Technical Sessions: Scott Bolkan

Teammates
Technical Sessions: #4

Stanford defender Scott Bolkan spoke with Soccer City FC prior to the 2008 MLS Combine. Bolkan looked forward to sharing the experience with goalkeeper Andrew Kartunen. While he was honored by the invite, he was also happy to see his teammate’s inclusion.

“It was exciting to see him on the list. It will be great to have a good friend from the past four years with me to share the experience. He struggled with injuries including this year. He has been through a lot. I am happy for him.”

Like many of the players on the combine rosters, he spent the summer in the Premier Development League with Westchester Flames F.C. honing his skills.

“I got hooked up with the Westchester Flames through a former teammate Luke Sager who is now at Harvard. I went out with two other Stanford players, Dan Shapiro and Evan Morgan. Luke touted this team; it was a good opportunity to play with a successful team.”

After the 2007 collegiate season, Bolkan prepared for the combine while on break back home in Oregon. Individually, he was able to stay consistent over the last three weeks.

“Fitness wise, I have been training pretty hard doing a lot of lifting, long runs, and short runs. It is kind of tough not having a team when everyone goes home for break. It is a lot of individual work. It is more important that I am mentally ready. I want to be focused and ready for the combine. The mental training is a lot tougher than the physical training.”

Finding players to train with proved to be more difficult.

“Going home for break was tough. I can get in two or three small-sided games per week with former teammates from high school and club. It is tough to get numbers when you go home for a break.”

Bolkan preferred to downplay his individual accomplishments and continued to highlight his team during our discussion. Thankfully, Andrew Kartunen was happy to share some insight on the defender.

“He is a classy player both on and off the field and is a huge reason why our defense let in less than a goal per game this year. He even became an attacking force at the beginning of the year, scoring three goals off crosses and corners. Scott has become a dominant header as a central defender and is honestly one of the best 1 v 1 defenders I have ever played with. He also is one of the best tacklers I have come across as well. He certainly deserves to be a part of the combine.”

“Scotty is a pretty reserved guy off the field, but once you get to know him he is a guy that you can have a ton of laughs with. One particular story that comes to mind was when we lived across the hall from each other our sophomore year, he would always sneak into my room and see what he could sneak out of our refrigerator. More often than not, my roommates would catch him sneaking food out of our room, but for some reason we always let him take it.”

Bolkan will not have to sneak past anyone to get into the 2008 MLS Combine. His collegiate honors and summer with the Westchester Flames guranteed his admittance. As for the food in the facilities’ refrigerators, there are no guarantees.