Throughout the 2009-2010 academic year, the Northeast-10 and its member institutions will be featuring student-athletes across the conference in the brand new ‘Student-Athlete Spotlight’ section on the Northeast-10 website. Our eighth installment, submitted by Kyle Mack, Assistant Sports Information Director at Bentley University, features men's soccer player Eric Heuze.


By Kyle Mack, Bentley University

Through two years at Bentley, midfielder Eric Heuze has quickly established himself as one of the top players in the Northeast-10 Conference. Possessing quickness, excellent ball and passing skills and a powerful shot, Heuze was a first-team All-Conference choice this past season and an All-Rookie selection as a freshman. He has accounted for 32 points over the past two years on 11 goals and 10 assists. Those numbers are tops on the team in all three categories.

He didn’t take the typical path to Bentley though. Heuze, whose father is French and mother is American, was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the country’s second largest city in terms of population. His mother was raised in Miami and both parents were born in Havana, Cuba and attended the University of Miami. As a result, Heuze spoke English, French and Spanish at home.

Heuze got his start in sports early, following in his father’s footsteps and beginning to play both soccer and tennis at the age of five. He was more passionate about tennis and better at it at first, but gravitated more towards soccer as he got older.

He spent his elementary and middle school years in the Swiss public school system, attending school in his hometown of Cologny, a tiny village of about 5,000 people a few miles northeast of Geneva.

While attending school, Heuze began playing for a club team, FC-Geneva, and stayed with them for several years. However, as he got older and his skills improved, Heuze decided to join the youth team of FC-Chenois, whose parent club currently plays in the third division of the Swiss professional league. The move was made in part because of the greater resources available to Chenois, but more so for the ability to play against better competition.

In addition to the regular season games Chenois played, the club would organize tournaments in Geneva that featured the youth teams of some of the top professional clubs in Europe like FC Barcelona and Marseille of the French professional league. Thanks to that opportunity, Heuze was able to hone his skills against some of the top young players in Europe. Specifically, the Barcelona youth team fielded two players, Pedro Rodriguez and Bojan Krkic, who currently play for Barcelona’s first division squad, widely considered to be one of the top teams in European soccer.

“It was a great experience playing against some of the best young players in Europe,” Heuze said. “My dream was to go to Barcelona as an exchange student and try my chances with the youth team and hopefully make my way up. Everyone has his dream, that was mine.”

After his freshman year of high school, Heuze moved on to the International School of Geneva for the remainder of his high school career. While still playing for Chenois, Heuze also played for ISG’s team. He and his teammates competed in tournaments against other international schools in places like Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels.

When it came time to choose a college, the decision to come to the United States was an easy one. After looking at several schools in Boston and Washington DC, Heuze selected Bentley.

“It’s a perfect combination,” Heuze said. “Bentley allows students to succeed academically and athletically which is what I was looking for. And at the same time, it’s comparable to what I was used to, which is living close to an international city and at the same time studying and playing sports in a countryside environment.”

Looking at the statistics, Heuze has made an easy transition on the playing field. As a freshman in 2008 he led the team in assists with six and finished third on the team in points with 12. This past season he led the team in goals (eight) and points (20), while he was tied for sixth in the NE-10 in goals and was sixth in points. All the while he has helped Bentley reach the conference playoffs two straight seasons for the first time since 2003-2004.

If he keeps up his current scoring pace, Heuze will easily crack the top-10 of the program’s career scoring list. And with two years remaining, hopefully get Bentley over the quarterfinals hump where the last two seasons have ended.

He has certainly enjoyed the experience of playing on this side of the Atlantic thus far.

“Soccer is my passion and I feel very lucky to be able to play at a very competitive level while studying,” he said. “I feel privileged to be here and enjoy every minute of it.”