The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“We’re all playing for something, to try and get promoted”
By Than Acuff
After graduating from the Crested Butte Community School in 2023, including a successful high school soccer career as a center midfielder for the Crested Butte Titans, Jamis Matlock is now playing professional soccer for Robina City FC on the Gold Coast of Australia.
Matlock was on the path to collegiate soccer in the U.S. but making the move from a small high school program and the local club, West Elk Soccer Association, to collegiate soccer was a massive step and Matlock struggled to find much interest from college programs.
But after his mom saw something online about the Pre College Development Academy (PCDA) in Nashville, Tennessee, an idea was born where Matlock could spend one, maybe two years, training at PCDA and then pursue college soccer after that.
“I sent the head guy a video of me playing and he sold me on it,” says Matlock.
Unfortunately, the path chosen did not play out as hoped for Matlock as the academy was just three years old and still developing its programming. In addition, the training and game schedule proved arduous and while that schedule may work for some players, it was not what Matlock wanted.
“I felt like we were the guinea pigs for the program,” says Matlock. “It was pretty full on. Training six days a week, a lot of times two sessions a day, with games. We were a pretty young team and we would play teams of full-on men. By the end of it I was pretty burned out, and I love the game. Doing that I realized I didn’t want to go full-on and I wanted to move on and start my education but still play some soccer.”
Matlock is unique as his dad is Australian and he has dual citizenship, so he started looking at universities in Australia, specifically the Gold Coast, eventually enrolling in Griffith University. But it’s not like here in the U.S. where universities have soccer programs, so Matlock looked into where he could play soccer.
“I knew there was tons of soccer in the area,” says Matlock.
He looked it up online, Robina City FC came up first, he contacted the coach there and it just so happened a lot of the clubs were about to start tryouts, or trials as they call it, so the coach sent him their trials schedule. Matlock showed up, put on his cleats and jumped into a scrimmage trial.
“I hadn’t played in a while, I was unfit, and it was really humid,” says Matlock.
He stuck with it though, kept showing up and earned a spot on the club’s u23 team. Then, after a couple of games with the u23 team, the club moved him up to the Robina City FC pro club that plays in the QP2 division. Since his time there, Matlock has now worked his way up to either starting as a defensive center midfielder or the first one off the bench, depending on the match.
“I got my first start and played pretty well,” says Matlock.
Then, much to his surprise, he found out he was going to get paid.
“I randomly got some money in my bank account from the club,” says Matlock. “I went from paying $40,000 a year at PCDA to getting paid to play. It’s pretty crazy.”
Not only that but Matlock contends the level of soccer is better than what he was playing at PCDA with a mix of players Matlock’s age and some seasoned pros on the squad including a handful of international players. And the program is far less rigorous with two trainings per week and a game on the weekend. Furthermore, Robina City FC is currently at the top of the QP2 league standings.
“We’ve done so well because we have a lot of players that played in the MPL, which is just below the top league,” says Matlock.
Matlock is enjoying the culture on the team and throughout the club. Not only does the owner attend all games, including the away games, but the players themselves are all in for one purpose, to win the league and get promoted to the QP1 league.
“It’s great,” says Matlock. “It’s a good team, good atmosphere, not as physically or mentally taxing and we’re all playing for something, to try and get promoted. At PCDA you were just kind of playing for yourself, just to get recruited.”
Matlock has experienced all of this while still able to attend Griffith University. It is a unique situation for sure and having dual citizenship did help Matlock, but he contends that while it is tough to continue playing soccer after playing in Crested Butte, it is not impossible.
“You can still grow up and play in Crested Butte, you just have to be patient and stick with it, as long as you keep playing,” says Matlock.
With that in mind, West Elk Soccer Association is currently hosting its annual soccer camps in Crested Butte with the Futedu Academy out of Spain this month with Spanish coaches leading the clinics. That was an avenue of which Matlock also tested the waters while in high school and so it is another potential avenue for our local soccer players to get some insight and exposure to the bigger world of soccer after high school. For more information or to register, go to westelksoccer.org.
