One thing to keep in mind is that the recruiting process should be driven by the prospective student athlete and NOT the parents. Your son will have to do all of the emailing, recruiting questionnaires, phone calls, social media, etc. himself. You as a parent can help build a college list and assist with creating videos and drafting emails and a player resume. But all the rest will be on him. It is a lot of work, and if his heart isn’t in it, it may not work out.
6 Likes
I spoke with the coach(es) if they made themselves available. Most did, and the one I remember feeling rebuffed by (she said hello but immediately left her office when I’d taken the time to fly my daughter to a visit, drive her to the school in the car I rented, etc). I didn’t encourage my daughter to consider that school at all. Other coaches felt as I did, that they were recruiting daughter and her family. I was a lot more supportive of those schools. Daughter still did the talking about playing style and team make up, but I don’t think coaches should be rude to the parents and not ask any opinions.
Just after my daughter committed, I read an article about a coach at a good school, top 50 D1 team, who’d been fired (obviously in a very public way) because of the way she treated her team. She belittled some, she made them do push ups in the airport because they lost, she left a player at an away game who had gone across a parking lot to talk to her parents before boarding the bus. I panicked. Had I asked enough questions of the coach as to her style? Had I done enough to make sure my daughter didn’t get a coach like that?
If I had to do it again, I would have investigated the teams and coaches more, and asked any questions I had. I don’t think coaches are always as forthcoming with 16 year olds as they are with parents. When we went to the school where my daughter ended up attending, my daughter was starry-eyed and the college looked exciting and the facilities nice. “Oh Mom, can I commit?” “Sorry honey, we still have some questions to ask.”
4 Likes
Yep. And if the student isn’t willing to do the legwork, then there really won’t be a college team for him to play on.
1 Like
The “pinned” thread on ABCs of Recruiting the Athletic Recruits board has some good advice, though keep in mind that thread is several years old so some of the details about NCAA rules may have changed etc.
3 Likes
I’m seeing a lot of comments on this thread insisting that a kid needs to do it all on their own. That maybe a parent can help create a list or help edit a highlight tape or some other basic secretarial type help, but if their help goes beyond this then the kid isn’t ready for college never mind college athletics, and it would be better to let them learn from the school of hard knocks.
And yet that’s not generally what I see from a lot of parents, especially parents on CC. Instead I hear about parents who have been very invested in all sorts of scaffolding. Parents who got their kids permanent tutors including tutors that continued to work with them in college. Parents who paid for all sorts of private athletic coaching and camps. All sorts of private college consultants. Stories of kids with learning differences slated for tech school until their parents intervened and found a way for them to study math at university. And I don’t hear that these kids then failed. I hear that these kids thrived.
So sort of confused by the sink or swim rhetoric on this thread.
4 Likes
This, and parents being involved behind the scenes in recruiting, is the norm IME as well.
5 Likes
I’m not saying sink or swim, but the parent is a support role for recruiting. The kid needs to be sending the emails and taking the phone calls. A coach is not going to respond to a parent that emails them talking about how great a soccer player their kid is. Some athletes use recruiting services, but coaches would prefer to hear directly from the athlete. When the talk gets serious about visits and offers, the parent can be involved at that stage.
1 Like
Personally, I don’t think college application season is the time to let your kids crash and burn and learn their lesson. Still, recruiting needs to have the appearance of being between the coach and the athlete, even if the kid needs help formulating every question and writing every email. Lots do and it’s ok. Do it with them, not for them.
17 Likes
It’s not sink or swim. It’s the OP’s statement that the kid has not shown any interest in college per se.
Those other kids you are referring to generally want to go to college, want to major in X, but have needed extra support along the way. The motivation is there. The skills are still developing.
Here you have a kid with a B (or B+?) average, perfectly fine grades who clearly is capable of performing- but according to the parent, isn’t motivated to do more than what is required to keep his position on the team.
Some of us have seen this scenario play out in real time. Parent does the legwork assuming the kid will get motivated once they get to ABC college. Reality is often that college has MANY more distractions than HS (including parties, poker, drinking, a constant festival of distractions in a typical dorm), so a kid who isn’t really interested in getting an education becomes a kid who REALLY can’t get motivated. And often the decision gets made for the kid- non-performance becomes a Dean saying very nicely “You might consider a leave of absence” which by the next semester (i.e. end of freshman year) “It’s time for your leave of absence”.
