College Soccer Process

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Even among younger players, it's recommended that all correspondence with coaches come from the players, not parents.

with the caveat that some kids need parental supervision here. Some boys it seems can barely string a paragraph together. They do still teach English in high school right?

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We've been through it once and are ramping up for another. Our son is going into his 2nd year D1. Most coaches we talked to were looking for his scores mid winter junior year. We scrambled to get them done in March and thank the stars he did well enough the first time. He took it again later and did about the same but he had an offer at that point at his first choice school. I recommend taking them in the fall at least to benchmark and see where weaknesses are. Then there's still some time to work on them. But that's our D1 experience. D3 is probably a bit later.

It may be helpful to think backwards on a timeline.
1. For a coach to see you play, the best view is at the spring and summer clinics they host for prospects. How many of those can you go to? 3 or 4. So ideally, the student wants to have their preferred schools identified in spring of junior year, about 1/2 year ahead of schoolmates.
2. To get down to that number by that time, how many coaches do you want to see you play in the winter & spring of your junior year club season, in the hope that 3-4 will urge you to attend their prospect clinic? Maybe 10

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Some good information can be found here: http://www.backofthenet.com/62rd/ubb...ips#Post460427.

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with the caveat that some kids need parental supervision here. Some boys it seems can barely string a paragraph together. They do still teach English in high school right?

Agreed. I helped my kid draft an email message or two at each step of the process, but he was the one who sent the messages and corresponded with the coaches thereafter (sometimes consulting me along the way).

[Unregistered]

It may be helpful to think backwards on a timeline.
1. For a coach to see you play, the best view is at the spring and summer clinics they host for prospects. How many of those can you go to? 3 or 4. So ideally, the student wants to have their preferred schools identified in spring of junior year, about 1/2 year ahead of schoolmates.
2. To get down to that number by that time, how many coaches do you want to see you play in the winter & spring of your junior year club season, in the hope that 3-4 will urge you to attend their prospect clinic? Maybe 10

3. To get 10 to watch you in club season of your junior year, how many campuses can you visit (and hopefully introduce yourself to the coach) that could be a fit for you academically, which you would be doing spring of/summer after your soph year? Maybe 20
4. To contact those 20 coaches and plan those visits, you would be doing that winter of soph year. For the academic fit element, this is why it can make good sense to take PSAT sophomore fall, when all the juniors are taking it. It gives you an idea of what kind of schools could work out, hopefully motivates you to improve, is not generally reported in ultimately applying for admission, and gives you a data point to report to the college coach that you can get in and are therefore worth following.

Hopefully thinking through the steps this way helps some appreciate WHEN to be doing them, to minimize the feeling of being behind the pack and needing to catch up. Of course there will be plenty of variability in individuals' experiences. If the player's talent is such that colleges will seek her or him (maybe 10% of college-capable players in Mass.), then this might not apply. Consider it a suggestion for the 90% who will be recruiting a college whose coach will welcome them to the soccer team.

[Unregistered]

There's a lot of really good advice in here already so I will try not to duplicate. My daughter got something of a late start on the college thing and we are in a small town with a small HS and she never played premier (now she plays D1). I finally asked her near the end of her sophomore year if she had thought about playing after HS. I told her that I wasn't trying to push her, but that the reality was that if she thought she wanted to play we needed to know in time to start a college search and make contacts.

1. Grades - a local D1 coach told me that when he gets a soccer resume the first thing he looks at is grades. If you can't get into the school he's not wasting time on you.

2. Once you've narrowed down the list of schools starting with academics (what do you want to study, where can you expect to get in) and then all of the other stuff, location, size, cost ... etc. that's important to your student GO SEE THE COACH! Show him/her that you've done your homework, that his/her school is on your short list and that you are someone who is worthy of him/her spending their valuable time on. The coach that my daughter hit it off with came to see her play 3 times between ODP and tournaments. I don't think that she would have got this attention without the face to face meeting given our situation.

3. Go to the camps for the schools you have identified. (Yes, you have to play the camp game.)

4. Web Site - We sent cover letters and soccer resumes to the coaches before our visits and provided game schedules when they became available. Eventually I got tired of updating schedules and other information and set up a simple website. The first page was an intro and a summary of any recent updates, then a resume page, a personal statement, a stats page (academic & physical), references, and then photos & videos ... etc. Then, if something was updated we just emailed the coach with a note and a link.

5. Recruiting Services - worthless scams, stay away. If you follow the suggestions in this message string (most of which are pretty simple and are things you have to do to select the right college for reasons other than soccer), then you are doing way more than these stupid services do.

6. Videos - full games (or game halves) only; no highlight reels; and keep your mouth shut while you are taping (it's really hard, but trust me you sound really stupid after 45-90 minutes).

[Unregistered]

Great advice...but you start by saying your daughter never played Premiere and then slip in that coaches came and saw her during ODP.

Now, maybe she never played for a club team and only played ODP, but your initial statement of not playing premiere was misleading.

Your advice is good. Why spoil it with the hint of an agenda?

[Unregistered]

OP here. Very helpful responses. Thank you all! We never would have thought of asking the club coach his thoughts so early on, but it's probably a good idea to start getting a sense of where our student athlete might fit into the college soccer spectrum. Also, it's good to know that it's acceptable to reach out to coaches directly at those schools we determine are of most interest for our player. We will for sure try to attend the soccer camps at those schools as well.

Seriously? who uses terms like "our student athlete" and "our player" when referring to their own child?

What kind of robotic parent troll are you?

[Unregistered]

Seriously? who uses terms like "our student athlete" and "our player" when referring to their own child?

What kind of robotic parent troll are you?

LOL. At least he used "college soccer spectrum" instead of "college soccer environment." Just to mix it up a little.

