"In the second round, with the fifteenth overall pick..."

The franchise with the longest name in American professional sports, the New York-New Jersey Metrostars, last Sunday drafted one of the shortest stars in all of NCAA soccer, a left-footed attacking midfielder by the name of Will Kohler.

"...of the Harvard Crimson."

How often have you ever been able to use "second round pick" and "Harvard" in the same sports-related sentence?

Well, quite frankly, never. Before now.

Kohler, the glue that held the Crimson's attack together throughout the 1996 men's soccer season, was picked earlier in Major League Soccer's collegiate entry draft than any other Harvard athlete had ever been in similar circumstances. And the senior from Bala Clywyd, Pa., has every intention of playing a significant role in the Metrostars' second season.

"It's all very exciting," Kohler says. "The Brazilian national team coach, the European team players...to be selected to play with the captain of the Italian national team is a great honor."

The Brazilian coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, guided Romario, Bebeto and company to the 1994 World Cup title before taking on the challenge of American soccer this season. The Italian warhorse, Roberto Donadoni, captained his country in last summer's European Championships, backboned Italy's run to the World Cup semifinals in 1990 and won a hat-ful of European Cups with his previous club side, AC Milan.

Throw in the likes of two-time American World Cup veteran Tab Ramos and several other bright American stars to the Metrostars midfield...is there a place to be had for a Harvard grad?

Kohler's collegiate coach, Stephen Locker, thinks so. "He can play in that league, and he can start," he says. "He has the ability--now it's only a matter of proving himself."

That process conceivably could have begun for Kohler as early as today. The Metrostars squad departs for a month-long training camp near Florence, Italy this morning--but Kohler can't make it. He still has to get his Study Card signed.

"It's not very easy to work out when I can go over there with all of my classes just starting," Kohler says. "They'll be working on fitness training, largely, for the first two weeks; hopefully I can make it over there for the end of the month."

"If he can go for a week, it would be really good for him," Locker concurs. "The opportunity to play and train under a coach like Parreira is fantastic, and Donadoni [who Locker met while studying AC Milan in person last spring] is a great guy, the kind of guy that Will could learn a lot from."

Kohler isn't the only collegian struggling to adapt to the late March starting dates for the MLS season. In its inaugural season last year, the league tried jetting top college seniors to their clubs every weekend, but the experiment was less than successful, and players like Kohler might struggle to become fully ingratiated into the squad until, say, mid-June.

Another player facing the same problems as Kohler is Duke senior Brian Kelly, the Metrostars' first-round pick, and like Kohler a veteran of Pennsylvania's high school soccer scene. "[Kelly] is also a left-footed attacking player," says Kohler--"obviously, the Metrostars knew what position they wanted to fill in the draft."