<p>The recruiting process was one of the best things for my son to go thru, he was also quite an introvert but having to speak to coaches face to face and on the phone helped him so much toward becoming comfortable with it all. You will be pleasantly surprised.</p>
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<p>swimming2014,</p>
<p>I couldn’t agree more with momof2010. My wife and I were absolutley astounded at how much our son grew because of this process. It sounds like momof2010 saw the same growth and development in her son. I think you will learn alot about your son in the coming months and how badly he wants to play college athletics.</p>
<p>LIttle tricks like having him practice in front of a mirror or practice a dialogue with his uncle or grandfather (while you observe and video tape) are fantastic tools to get him started. Personally, I like the video tape because it is instant feedback he can see immediately without someone telling him what he did or didn’t do. Many sports use video tape in their training, so that shouldn’t seem so foreign to him. Heck, my college tennis coach was using video tape back in 1981 so we could see our mechanics and matches. It is a great tool for self-evaluation. Good luck.</p>
<p>^^Along that same note, would highly recommend he “practice” with schools he might not be as interested in as others… My son set up his unofficial with Stanford, it was very early in the process and he was not comfortable yet and it showed. All in all it worked out fine in the end but hindsight I would have suggested he wait on that one and get comfortable with the face to face time with schools he was not at keen on.</p>
<p>My son is a Jr (soccer) and has already had some local D3 coaches expressing an interest in him. One school that has what he wants academically is having an open house for this major in Nov. and an “athletic” open house in December. We will definitely go to the academic open house, but as a Jr, for a D3 school, can we go to the athletic open house and talk to the coach? Would this be an unofficial visit? I guess I am confused by all of this! However, as you are all saying with talking to coaches, it gets easier as they do it more, so I am wondering if it would be a good idea to go, as long as it is not against the NCAA regulations.</p>
<p>Absolutely visit the school and talk with the coach while on campus. This is within the recruiting rules.</p>
<p>Not only is talking to the coach during an Open House ok but …</p>
<p>My D and I were at a Div III open house recently and saw about a dozen high school attendees gathered around one adult during the middle of the day.</p>
<p>I asked one of the school reps what was going on and she said, “Oh, the swim coach invited a bunch of his recruits.”</p>
<p>@dlbarber - there are (with a couple of exceptions that don’t matter here) no NCAA restrictions on HS athletes visiting a campus or meeting with coaches there. Technically it would be an unofficial visit, but that doesn’t really mean anything since an unofficial visit is simply a visit that the school doesn’t pay for.</p>
<p>JR year is absolutely the time to go. He CANNOT wait until senior year. For most d3 soccer programs the coaches will be done with recruiting by this time next year. d1’s will generally be done much sooner than that (Ivy’s might be the exception).</p>
<p>Soccer has a very early timeline (even moreso on the girls side - some of the top schools were finished with HS class of 2016 months ago).</p>