From CSUSA to Keystone Sports: The story

You may already have discovered that we have interacted more and more with the Keystone Sports brand on our Social Media channels. What is happening? Don’t worry, this is just part of our journey to become a unified Keystone Sports! Here we want to tell you more about CSUSA and the process of transforming Scandinavia’s leading sports placement agency into the number one college sports recruitment agency brand in Europe. 

Since 2021, CSUSA has been part of a multinational ”heavyweight” in international education, Keystone Education Group. Alongside Keystone, CSUSA has set forth the mission to create the strongest college sports recruitment solution in Europe for student-athletes and US coaches – that being known as Keystone Sports! Let us tell you all about what this means here, and how we got to this point.  

Pursuing ambition with sports scholarships since 2007 

It all started in 2007 at the University of South Carolina Upstate. The two international student-athletes, Stewart Stanbra and Kim Moe Krohn, were studying the last year of their bachelor’s degrees. They were both student-athletes and studying in the US while playing for the university’s men’s soccer team. Toward the end of their time at Upstate, they came up with a brilliant idea. What if they could help other international sports talents who were dreaming about having the same experience in the US?   

They created College Scholarships USA (CSUSA), a college sports placement agency offering the service to help international students get sports scholarships in the US and experience the incredible life of being a college student-athlete. Less than two years after its founding, CSUSA could proudly present the first recruiting class: 30 student-athletes from England, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.  

Becoming Scandinavia’s leading sport placement agency 

Since the first recruitment class in 2009, the number of international students has grown each year, and CSUSA has helped more than 3.000 student-athletes take part in life-changing adventures in the US and Canada.  

Over the years, CSUSA’s team has grown from a small, yet dedicated team of the two founders Stewart and Kim, to 25 full-time employees. Most of the staff have been studying in the US themselves and competed in college sports across all the different college sports levels. The devoted team consists of absolute experts when it comes to college sports and the university system in the US.

With all this unique and substantial experience, the large network that has been created over the years along with a strong reputation, there is no wonder why CSUSA turned into Scandinavia’s leading college sports recruitment agency within just a few years. 

CSUSA as part of Keystone Sports 

In April 2021, Stewart and Kim announced exciting news: CSUSA was to join Keystone Sports – the new sports division of  Keystone Education Group. Not long after this, two other leading sports agencies in Europe were also acquired and joined the Keystone Sports family: AGM from Spain and Sport-Scholarships from Germany.  The acquisition of these three leading sports agencies has provided even bigger possibilities to support young athletes to combine college studies with sports practice in the US.

They were not done when it comes to aligning and bringing great companies and people together in this exciting industry. Five other college sports recruitment agencies were then acquired by Keystone Sports – Uniexperts (Germany), CMAS (Mexico), Future Elite Sports (UK) i-consports (Spain & Japan) & Tennis Smart. Our team of sports consultants and experts keeps growing. 

All united as Keystone Sports, we now have accumulated knowledge and experience of helping thousands of international students from all over Europe and the world, plus access to even larger networks with college coaches and colleges in the US.  

The journey and great mission continue 

A merger like this doesn’t happen ”in a day” and it has been a steady, ongoing process since October 2021. Step by step, we are slowly integrating all these agencies into Keystone Sports, providing our student-athletes with opportunities.

As one brand with unbeatable resources from all our dedicated colleagues, the passion for the common mission is stronger than ever: to help international student-athletes get fantastic opportunities to study and play their sports in North America.  

The people in our agencies remain the same, and we keep adding highly successful former student-athletes to our teams. What will change is that the legacy brands like CSUSA will be phased out as we’re more and more becoming Keystone Sports. We’re truly excited for the future of the college sports recruitment industry and the positive impact we’re creating.

 Be sure to check out www.keystonesports.com