Switching Sides: Why Junior Wesley Cribb decided to join the East soccer team this year after playing on Sporting Academy for four years.

Junior Wesley Cribb has had a ball at his feet since the moment he started to walk. From playing on recreational teams in kindergarten to playing against MLS club teams, Wesley has seen all different types of competition in his 12 years of playing soccer.

Wesley has played on the Sporting KC Academy premier team since eighth grade. After dedicating all of his time to the difficult practices, Cribb has decided to swap out his Sporting uniform for a columbia blue one and try out high school soccer.

Wesley’s goal with soccer has always been to play at the Division I college level. He felt SKC was his best option in achieving that goal.

However, SKC meant that Wesley had to be fully committed to soccer. He couldn’t play any other sports, had to practice six days a week for three hours and couldn’t have a seventh hour if he wanted to make it to practice on time.

“At Sporting it’s kind of like a job, going to practices five or six days a week,” Wesley said. “I had to dedicate my mind and body to soccer.”

Besides practices consuming time, the tight-knit bond that teammates had wasn’t there in the later years for Wesley at SKC. New players are always coming in to replace old ones, which made bonding with the team more difficult, according to Wesley.

The relationships at SKC were way different, according to Wesley. He felt as though there wasn’t enough time to hang out with or build a strong connection with them.

“At Sporting, the team dinners would be in a hotel where you gather, get your food and immediately take it up to your hotel room,” Wesley said. “At East team dinners, you’re all there, chatting and bonding. It just feels more real.”

Wesley started to take into consideration playing for East this past May. It was a very difficult decision he had to make, and he weighed out the pros and cons of each team such as time, dedication and competition with his family. Ultimately, he felt East was his best option for the upcoming season.

“He had one foot in high school and one foot in Sporting and he was never really in one place 100%,” Wesley’s mother Laura Cribb said. “So I feel like that was kind of pulling him towards one decision.”

Ever since Wesley has put on the East soccer uniform, he’s finally felt the tight bond he was lacking at Sporting. He wanted to have the full high school experience, and by playing with kids he goes to school with, he feels he’s achieved that.

“Team dinners, laughing, joking, winning games together, I just wanted to have that family bond together with my teammates,” Wesley said.

Playing on the East team has lived up to his expectations of feeling a tight link within the team. Wesley believes that he has connected to the team very quickly.

“He fit right in,” Head Soccer Coach James Kelly said. “When I watched him play, it was pretty easy to see that he would fit in well at the Varsity level with us.”

Although Wesley is not playing at the elite competitive level he once was with SKC, he still is content with the competition he’s playing against at East. He believes that the competition will vary from team to team, whereas on SKC he was always playing against the highest level club teams.

“The first game we had against Shawnee Mission West, they were pretty damn good,” Wesley said. “They had some players who used to play for Sporting and scored a few goals on us.” 

Wesley is still very proud of the fact that he played on SKC for as long as he did. He knows that he wouldn’t be the player he is today without them helping raise his soccer IQ and helping his mental and physical attributes grow.

“I’m not going to stoop down to a lower level just because I’ve been playing in high school,” Wesley said. “The levels not as high, the competitions not as good but I’m always going to keep my standard high for myself.”