College Recruiting

[Unregistered]

Wow, some of you really have very low expectations of the coaches you surround your kids with. For the money you are paying they absolutely SHOULD be an active participant in the recruiting process with both you and your child and if they are not, then they are cheating you.

You have every right to expect the following things:

1- An objective assessment of exactly what level of the college game your child should target.
2- Introductions to the coaches at those schools.
3- Assistance facilitating communication between your child and those coaches.

It has nothing to do with low expectations. It has to do with reality and pure logistics.

Okay, genius, show me the weekly calendar for a club coach with 2-3 teams, training sessions, matches, travel to-from each, maintaining the relationships with coaches / assistant coaches at 100+ D1, 20-30 D2 and 50+ D3 schools (00's of relationships that need to be developed & maintained throughout the recruiting cycle), individual meetings with players and parents to plot strategy, intro emails for 20-30 players (some of whom may be targeting the same schools - nice conflict of interest set up there, eh?), figuring out which schools will have roster spots at the appropriate position to fit the needs of all those players, scheduling upcoming practices, scrimmages, tournaments, recruiting new players (just Stars coaches for this one, apparently), while preserving at least 30minutes/week for their private lives. To achieve all of this, the coach would either have to give up sleep or be wicked good at cloning.

You appear to be an idealist who spouts cliches like, "there should be no world hunger," "politicians who are not solely focused on improving the welfare of their constituents should be thrown out of office," and "there's no reason for potholes," but lack the intellectual depth to understand how things actually work. Real Life must be very frustrating and confusing for you.

[Unregistered]

Wow, some of you really have very low expectations of the coaches you surround your kids with. For the money you are paying they absolutely SHOULD be an active participant in the recruiting process with both you and your child and if they are not, then they are cheating you.

You have every right to expect the following things:

1- An objective assessment of exactly what level of the college game your child should target.
2- Introductions to the coaches at those schools.
3- Assistance facilitating communication between your child and those coaches.

"Hello, Coach x? It's me, Coach Bob from East Noplace United Premier Elite in Massachusetts. Hey, great job last week tying Southwestern Illinois Typing school; that's a great result against a tough squad. While I've got you, I wanted to give you a heads up on an outstanding midfielder on my top team, who's interested in your school and may be someone who could help your program. Her name's Mia, and you know what that means about her talent and commitment to the game."

"Well, Bob, how does Mia compare to the 4 other midfielders that you called about last week?"

"She's right there with the others, coach."

"Does she have the grades to get in, Bob? You know the last 3 you recommended to me misspelled their names on the SAT, right? And the 2 girls you recommended last year turned out to be too slow to complete our preseason fitness test of 100 yards in under 2 minutes."

"Don't worry coach, she's very bright. She always wears the right uniform color, and she can belch the alphabet backwards."

"Bob, your program sucks. Send her to one of our camps for $350 and I'll put her on a field supervised by our assistant intramural coach. It's the best I can do, because I've got the coaches from Mass Subpremier But Very Expensive, West Noplace Elite, MPS and some guy named BTDT on hold, and they all have a half dozen stud players to talk to me about."

"Great talking to you coach!" (okay, that's one call completed for Mia. I have 11 more calls to make for her, then 7 calls for little Alex, 9 calls for Mehgan, 3 calls for Abby, 15 calls for Morgan - thank god her mom's makes a mean chocolate chip cookie)

Yup - just what I'm paying my $2,500 for.

[Unregistered]

A few points...

Nobody, and I repeat nobody, is going to care about your kid more than you do.

There are two basic ways to go about the college search and recruiting. The active approach is to pick a reasonable list of schools that you and your kid pick within the realm of realistic, and from there factor in soccer and where you get money and don't etc, etc and in that context, with you fully driving the bus, you might ask assistance from your coach when you get down to a few favorites. The passive approach is to wait and see who has interest or use a coach's connections which may be limited to certain schools or a certain range of schools and then pick based on who happens to show interest and who gives you the best deal. In the first approach chances are great you will end up somewhere you want to be, and in the second you could end up with 20K in athletic money but it might be at Fort Hays State University (D2) in the middle of Kansas.

[Unregistered]

A few points...

Nobody, and I repeat nobody, is going to care about your kid more than you do.

There are two basic ways to go about the college search and recruiting. The active approach is to pick a reasonable list of schools that you and your kid pick within the realm of realistic, and from there factor in soccer and where you get money and don't etc, etc and in that context, with you fully driving the bus, you might ask assistance from your coach when you get down to a few favorites. The passive approach is to wait and see who has interest or use a coach's connections which may be limited to certain schools or a certain range of schools and then pick based on who happens to show interest and who gives you the best deal. In the first approach chances are great you will end up somewhere you want to be, and in the second you could end up with 20K in athletic money but it might be at Fort Hays State University (D2) in the middle of Kansas.

Please stop making sense. Instead, let's keep flogging the story that club soccer is mostly a scam--in this case, since coaches aren't "objectively" assessing all of their players and actively helping them get recruited--beyond training and showcasing, and the occasional college contact.

[Unregistered]

It has nothing to do with low expectations. It has to do with reality and pure logistics.

