In soccer, in my experience, that is an issue. I assume his playing has been limited to school then (referencing your statement that he’s one of the top keepers in the state)? If so, in our travels soccer coaches tend to look down their noses at HS soccer. I have my own skepticism about their motivations, and my kid was an ECNL player for a national club.
At any rate, I would expect soccer recruiting to be a tough row to hoe without club credentials. Plus, club is where you most frequently get to play in front of the college coaches. We found school ID camps, in contrast, to be a waste of time and money; but the player showcase tournaments were like gold for my D. The weeks after those tournaments the e-mail inbox lit up. The Vassar coach e-mailed her when she was in the 9th grade after the President’s Day Cup in Phoenix.
I agree that the club connections are key in soccer, but would disagree about ID camps, especially for players that are more marginal or not as flashy/stand-out on their club teams.
For us, the coaches that reached out after showcases were often not representing schools that were good academic matches. My kid identified a few schools that looked to be good matches for both academics and sport early on, went to their ID camps, and subsequently got a lot more attention from those schools at showcases. When the attention was more focused on her specifically, it worked to her benefit, and the ID camps helped with that.
I think as part of a targeted strategy, ID camps can be great. But we were not targeting Vassar, either.
Re Vassar, my kid had never heard of it. I pointed it out as an example of what the tournaments can do for you if your kid plays well.
Yours is an interesting take and it’s why these forums can be so helpful. Our experience was the opposite of yours. Tournaments (and to a lesser extent highlight clips attached to e-mails) generated interest and then invites to ID camps followed. They always wanted us to come to their home camp. For the schools whose interest seemed pretty sincere, we just said “pass” and rolled the dice that it wouldn’t matter, and it really never did.
We took her to a few ID camps for schools whose coaches hadn’t had a chance to watch her play, and those camps tended to generate luke warm interest, as well as one or two crazy evals (‘crazy’ relative to other recruiting interest in her).
It was a weird process. I admit that we didn’t need to be as clever or deeply familiar with it because she was a fairly strong recruit on the athletic side. She also didn’t have a “do or die” school on her mind. A pleasant surprise in all of this for us was that this, my most stubborn and hard headed kid, really became a good listener and was very reasonable and “all business” throughout. That made things easier, as I was expecting it to be a long haul with her. When we advised her that some of the tippy top NESCACs and Chicago (as examples) were not great academic fits for her (and presented a potential waste of an ED slot), she did not fuss about it and let them go. When we told her to take Bryn Mawr’s recruiting interest seriously, she did. All unexpected surprises.
The other thing I’ll add that I don’t think has been mentioned for those recruits who don’t enjoy the luxury of objective measurables (e.g., track and crew), a lot of this comes down to some dumb luck and there will be head scratching moments. On the luck side, it can come down to a split second moment. Was the coach watching when my kid hit a screaming shot into the upper right corner of the net from distance against one of the country’s top teams, or was he/she looking on the other field at the other kid they came to see (or were they there at all)? Scoring a great goal against a top club team at Surf Cup turned heads. Marking and shutting down a Stanford and then a Clemson recruit turned heads. Those things had to happen and at a time when people were watching.
Among the head scratchers were two D3 coaches. One was a NESCAC that had a very solid soccer program but not at the Williams, Amherst or Middlebury level, each of which recruited my D aggressively. That guy was clearly looking for a pure striker and my kid was a midfielder (who could also play anywhere on the back line) who is not likely to pick up the nickname ‘Messi’. The other one involved a since-fired coach of a weak program in the NW Conference. It was surprising to me that these two coaches had little to no interest in a kid who had Division 1 offers in hand, but that’s what happened.
I think recruiting decisions by coaches tend to work out for the best. If a coach doesn’t see a player’s potential during the recruiting process, the coach probably doesn’t have the vision to coach them well. If they just don’t have room for the players skillset, you want to know and go somewhere else. It might be frustrating if it’s a school that was otherwise a good fit, but you can’t force these things or worry about them. You just need one coach in the right place to see the fit.
Yes, the whole thing is entirely baffling. I’ll just say, pay to play is CLEARLY a thing. S is a 6’3” lean and strong and agile absolute beast of an athlete with all the pro keeper training, and he received barely a response from D3 schools. He is probably competitive for the starting spot at most D3 schools right now as a high school senior. I can just guess that he isn’t getting looks because he plays high school only and isn’t looking at many in-state schools.
That said, I’m pleased we didn’t put much more time into recruiting because he has decided not to play soccer this year. I am surprised and boy, am I going to miss seeing him play, but he has been working hard on his music and college applications. He is actually thinking of doing T&F for the first time ever (will jump and maybe sprint) and playing baseball again (will probably be a starting pitcher after two years off, if that gives you an idea of his athleticism). He clearly wants to do sports for fun and I gotta hand it to him for figuring that out on his own.
Pay to play is not a thing at colleges, unless they are using soccer as an enrollment tool. (Some schools do).
College coaches not only want to win, they need to win, or they don’t keep their job. They will take the best player they can get. Some coaches do have to balance other considerations (financial aid budget, or no need for a player in a particular position-- more true for goalkeepers than other positions, I expect).
I will pass along what my husband (who played d1 football) said when our son was cut from his club soccer team at 12 years old: “Cream rises to the top”. If a player is talented, athletic, and most importantly, has drive, they will rise to the top.
I know @murray93’s son has already decided against playing in college, but for others not playing club soccer, the key would be to get seen by college coaches, so video, guest playing at tournaments, and (I think most importantly) attending ID camps. Just know cream rises to the top – to generate interest from those camps, the player has to be the top one or 2 players out of the 100 the coach is seeing that day. (OK maybe top 3 or 4 – but not much more than that!).
I absolutely take and agree with your point but immediately thought of Georgetown tennis, Stanford sailing, Yale soccer and just about any sport at USC during varsity blues.
As a former college athlete and the father of competitive athletes I have shared your experience @cinnamon1212 so not disagreeing
Very true and something not discussed enough. The sports part does not work out for a lot of kids for a variety of reasons. Injury of course is another. We saw kids, even those on a nationally competitive team, want to break out and do other things on campus after freshman and sophomore years. Some started to refuse to “stay dry” during the months leading up to season. At some point, many of them realize that it’s coming to an end and want other experiences.
Maybe so. He has a really great highlight video I made (very easy to do as a keeper mom, JV players take video at every game and coach grants access) but he just wasn’t interested in ID camps or guest playing for tournament teams. In retrospect, I can see why.
It’s a beautiful sport, but it’s a grind and you have to catch the bug. There’s an old saying that no sport weeds out the pretenders faster than crew. There’s a novelty to being in the boat and figuring out the mechanics for a while, then shortly thereafter experience the thrill of being able to help a boat go fast. From there on it’s brutal. There is only one way to get faster: pain, and lots of it.
This sounds like a kid with the self-awareness and emotional maturity to realize that his interest in the sport was limited to start with and perhaps waning. If that’s the case, it’s good that he didn’t get too caught up in the recruiting process.
I wouldn’t call this a pay to play issue, although I do think it’s tough to be recruited in soccer without club and tournament play, and possibly camp attendance. That’s just the way the sport is structured. Club and tournament play over years provide repetitions of varied situations against high level competition that a limited HS season can’t match. That tacit knowledge is valuable, sometimes more so than athleticism.
Anyway, your son sounds like a great kid and I hope he enjoys exploring these other sports. If doing track and also a strong pitcher he should probably give the javelin a try.
Rowers must really be a special breed. Oops sorry. Feel free to delete.