Ben Elkins

Ben Elkins plays soccer at Gonzaga, and has been running a soccer program for kids with disabilities since it was a high school assignment.

Ricky Cruz of OneSport Media had moved his operation from Seattle across the state to Spokane and started messaging athletes he had never met. Elkins wrote back. A phone call, a meeting a couple of days later, and deals started coming in, including the SALTYmf Athlete Program. Elkins says Gonzaga players do not get much help with NIL and mostly handle it themselves. He says he was never reaching for the money; he wanted to build something that represented who he was.

He started playing at four, rooted in both his parents' love for the game, and got serious about it in his teens. He was recruited by a decent number of schools and picked Gonzaga after a visit that opened with snow, which for a Sacramento kid was a lot. He took about two weeks to decide. He is majoring in business with a minor in sports management. As a club player he was cut from a thousand down to an eighteen man California roster and went to Sweden for the Gothia Cup, where he walked into a stadium with about 3,000 people in it while his parents watched from home. He also plays for Liberia's under twenty national team. His mother was born there and came over at ten.

He tore his shoulder, had surgery, and lost his entire sophomore season. For a player who relies on his pace, that is a long time to sit. He is back now, and the thing he says to himself daily is about appreciating the training session he is actually in, because one day you are fine and the next you are in a cast. He thinks the enjoyment has been squeezed out of youth sport, along with any credit for the steps along the way. His advice to younger players comes from the same place. Do not pick a school for the letter on the front of the building. Pick the place that values you, because you have to wake up there, work out there, eat there and live in that city every single day. His mother told him to keep his eyes on the long term goals, because staring at the short ones pushes the long ones further away.

The program started because he had a project due in high school and no idea what to do with it. His cousin, who has autism, came to every one of his games and watched soccer at home whether or not he followed what was happening. Elkins and his parents built something to teach soccer to kids with Down syndrome and autism. It started with his cousin and grew to about fifteen kids, and he kept it going after the project was graded. This summer he is running a camp of two to three hundred at his old high school for six to eight year olds and ten to twelve year olds, with a few other Division I players helping. He says watching a kid celebrate his own dribbling took the money part out of it.