And now the ODP-club thread right at 7:00 am. Buckle up!

[Unregistered]

Seriously? who uses terms like "our student athlete" and "our player" when referring to their own child?

What kind of robotic parent troll are you?

Apparently a more intelligent one than yourself.

[Unregistered]

Seriously? who uses terms like "our student athlete" and "our player" when referring to their own child?

What kind of robotic parent troll are you?

Who cares what term was used?
It was a great thread with useful information.

Move along complainer. Stop trying to analyze threads

-- Pathfinder

[Unregistered]

There's a lot of really good advice in here already so I will try not to duplicate. My daughter got something of a late start on the college thing and we are in a small town with a small HS and she never played premier (now she plays D1). I finally asked her near the end of her sophomore year if she had thought about playing after HS. I told her that I wasn't trying to push her, but that the reality was that if she thought she wanted to play we needed to know in time to start a college search and make contacts.

1. Grades - a local D1 coach told me that when he gets a soccer resume the first thing he looks at is grades. If you can't get into the school he's not wasting time on you.

2. Once you've narrowed down the list of schools starting with academics (what do you want to study, where can you expect to get in) and then all of the other stuff, location, size, cost ... etc. that's important to your student GO SEE THE COACH! Show him/her that you've done your homework, that his/her school is on your short list and that you are someone who is worthy of him/her spending their valuable time on. The coach that my daughter hit it off with came to see her play 3 times between ODP and tournaments. I don't think that she would have got this attention without the face to face meeting given our situation.

3. Go to the camps for the schools you have identified. (Yes, you have to play the camp game.)

4. Web Site - We sent cover letters and soccer resumes to the coaches before our visits and provided game schedules when they became available. Eventually I got tired of updating schedules and other information and set up a simple website. The first page was an intro and a summary of any recent updates, then a resume page, a personal statement, a stats page (academic & physical), references, and then photos & videos ... etc. Then, if something was updated we just emailed the coach with a note and a link.

5. Recruiting Services - worthless scams, stay away. If you follow the suggestions in this message string (most of which are pretty simple and are things you have to do to select the right college for reasons other than soccer), then you are doing way more than these stupid services do.

6. Videos - full games (or game halves) only; no highlight reels; and keep your mouth shut while you are taping (it's really hard, but trust me you sound really stupid after 45-90 minutes).

I really like most of this, especially the website. I know a few people that have done this and it has made everything easier. However, one thing I definitely disagree with; videos. The majority, if not all, coaches are going to want to see a highlight feel no more than 5 or 6 minutes. Coaches simply don't have the time to watch a full game and evaluate the player, esspcially if they are receiving a handful to a dozen videos daily or weekly (depending on the program).

[Unregistered]

Great advice...but you start by saying your daughter never played Premiere and then slip in that coaches came and saw her during ODP.

Now, maybe she never played for a club team and only played ODP, but your initial statement of not playing premiere was misleading.

Your advice is good. Why spoil it with the hint of an agenda?

Why can't some of you take great advice and just leave it at that. Not everyone is the boogie man. You assume that this happened recently when my read was it happened somewhat in the past. That time difference actually impacts a lot. You also assume that they are fudging this because they use a term you are not familiar with when the reality is just as likely that they were just doing this in another state. Premier is a somewhat common term in other regions for what we refer to as the "club" level. If you want to knock his "agenda" then you really should understand what this guy would likely be looking at to truly understand the nuance of his comments. It is not what you apparently think.

In other states the club scene is organized very differently from what we have here. First of all in most states they don't just let anyone start up clubs where ever they want. Just like in Rhode Island, the clubs need permission to open up and operate. As a result, most clubs are quite a bit larger in other states. Most operate their own in house leagues that encompass different levels of competition (Rec, Travel) all within the club. Functionally their version of BAYS if you will, accept that they also would have a DAP and ECNL program for the very top end players as well. As a result it is quite common for players in other states to not actually play against players from other clubs until they climb up the competitive ladder a fair amount.

One thing that is also very different in other parts of the country is there are not as many "top" level teams as there are around here. Imagine if only one club had been granted the right to operate ALL levels of the soccer in eastern Mass. That is what goes on in many states. Typically that club would have one top level team and it would have all THE best players in the eastern region of the state on it. That would truly be a tough team to make so you may very well have very talented players that are certainly capable of playing at the D1 college level that might never make the "premier" team in the club.

The amount of control other clubs have over players is also one of the reasons ODP is much more popular in other parts of the country. Since they can't just change clubs like around here, in a lot of cases ODP is the ONLY way a player is going to be able to step outside of the shadow of their club to get any shot at recognition. Imagine how some of those parents feel?

The bottom line to this supposed anti-club "agenda" that we seem to be talking about is there is just a different reality of what "club" is out there than what we have around here. Here we can shop around and pick the situation that suits our needs the best. If we want our player to be on an elite level team we just shop around until we find a spot. In other places your player really has no other option but to earn that spot by being better than a whole lot more players who also have no other option. One of the things we never seem to grasp around here is that our "elite" players might functionally only be elite in name only. This has huge ramifications , particularly when it comes to recruiting.

[Unregistered]

Why can't some of you take great advice and just leave it at that.

Because people don't like being routinely deceived and disparaged. Nor do they like a poster who routinely hypes his own posts as "great advice."

[Unregistered]

Because people don't like being routinely deceived and disparaged. Nor do they like a poster who routinely hypes his own posts as "great advice."

Once again you are wrong but hey who am I to piss on your agenda. Here is what the message functionally boils down to. If your kid is really good it doesn't matter who they play for or where they play, they will be found. Those that will tell you otherwise are just trying to sell roster spots. That's a widely held truth that only seems to get attacked here on TS.