Okay, genius, show me the weekly calendar for a club coach with 2-3 teams, training sessions, matches, travel to-from each, maintaining the relationships with coaches / assistant coaches at 100+ D1, 20-30 D2 and 50+ D3 schools (00's of relationships that need to be developed & maintained throughout the recruiting cycle), individual meetings with players and parents to plot strategy, intro emails for 20-30 players (some of whom may be targeting the same schools - nice conflict of interest set up there, eh?), figuring out which schools will have roster spots at the appropriate position to fit the needs of all those players, scheduling upcoming practices, scrimmages, tournaments, recruiting new players (just Stars coaches for this one, apparently), while preserving at least 30minutes/week for their private lives. To achieve all of this, the coach would either have to give up sleep or be wicked good at cloning.

You appear to be an idealist who spouts cliches like, "there should be no world hunger," "politicians who are not solely focused on improving the welfare of their constituents should be thrown out of office," and "there's no reason for potholes," but lack the intellectual depth to understand how things actually work. Real Life must be very frustrating and confusing for you.

I'm far from an idealist. I have had two kids go through the recruiting process and in both cases the club coach was an integral part of the process.

First off if you picked a club program and coach that doesn't have either the time for this or the actual interest/ability to do it, shame on you. Just because your club doesn't give you much help don't assume that is the way that every club does it.

Second, this process takes years, not months, so there is more time to accomplish what is necessary than you think. The key is doing your homework so you understand what you are looking for and where you might be able to find it. You can't waste your club coach's time or expect them to pull a rabbit out of a hat when you or your kid doesn't what they want. The problems all pop up when the families don't do their homework and aren't realistic. Club coaches don't have time to do it all for you but if you have all your ducks lined up it is not all that difficult for them to send a few text messages or make a few phone calls. That is part of what you are paying for once you get to the high school years.

[Unregistered]

Please stop making sense. Instead, let's keep flogging the story that club soccer is mostly a scam--in this case, since coaches aren't "objectively" assessing all of their players and actively helping them get recruited--beyond training and showcasing, and the occasional college contact.

That guy's problem is he picked a club that does nothing to help the kids get into college other than to try and win a few club soccer games. How surprising would it be if that club promotes the heck out of their kids once they commit but never actually does anything to help the kids line up that commit. They convince the families that is what is normal and the saps buy it.

[Unregistered]

That guy's problem is he picked a club that does nothing to help the kids get into college other than to try and win a few club soccer games. How surprising would it be if that club promotes the heck out of their kids once they commit but never actually does anything to help the kids line up that commit. They convince the families that is what is normal and the saps buy it.

Except that he doesn't sound like he has a "problem"--since he's not complaining about the process and actually seems to have a handle on how to get a result that works for his kid. Based on this limited information, there's reason to assume that he's not just another "sap."

[Unregistered]

Except that he doesn't sound like he has a "problem"--since he's not complaining about the process and actually seems to have a handle on how to get a result that works for his kid. Based on this limited information, there's reason to assume that he's not just another "sap."

No he is not complaining, but based upon what he has written he is wrong otherwise about how much assistance he should expect to get and therefore others might drop him into that "sap" category YOU seem to be worried about. I myself think of him as just uniformed.

[Unregistered]

No he is not complaining, but based upon what he has written he is wrong otherwise about how much assistance he should expect to get and therefore others might drop him into that "sap" category YOU seem to be worried about. I myself think of him as just uniformed.

Huh? You introduced the "sap" category. I'm not worried about that. I don't think he is, either--and he hardly sounded "just uniformed."

[Unregistered]

Very interesting since post #18 and post #20 essentially said exactly the same thing. And the poster of #18 does know what he is talking about. The difference is poster of #18 doesn't live his whole life complaining and making a vocation out of disparaging others.

[Unregistered]

You are largely paying for the exposure (that you wouldn't get playing for your HS only).

[Unregistered]

You are largely paying for the exposure (that you wouldn't get playing for your HS only).

This is one of view of things, but it's not the only view that is out there. My daughter's coach started working with each girl individually over the winter of their sophomore year. He sat with each player and worked out a list of schools with them and worked quite hard for them making connections with the college coaches on it. He was very involved in the whole process.

[Unregistered]

This is one of view of things, but it's not the only view that is out there. My daughter's coach started working with each girl individually over the winter of their sophomore year. He sat with each player and worked out a list of schools with them and worked quite hard for them making connections with the college coaches on it. He was very involved in the whole process.

I always love the people who come here and tell us about their one in a million experience as if THAT is the norm. It is painfully clear from the posts here that not many HS coaches or club coaches help in the process, but THANK God that this person had the one coach that was different...therefore all the rest of us must be just somehow doing it wrong. All we have to do is find this one guy and get on his team and it will all be great! and double thank you for telling us all about it.

[Unregistered]

I always love the people who come here and tell us about their one in a million experience as if THAT is the norm. It is painfully clear from the posts here that not many HS coaches or club coaches help in the process, but THANK God that this person had the one coach that was different...therefore all the rest of us must be just somehow doing it wrong. All we have to do is find this one guy and get on his team and it will all be great! and double thank you for telling us all about it.

Not so unusual you just have to ask. Most of these parents don't even know enough what to ask for and fall for this guys koolaide. That's half the problem.

[Unregistered]

A lot of this is talking past each other. One post is trying to generalize, while another is trying to extend what happened to their child onto everyone else. Girls and boys recruiting are different, for one. Ability of the player makes a big difference when discussing any individual example. Readiness of the player to vet colleges and develop a list varies a lot. A coach with 2 college-capable players is in a different situation than one with 15. Let's accept that individuals' situations often differ.