By Michael Wojtychiw
For many people, the name Disney II Magnet High School might not ring a bell. The Northwest Side school has only been open as a high school since 2013 has an enrollment of just over 500.
The Titans aren’t known as a Chicago Public League power, but that hasn’t stopped them from having players succeed both on and off the field. That wasn’t more evident that May 3, when the school hosted its first-ever National Signing Day event.
Nethan Gudiel, a member of the Titans’ boys soccer team, put pen to paper in the school’s auditorium and signed his National Letter of Intent to play at Concordia University-Chicago this fall. With that signing, he became the first-ever athlete from the school to sign a letter of intent to participate in a sport at the collegiate level.
“Oh wow, I didn’t know that,” Gudiel said. “It’s really exciting. I like doing new things, so to hear that, it’s one step into what I really want to do, which is make an impact wherever I go.
“I was lucky to do that here.”
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Gudiel only had a chance to play high school soccer for three of his four high school seasons, all of which he ended up playing on the varsity level. In his sophomore and junior seasons, he was listed as a goalie and midfielder on the roster but moved to primarily to the keeper position this past season.
According to MaxPreps stats, Gudiel made 220 saves on the year, averaging 20 saves per contest. his saves total was good for 11th overall in the state and the saves per game average was the most in the state by nearly three saves a game.
The Cougars are coming off of a season that saw them go 0-16, but once the Disney graduate stepped onto the River Forest campus for an ID camp and school visit, he knew it was a place he could see himself playing at.
Concordia returns two players who are listed as goalies, including one who started seven games last season, but there may be a chance for the freshman to see some playing time as one of the two saw action as a field player and not a goalie last year. Gudiel knows, however, that playing time isn’t a guarantee and that he’s going to have to work hard to make it onto the field.
“I really liked that it was close to home and from the start when I stepped onto campus, it was a family environment,” he said. “It was obvious that the coach had real connections with the players, not something like ‘Oh I’m just your coach.’ It was really connected. Even now, current players are finding ways to connect with commits, so I felt it was really for me.
“I started my recruiting process a little later, I started during my junior year. That’s when my parents really helped me, took me to camps. But I felt like I had the potential to play college soccer and kept pushing for it.”
Gudiel plans on studying sports communications when he gets to Concordia, hoping to eventually get a position with a sports team once he graduates from college.
In the meantime, his now-alma mater brings back 13 players from this year’s team, including six players who made the varsity squad as freshmen. And who knows, Gudiel may have just been the first in what will become an annual tradition at Disney II.
“I think that my (former) teammates now see that something like this is a possibility and that it’s within their reach of accomplishing it if they put their heart into it,” he said.