That’s why folks are encouraging the OP to step aside and let the kid handle things. If he really, really wants to play soccer in college, there are some hoops to jump through and some basic communication skills he’ll need to master.
4 Likes
For us:
Parents’ role: provide transportation; summer vacations = travel to games/showcases/camps, staying in yet another Hampton Inn vs wine tasting in the Loire; bankroll club team fees, coaches and equipment; provide encouragement; put together videos; help with sports resume; hound child to follow up with coaches as appropriate; research camps/showcases; understand process/timeline by school (only contact we had with coaches were on this).
Kid’s role: honestly enjoy their sport; have goals for college and post college; play hard and have a good attitude; initiate, email, call and handle coach contacts; develop their rank order of schools for both the sport and the school; handle OV’s on their own; call potential teammates on their own.
10 Likes
The student needs to be the one contacting the college coaches, not a parent. Phone calls, emails should initiate from the student, not his mom or dad. Parents would play a supporting role. And yeah, that absolutely can be something like nag the heck out of your kid to call Soccer Coach Bob at College X. Or it could look like guiding your kid through making a to do list with due dates for each of the recruiting-related things he needs to do.
If the student wants to play soccer in college bad enough, he’ll find a way to do what’s required. If his heart really isn’t in it, then it won’t matter much how much Mom or Dad nag him about doing X, Y, or Z because if there isn’t any follow through on the student’s part, then a spot on a college soccer team won’t happen.
Do or do not. There is no try. If the kid wants it bad enough, he’ll do it.
One thing that the OP’s son might not realize yet is that not all college sports teams are the same. A friend’s son just went through the NCAA recruiting process for his sport (not soccer). The son spoke with and met with a decent # of coaches. Even went on a couple of recruiting trips and did some practices with a few teams.
- at 1 college, he loved the academic programs, but the sports team was too much of a heavy drinking/party team for him. So he scratched it off his list because he decided that wasn’t for him.
- another college was too much in the frozen tundra up north. Team & coach were great, but he didn’t want 6 months of winter.
- another college’s team & coach were ok, but he preferred the academics at a different college more than that one.
- at yet a different college, he vibed really well with the other students on the team, but financially, it was totally unaffordable because his parents couldn’t afford to pay $68k/year (and yeah, that was after merit AND sports scholarships).
My friend said it was sort of like trying on a bunch of pairs of shoes. And the decision making process was complicated. The college he ended up enrolling in didn’t offer him a spot on the team until very late this spring.
1 Like
I’m reading between the lines when his current coach predicts him as a “possibly low D3”. In other words, no one is going to come looking for this kid and ask him to get his grades up so that the coach could back him.
I agree with the suggestion of attending an academic soccer camp. He will hear it straight from the coaches and that grades and motivation matter and he will also see the level of play and realize how hard he will need to work both academically and athletically to play in college.
Question: What are his recommendations going to be like? There is a good chance that while teachers aren’t going to come out and say he lacks motivation, they will word it in a way that can be inferred.
What will his essays be like if he has no motivation to do anything but play soccer?
Have you looked into a local non-flagship university? It seems like many would be a match athletically and academically. IT seems like it would be a choice he could be happy with if you could overlook that he’s not living up to the potential you feel he has.
3 Likes
So if parents don’t insist a child jump through recruiting hoops independently to prove he really, really wants to play soccer, then he’s likely to have trouble with poker and drinking and fail out. Hmmm, personally I don’t feel confident making that prediction. Besides, the OP specifically said they are “not seeking input on the pros and cons of pushing an academically gifted child to go to college.” Their goal is to get their son a spot on a college soccer team.
This kid seems to be on the edge of being able to play college soccer. What is this kid’s best chance of getting a spot on a soccer team despite marginal skills? In my mind, the answer isn’t “back off and see if he sinks or swims.” I think the answer is to find colleges with solid academics + accessible admissions for B students + weak soccer teams. That’s where the Massey list comes in.
From there, I say give him as much support as he needs to do the recruiting process, and if he finds out he’s not recruitable…then maybe ask for a favor and get him on the team anyway. I know more than 1 athlete who has been given a roster spot as a favor. It happens. And none of them wound up becoming poker addicts in the dorms.
