In the first years of the UC Davis’ Division I era, few Aggie teams made an immediate impact on a national level like men’s soccer. Head coach Dwayne Shaffer’s program made NCAA postseason appearances in both 2007 and 2008.
That 2007 team had four All-Big West Conference honorees: Nick Lind, Paul Cain, Sule Anibaba and Quincy Amarikwa. However, when the Aggies selected their best player for their own year-end awards, it was Dylan Curtis, a 6-foot-2 midfielder from Pleasanton, California, who topped the list.
“He was such a dominant force in so many games that his teammates voted him the MVP,” said Shaffer about his star left wing. “I think that made him realize how good he really was and could be.”
Curtis had entered that 2007 season thinking it was his last. He even participated in the annual Senior Day festivities in the Aggies’ home finale against then-No. 19 Cal Poly. Perhaps buoyed by the team’s success, it came to everyone’s delight when Curtis opted to return for his final year of eligibility in 2008.
In that fifth year, Curtis raked in the awards that had eluded him in 2007. He earned All-Far West Region distinction, plus All-America honors from both the NSCAA and the Lowe’s Senior Class awards. Curtis twice won Big West Player of the Week, and went on to garner the league’s Midfielder of the Year nod. He led the conference with 11 assists, tying Nikki Bagheri’s 1989 school record in the process.
As a team, UC Davis posted a 13-5-4 overall record, claiming an NCAA tournament victory against Denver in front of a packed home crowd.
Curtis was equally as stellar in the classroom. He represented UC Davis as the Big West Conference Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2007-08, earned CoSIDA Academic All-America third-team distinction in 2008, and made back-to-back Big West Academic All-Conference teams. Curtis capped his career with the 2008-09 W.P. Lindley Award, granted to the university’s outstanding scholar-athlete of the year.
