She's already had a lot of big moments in the past year, but Amber Brooks is looking forward to more of the same for a long time.

Brooks decided late last year to play her college soccer at North Carolina, and is about to begin another training camp with the U17 Girls National Team as it prepares to quality for the first FIFA U17 Girls World Cup. The #2-rated player on our National Top 100™ list for 2009 graduates, Brooks wants to continue moving onward and upward, even after college.

"I want to play soccer for as long as I can," is her simple summary of future goals.

Not that there aren't specifics. National team and club duty are all beckoning in coming months, and she is very enthusiastic about her pending college career at Chapel Hill, but for Brooks, love of the game is not a temporary thing.

Her club (Arsenal World Class in New Jersey) and national team coach, Kazbek Tambi, said it's difficult to identify any one thing as a key to Brooks' stature as one of the very best players in her age group.

"If you would have asked me 2 years ago when I started working with her, it would have been her competitiveness. Every training session and every game, she had the will to get the best of her opponents," he said. "But one of the nicest parts about her is that she has become more of the overall package, where she's developed an excellent soccer brain. Her decision-making has constantly improved and she's just become a much-more well-rounded and an extremely valuable player."

Brooks, who makes the trek across the Delaware River from her New Hope, PA home to club training in New Jersey, is starting in the defensive back 3 for the U17 Women's National Team, having played a lot of midfield previously. Tambi said her versatility is a big plus.

"She's someone who we're comfortable with playing in multiple positions," Tambi, who noted he hasn't settled on her final position, said. "She can perform at different positions well, and at the highest level of competition. It's one thing to be competitive and versatile at the club level, and another to be that at the national team level."

Brooks is feeling optimistic about the national team as it prepares for CONCACAF Qualifying in Trinidad this July, with an eye toward the FIFA World Cup in New Zealand this November.

Amber Brooks (right) battles for a header against Germany.

"Our team chemistry off the field is certainly good. We all get along with each other. I think our team has been playing together a lot and I think we have a strong team," she said. "I would say we have a great chance (to win the World Cup). We've beaten the Germans the last 2 times. They've been our toughest opponents besides playing boys teams in Brazil. Kaz has scheduled tough games for so we're going to be acclimated to the strength of the teams we see.

"I know in Trinidad teams will bunker down and play 5 or 6 in the back, but we have to learn not to get frustrated and work through that. Kaz says let's make them worry about us and not for us to worry about them."

Something else Brooks won't have to worry about is the recruiting process, having committed to North Carolina last November, in the first half of her junior year of high school. She said while there are no worries about decision-making to hinder her, she already puts plenty of pressure on herself to do well.

"A lot of my personal development comes from the pressure I put on myself rather than from any pressure I got from college coaches. It's nice to have it finished, but my recruiting process was pretty enjoyable overall," she said. "It's not like I'll feel I can afford not to play well. If I don't, then everyone is looking at the field saying ‘Hey, isn't that girl going to UNC? She should be better than that.'"

Brooks approached her recruiting process with a precise methodology.

"I started with a pool of 12 schools and I got to visit all of them. If there were any obvious things I didn't like, I  just removed them from the list," she said. "I narrowed it down to 6 and went on 2^nd visits to those."

The 6 were UNC, Santa Clara, Virginia, Penn State, Stanford and Florida State.

After 2^nd visits, she narrowed her choices to 3, and then went on additional visits to the finalists, Carolina, Virginia and Santa Clara.

"There were not too many discrepancies between the programs at that point. From there I kind of went on a gut feeling," she explained. "Carolina had been my dream school since I was 7, so to turn down my dream seemed kind of crazy."

Her thoughts on the Tar Heels mirror those of many.

"From a school standpoint it has great academics. The location is beautiful. I love the Carolinas and it down south so there's not too much snow," she said. "Soccer-wise the atmosphere is great. If you put a lot of effort into it you get something out of it. You can come out a totally different player. Anson (Dorrance, UNC head coach) doesn't have to convince you. It's you convincing yourself that you can make it."

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