<p>Another camp which some of my son’s teammates attended and enjoyed was the Puma Peak Performance Academy hosted by Amherst College. Last year this camp was staffed by coaches from Amherst, Lafayette, Duke, BC, Northwester, Georgetown, BU, SMU, Yale, Princeton, Denvers, Iona, Drew, Hobard, Brandeis. Other schools in attendance as well. I was heard it was very large and difficult to “get noticed”. My son has only attended two camps and both had around 220 players. I thought this was the norm and maybe this is what my friends meant by very large. In any case, I believe if a player is good, he will get noticed.</p>
<p>shrinkrap, thanks so much for the ideas about camps in the west.
keylyme, not sure this kid will be able to travel to Dartmouth or Amherst, but great for future reference or for other young athletes following this thread.</p>
<p>I read an article recently that said the biggest difference between HS and college soccer is speed of the game: quicker passes and movement down the field, so players who can move and react quickly and anticipate and create smart field positioning can make the transition.</p>
<p>Speed of play is very important. High school soccer (at least what you see at public schools in my part of the country) is not a pretty game. It is a very physical American style of the game involving little in the way of skill. Some colleges also play this style of soccer while others play “the beautiful game.” My son played all of his club soccer under the tutelage of excellent English coaches (former Premier League players) who did teach a beautiful one touch passing game at high speed. Your friends son will need to look at the styles of the different schools he is interested in to find the ones that match his style.</p>
<p>If there is a particular school the player is interested in, he should confirm the coach or asst. coach will be at the camp before $ is plunked down. Sometimes a coach will be at one week of a camp only, or even just a couple of days of that week, so player would want to be sure that session of the camp is the one he attends. Don’t rely on the web site or brochure. Before we learned the importance of that, S attended one smallish camp 10 hours away only to have two coaches at schools he was very interested in not attend. One just never showed and the other was on his honeymoon. A couple of phone calls or e-mails would have been a good idea. We learned from that.</p>
<p>Thanks royal. Good advice. I’ve also heard that some programs are mainly run by current college players and that coaches may or may not be actively involved. The training might be good, but if the goal is to impress a coach, it may not happen.</p>