A total of 20 players from the Chicago Fire and Indiana Fire Academies and 53 total with ties to the Fire Juniors system made their next steps official on Wednesday, inking letters of intent to join some of the top collegiate programs across the country.
The Academy’s ties to the Big 10 will remain strong in 2017. From the Chicago Fire Academy, both Brayden Callipari and David Portugal are headed to the University of Wisconsin, while Mihaljo Miskovic will remain in the area at Northwestern. On the Indiana Fire side, Jake Gruber and Thomas Warr will join a handful of Academy alums at Indiana, and Will Hirschman will head to Ohio State.