Records typically have a shelf life, but Sean Shapert’s high school goals record may well been evergreen. 

It took Shapert three years to score 213 goals at Coraopolis Moon High School in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area from the 1982-1984 seasons. The record hasn’t been touched since. Shapert and contemporary Troy Snyder, who played across the state at Fleetwood High School, had their careers overlap for a season, and it was Snyder’s record of 208 Shapert broke his senior season in 1984.

Shapert went on to play at Indiana, where his career was racked with a series of convulsive knee injuries. But he did manage to score the winning goal in the 1988 national title game, which one-upped even becoming the highest goal-scoring high school player in the nation’s history.

This year, Shapert’s goals record turns 30, and the rest of the nation is no closer to snapping its impressive reign atop the record books.

“I think I’m very proud to have achieved the record back then and continue to be proud that it’s held the test of time,” Shapert said. “I’ve paid attention a little bit over the years. I’m not even sure quite how close anyone’s come say in the last 15 years, but records are made to be broken. I’d love to be around to see the day when somebody gets 214.”

Whether that actually happens is a point of serious debate. North Carolina native Michael Richardson drew the closest in 2002 when he hit 205 with Dobson Surry Central High School, the same season he scored 92 goals to break Shapert’s previous single-season record of 88. Aaron Chatfield became just the fourth player to break 200 career goals when he did it in 2012, but otherwise it’s relatively lonely at the top.

Shapert only played three seasons at Moon because the varsity program didn’t start until his sophomore season. That year, he scored 65 goals. His junior season he put in 88, and he rounded his high school career with 60 more before he blew out his knee after his senior season. His career was cut short after Indiana thanks in large part to the five knee surgeries he’d had to endure, and his doctors advised him that his mobility as an adult would suffer if he continued playing.

That cut short the playing career of the most prolific scorer in U.S. high school history. Shapert was approached by the Pittsburgh Spirit of the Major Indoor Soccer League about playing, but the opportunity didn’t offer much incentive to bite on the offer. So he chose Indiana instead.

“There wasn’t the same opportunity for me as a professional player in the United States then as there are for our talented soccer players coming out of high school or college today,” Shapert said. “So I was focused on going to college, playing at the best program I could possibly play at but also making sure I got my degree. Were I to have that opportunity today, I think that decision might have been a lot different.”

So why might Shapert’s chasers have a difficult time running down his record? In a word, consistency. While Shapert only played three years of high school soccer, he averaged 2.7 goals per game over that period. Remarkably, he doesn’t appear near the top of any single-game national scoring records, largely because he spread out his production thickly over an large swath of time and rarely took games off. There weren’t many peaks and valleys in his goal-scoring output. He just always delivered.

Shapert’s cannon blast of a shot was the first thing scouts picked up about his game. Prior to Shapert’s senior year in high school, Spirit goalkeeper Joe Papaleo called it “one of the hardest shots I’ve seen, period. That includes every place I’ve played.” The 6-foot-2 Shapert also garnered praise from Spirit youth development director Denny Kohlmyer, who in 1984 said, “He’s very skilled, he plays well under pressure, he’s got size and he’s got that shot.”

Nobody in high school history has yet to replicate the devastating effect of “that shot.” Whether anyone will? We may be waiting a while.

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