccer."

Between the NAIA, which includes Dalton State's athletic programs, and three divisions of the NCAA, there are more than 1,200 women's collegiate soccer programs in the country.

Even with all those programs, Dalton State director of soccer Saif Alsafeer believes Dalton State has something unique to offer for student-athletes of every sport.

"We have our own college, where people can get a very, very good education — a University of Georgia system education — right here in our backyard, at a price that is beyond unbeatable," Alsafeer said. "As someone who recruits across the country and across the world and competes against schools of various sizes, I'm blown away at how affordable our education is with the quality that it brings. If people look around they'll realize that that is not common."

According to education research website Education Data Initiative, the average cost of in-state tuition per credit hour at a public, four-year university is $390, meaning a typical, three credit-hour college class would cost a student $1,170 per semester. Dalton State's in-state tuition for 2022-23 is $106.80 an hour, making a typical class $320.40 per semester and a 15-hour course load $1,602 per semester, before fees.

Plenty of locals have made use of that, whether they compete in a sport or not, but the athletics programs at Dalton State have mined local talent since the school reinstated sports programs in 2013.

Scanning the hometown column of the 2022-23 Dalton State roster can feel more like checking a local directory. A Rocky Face here, a Tunnel Hill there and a cavalcade of Daltons.

Fourteen members of last season's roster — nearly half of all the Roadrunners — hailed from Whitfield County. That's not even including several more from Catoosa, Gilmer and Fannin counties who have just a short trek to play collegiate soccer at DSC.

"To have the combination of affordability, the strength of education and the soccer program that we have is a totally unique combination of things," Alsafeer said. "For the local community, they get to take advantage of that in an even more unique way, because they could choose to live at home and save more money."

It was getting to attend college close to home that won Sierra over. The 2021 Dalton High grad had considered other opportunities, both with and without playing soccer in college.

"I'm really a homebody. Family comes first for me," Sierra said. "I knew I would get homesick if I went somewhere else to try to play. Going further away to play soccer would have been hard to decide. I know a lot of friends that went out and played, and they came back because they just didn't like it."

Helping Dalton State feel even more like home is the relationship she already had with several of the players who were on the roster when she made her decision.

A lot of the local products like Sierra played not just with or against each other in high school but essentially grew up together in soccer through youth organizations like the Northwest Soccer Academy Belles club.

"Most of us have gone through the same coaching staffs throughout academy soccer," Sierra said. "All but one or two of our local girls have been through that academy."

Alsafeer credits youth academies, like the Belles and the North Georgia Soccer Academy which is operated by former Dalton State coach Kerem Daser, with helping to instill soccer skills early on in the kids that help make up Soccertown, but also says the playing surfaces provided by city and county governments create an environment ripe for flourishing talent.

"I think a huge catalyst to having a lot of that talent here is to having the venues here where they can go play," Alsafeer said. "We don't have that without the city and the county parks and recreation departments in creating those places for the kids to play."

Homegrown talents also are present in the men's soccer program, also coached by Alsafeer, though the roster isn't quite as permeated with local talent as the women's program.

Five former high school players from Whitfield County were on the roster of the 2022 Roadrunners, who reached No. 1 in the NAIA at one point and made a run to the national tournament's final site.

Coahulla Creek's Jaime Mendiola, Northwest Whitfield's Eliseo Padilla, The Dalton Academy's Yehia Hussein and Dalton's Nestor Mendez and Filemon Quintero were part of a roster that also included natives of Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Portugal, South Africa and Sweden.

"We receive so many emails from people all over the globe that want to come here that it's unreal," Alsafeer said.

Whitfield County natives pop up all over fields, courts and tracks, with each sport Dalton State offers including at least one team member from in or around Dalton.

Four out of the eight members of 2022's cross country squad were from Whitfield County.

"I think that Dalton provides a lot of extremely unique opportunities to its residents, and I think Dalton State is one of those in an important way," said Alsafeer.

It's important for Sierra, who questioned whether she wanted to even continue playing soccer after high school.

Now she's getting a college education, and she was named a captain of the team during her sophomore season last fall.

"I want to be a role model for those girls that are younger," she said. "I want them to be able to say 'She did it, so I can do it, too.' It's a huge privilege just to get to play college soccer."