To say that Josh Totte has a bright future ahead would be a gross understatement. The Palo Alto High junior recently signed a letter of intent to play soccer for – wait for it – Yale.
“I always dreamt about going to a great academic and athletic school,” he said. “When Yale started to show interest in me, they immediately jumped to the forefront of my list.”
Totte, a 5-foot-8, 150-pound midfielder, glue-guy and captain of the Quakes’ U16 Academy team, has parlayed a successful youth soccer career into a future playing at one of the world’s most esteemed universities. And picking Yale wasn’t as easy as you might think – there were other notable suitors.
“Before Yale started to show interest, I was considering Princeton, Wake Forest, UC-Davis and Santa Clara,” said Totte. “But once I visited Yale and met with the coaches, I knew it was the perfect fit for me.”
After a successful freshman campaign on the varsity squad at “Paly”, at the ripe old age of 15, Totte and a handful of his teammates were faced with a tough decision: continue to play with their friends on the high school team, or take the road less traveled, a road not open to many, and play with the Quakes’ Academy team.
This choice, tough as it might have been, was fairly obvious to him. “The Academy gives you a lot of exposure and it’s really good competition,” he said. “I didn’t want to give that up in order to play high school.”
This decision demonstrated much of the same maturity he has shown as the Academy team captain, and the Academy staff assisted in the process, which meant a lot to Totte.
“The Academy staff (Chris Leitch, Stephen Wondolowski and Marquis White) played a huge role in this process,” he said. “The Yale coaches (head coach Brian Tompkins and assistant Hiro Suzuki) watched me play during an Academy game and that began the recruiting cycle.
“I owe all the credit to my coaches, family and, most importantly, my teammates for pushing me in practice to get to where I am.”
Leitch, the Academy’s technical director, sounded like a proud father when speaking about Totte. “Josh is an excellent young man who has fantastic qualities, both on and off the field,” he said. “Matching exceptional young men with exceptional universities in order for those players to have opportunities to continue their soccer development and get a great education is a big part of what we do.
“We are excited that Josh has chosen Yale. He is ensured a great education and we will continue to bring him back into the fold with us in etween his college seasons.”
Sports will continue to be a major part of Totte’s life both on and off the field.
“I intend to study psychology,” he said, “and would love to take classes specifically on sports psychology, as I think it is an incredibly interesting field.”
His grade point average has never been below 3.75 in any semester, and twice he has racked up at least a 4.0, all the while taking an advanced schedule of classes. This past semester, his weighted GPA registered 4.16 and he won the 2012 President’s Award for logging over 100 hours of community service during the calendar year. Not bad for a young man whose driver’s license still has wet ink on it.
