EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this story misidentified the college to which Gabe Everette had committed. The story has been updated and corrected.

Nansemond River’s Gabe Everette needed some encouragement to pursue his sport at the college level, but he found his way. The Warriors senior soccer star publicly committed to Randolph College during a signing ceremony on Wednesday at Nansemond River High School.

Everette has been playing soccer since he was about 8 years old, but more recently, he has become keenly aware of the support given to him by his friends, including Warriors head coach Dustin Tordoff.

“It means I’ve worked hard and my friends have been supporting me since about eighth grade, so I’m kind of doing it for them — them, Tordoff, all the people that’ve been with me since eighth grade,” Everette said.

The coach said Everette had a longstanding joke that he was simply going to give up soccer after high school and just go to Tidewater Community College.

“Nothing against TCC, but I was like, ‘You have way too much skill to just let it sit on the couch and not do anything with it,’” Tordoff said.

Everette admitted he had just been playing soccer for fun until this school year, when he saw a potential end to his career fast approaching.

“I was like, ‘Oh, snap, I’m a 12th-grader. Time’s winding down, need to start getting serious or just accept that I’m just going to stop,’” he said. “But then, Tordoff kind of helped me out with that, with contacting Randolph.”

Tordoff recalled asking him to make a short list of schools he might be interested in attending.

“So he made a list, and we started emailing some coaches, and we started getting some calls back, and from there, the process just started taking off,” Tordoff said.

Bridgewater College and Chowan University were among the interested schools. Everette said a coach at Randolph had been looking at him for a while but had not seen the improvement in his academic performance.

“That’s what Tordoff showed him,” Everette said, opening the door to his admission and a generous financial arrangement.

In addition to playing for Nansemond River, Everette climbed through the ranks of an organization in Churchland, which also provided him exposure to college coaches at showcases.

However, he deflected the credit for why he drew interest from a college soccer program.

“It really wasn’t me that made it happen,” he said. “It was kind of the people around me. I just played soccer, and they kind of nurtured me and took care of me, especially Tordoff. So, I’m really grateful for him.”

Though Randolph is four hours away by car, Darren Everette plans to attend some of his son’s games. For the ones he cannot see in person, he has a plan. “They’ll be streaming them live over the Internet,” he said.

Gabe Everette is a three-year letterman in soccer and made the all-district second team last year.

Tordoff said Everette could play virtually any position needed for the Wildcats.