5 Likes
Another resource he (the students) shouldn’t overlook is networking with his coaches (club, high school, camps he attends). They all know someone who knows someone, they know of a hidden gem for soccer, a new program, a team that lost a lot of seniors or switched divisions. Lindenwood (MO) and Queens (NC) both went up to D1 but not necessarily because of their men’s soccer teams (Queens did because of swimming), or a school that had only a club team but decided to add the soccer teams to varsity (Elon did that when my daughter was searching).
I found my daughter’s college team by reading LAX Magazine. It had a short piece on how Florida Tech was adding the team, had the coach’s email, and it worked out for her (had also read about the school in the WSJ as it added a Newman dorm; had never heard of the school before and read about it twice in a month).
2 Likes
Thanks for misinterpreting what I wrote.
Peace. I have no axe to grind here. I help a lot of kids with their “launch strategy” after they graduate from college- and some kids who don’t graduate, but still need to launch.
College is much more distracting than many parents realize. Current parenting trends involve a LOT more helicoptering/snow plowing/scaffolding then existed in our day. HS’s are still giving participation trophies and grade inflation is massive. So many kids get to college thinking they are better prepared than they are, with worse study skills than they have, with little experience balancing “daily living” and communications with adults because their parents have handled all of that.
If the OP doesn’t think my observations apply to their kid- terrific. Ignore me. Rando stranger on the internet. But I have seen an explosion of kids who get to college and crash and burn and no- Covid really can’t be blamed in perpetuity. You get a D on the first quiz in a college class-- Mom isn’t lining up at office hours for you to find out why. Your paper gets automatically marked down a letter grade because you handed it in a day late- Dad can’t explain to the professor that you had a technology glitch and the Help Desk was late in getting back to you. These are the routine communications that college kids need to handle on their own.
And a kid who loves soccer, wants to play soccer in college-- outreach to coaches ought to be a snap. Good practice for all those skills required once he gets to college.
Your kids were/are fantastic students who never stared down an “F” in a required class- congrats. But for anyone else reading this- start developing those coping and communication skills when your kid is in HS. Because that is not a fun phone call to get, whether the kid is a first semester freshman or a second semester senior.
And a final note- I have NEVER seen a kid crash and burn because they weren’t intellectually capable of doing college level work. Some of the epic fails are truly fantastic and brilliant kids. It’s the other stuff that trips them up. I’m sure there’s an exception- a kid who is just too dumb. But what I’ve seen it’s kids who can’t pass Life 101, and kids lacking the motivation to get to their econ review session at 8 am.
11 Likes
This is not 100 per accurate. I know a lot of mls next players that play for their high school. Just depends if HS season is fall or spring.
This is from the MLS Next Rules and Regulations for 2023-24:
c. Player Participation in Middle and High School Soccer
Primary players must agree to forgo participating simultaneously in both (1) MLS NEXT and (2) high school or middle school soccer. Future Players can simultaneously participate in both (1) MLS NEXT and (2) high school or middle school soccer.
Except as set forth herein, players who participate in high/middle school soccer are ineligible to participate in MLS NEXT Events.
Only Players who have been granted a waiver by PDev will be allowed to remain on their Club’s Roster during the high school soccer season (waivers are not available for middle school). This waiver must be granted by PDev before September 9, 2023, to be considered for the Roster exemption for the 2023–2024 MLS NEXT Season. The waiver eligibility guidelines are as follows and further information may be found in the MLS NEXT High School Waiver:
i. The Player received or will receive financial aid dependent on high school soccer participation; and/or
ii. The Player has been accepted into a private high school based on soccer participation.
2 Likes
I can’t speak to D3 recruiting specifically, but I know virtually no coach wants to hear from a parent before an offer is made, much like parents shouldn’t contact college professors.
Coaches aren’t there to coddle athletes. They need committed players that can handle the academics while contributing to the team any way they can.
4 Likes
I agree (again unless a coach invites a parent to join a mtg during a visit…which is uncommon, but does happen.)
Importantly, parents can hurt or even end a coach’s recruiting effort by inserting themselves into the process. Coaches do not want athletes on the team whose parents will be difficult, overly involved, etc. Virtually every coach has an example of a student they didn’t recruit at least partially due to the parents. Some coaches have many examples…their team, their rules.
11 Likes