St. Thomas senior Shae Bottum grew up with a dream of playing professional soccer, so before his freshman year at St. Thomas, he and men’s soccer coach Jon Lowery sat down to discuss a four-year plan – “all based on team success,” according to Bottum – to help that dream come true.

Four years, one Final Four appearance and one Division III National Player of the Year award later, and the dream is one phone call away from becoming reality. A successful trial with the Minnesota United Football Club last week has landed Bottum in talks with a number of Major League Soccer teams who are interested in him as a player.

“I knew early on that Shae was different,” Lowery said, “and I knew early on that he had pieces of his game that could culminate to being at another level.

“He will be a pro soccer player,” Lowery said.

Bottum has been in contact with Minnesota United FC, the Portland Timbers, Los Angeles FC and the New York Red Bulls, but “turning speculation and interest into actual action” has been tougher than expected, according to Bottum.

“He’s kind of in that free agent role,” Lowery said.

A role that Bottum describes as “a freaking jigsaw puzzle.”

“I could get a call and be on a plane ride the next morning,” Bottum said. “It’s kind of a waiting game. I could be moving instantly, I could be waiting … It makes you go crazy inside.”

Bottum has been on the professional radar since his junior year, when he was an all-American and led the Tommies to the national semifinals for the first time in school history. That following summer, he spent some time Washington, D.C.

“When I left D.C. I met with the coaching staff at D.C. United, and they said to get a good statistical year and bring your team back to the tournament,” Bottum said. “I knew going into it that if I just put the stats up and the team won – it was more about the team winning than the stats – that I would have the opportunity.”

And he did just that. After tallying 33 points – second in the MIAC to teammate Justin Oliver – and lifting St. Thomas to a program-best 22 wins his senior season, he was crowned the D-III National Player of the Year. An accomplishment that, according to Bottum, “sent things to the next level.”

“When the season ended we kind of looked at Shae and his opportunity to continue playing in the MLS,” Lowery said. “The first goal was to get him to be considered in the combine.

“Some years, the combine has been 60 players. Some years, it’s been as big as 75, 80, 90,” Lowery said. “Some years, they included Division II and Division III kids. This year, they chose not to.”

Though he went undrafted, Bottum looks at it as a positive.

“It’s nice because, if you don’t get drafted, no team owns your rights, so I have the freedom to go on trial with any team I want,” he said. “If I was drafted by one team and it didn’t work out, they can still control your rights and send you to a (United Soccer League) team that you don’t really want to be part of.”

Lowery has no doubt that his former player will make it.

“The one thing that people are getting to know – and what I’ve known for all along – is that he has internal drive,” he said. “He has the devotion, the commitment and the relentlessness to pursue this career.”

Grateful for all that St. Thomas has done to get him to this point, Bottum understands the uniqueness of where he stands today.

“St. Thomas is awesome in the fact that, in most D-III programs, you would never have a chance of going pro,” he said, “and I have a lot of really good opportunities.”

Some Tommies will go on to be lawyers, some Tommies will go on to be doctors; this Tommie will go on to be a professional soccer player.

“This is a St. Thomas success story,” Lowery said. “This is somebody who benefited from all aspects of the campus and now they’re going off to be a young professional, and his path is going to be soccer … It’s a great testament to what is possible here at St. Thomas.”

Gamiel Hall can be reached at hall0211@stthomas.edu.