A goalkeeper from Christchurch, Max Collingwood played for Canterbury United from 2014 to 2018, was named Canterbury United Young Player of the Year in 2018, and arrived at Colorado Christian University in 2019. After four years with the Cougars that produced over 200 saves, two All-RMAC selections, and the 2022 RMAC Goalkeeper of the Year award, he transferred to Purdue Fort Wayne as a graduate student in 2023, where he helped the Mastodons reach the Horizon League Championship Semifinals and was named Horizon League Defensive Player of the Week.
Max Collingwood arrived in the United States in 2019, not as a highly recruited prospect with a trail of national team appearances behind him, but as a goalkeeper from Christchurch with four years at Canterbury United, a New Zealand National Youth League title in 2017, and a Young Player of the Year award from his club in 2018. He chose Colorado Christian University in Denver because it offered him the chance to play soccer at a competitive level while pursuing a Christian education. He proceeded to spend four years becoming one of the best goalkeepers in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
That arc, from a youth club in Canterbury to RMAC Goalkeeper of the Year, is built on something more straightforward than most recruitment stories acknowledge: consistent presence, consistent improvement, and the willingness to make 80 saves in a single season as a freshman because that is what the job requires.
Max grew up in Christchurch with a background that spans two countries. His father's side is from New Zealand and his mother's side is from England, a dual heritage that shaped both his identity and his understanding of sport as something that travels across borders and opens doors that might otherwise remain closed.
He played for Canterbury United from 2014 to 2018, developing through one of New Zealand's South Island club structures at the same time as finishing his schooling. In 2017 he finished first with his team in the New Zealand National Youth League, a result that confirmed his competitive standing at junior level. In 2018 he was named Canterbury United Young Player of the Year, a club recognition that reflected four years of steady development and increasing contribution to the programme.
None of that is a conventional international recruitment story. Max was not a Football Ferns academy player or a youth national team regular. He was a goalkeeper who had developed well at club level and who had the ambition and the application to take his game somewhere it had not been before.
Max arrived at CCU in the autumn of 2019 and was the Cougars' primary goalkeeper from his very first season. He played 15 games with 14 starts, made 80 saves, and recorded two shutouts, an extraordinary volume of work for a freshman goalkeeper in a competitive Division II conference. That season alone told the CCU coaching staff what kind of player they had.
His sophomore season in 2020-21, which ran across two semesters due to the COVID-adjusted schedule, produced 42 saves across 11 starts and three shutouts. His junior season brought 14 saves across seven matches, and his senior season in 2022 was his most decorated: 14 starts, four shutouts, 55 saves, a First Team All-RMAC selection, and the RMAC Goalkeeper of the Year award.
Across his four seasons at Colorado Christian he accumulated over 200 career saves, a number that reflects not just ability but the kind of sustained presence and reliability that defines a goalkeeper's value to a programme. He also helped CCU qualify for the RMAC Playoffs in 2022, a landmark achievement for the programme.
Away from the field, he ran his own podcast and worked in photo editing and broadcasting alongside his studies, building the kind of creative and professional experience that reflects an athlete who understood from early in his college career that sport was one part of what the American college system could offer him.
After completing his undergraduate degree at Colorado Christian, Max transferred to Purdue Fort Wayne in the autumn of 2023 as a graduate student, joining the Mastodons as the reigning RMAC Goalkeeper of the Year and bringing a career record that the Horizon League environment could immediately put to use.
Platform Sports played a central role in facilitating that transfer. "Platform Sports made my transfer process seamless," Max said. "Their support helped me secure the perfect fit at Purdue Fort Wayne, where I can continue to grow as an athlete and a student."
His graduate season with the Mastodons produced a Horizon League Defensive Player of the Week award on November 6, 2023, a shutout against Milwaukee, eight saves against Robert Morris, and a penalty kick stop in a narrow 1-0 loss to Oakland in the Horizon League Championship Semifinals. He was named to the Horizon League All-Tournament Team, a recognition that confirmed his ability to perform at the highest level of the conference in the most pressurised matches of the season.
He was also part of a Purdue Fort Wayne squad that included fellow New Zealander Alex Frank, a forward who had been with the Mastodons since 2018. Two Kiwis in the same programme, navigating college sport in Fort Wayne, Indiana, together: the kind of shared experience that tends to make the adjustment to life far from home considerably more manageable.
The goalkeeper's pathway in college soccer is different from the outfield player's pathway in ways that families thinking about this route should understand.
A goalkeeper typically plays every minute of every match or not at all. The position demands a level of reliability, concentration, and physical consistency that most outfield positions do not, and a goalkeeper who accumulates over 200 saves across a college career has done so because the coaching staff trusted them in every competitive situation, not just the comfortable ones.
Max built that trust across four years at Colorado Christian and then took it to the Horizon League. The record he leaves behind at both institutions, the RMAC Goalkeeper of the Year award, the All-Tournament team selection, the penalty kick stop in a conference semifinal, is the product of arriving ready to work, improving every season, and staying present and reliable long after the novelty of a new environment has worn off.
For New Zealand goalkeepers thinking about the American college pathway, his story is a straightforward and honest answer to the question of what it takes. Show up, make saves, and do it again next season.
If you are a student-athlete or parent trying to understand the U.S. college pathway, start with a conversation. Platform Sports can help you understand your options, your timeline, and what the right fit could look like.
