be interested in the ID camps at schools your daughter is interested in. Tons of spam in this soccer world and coaches trying to make a buck at the expense of parents.

my older kid was a mediocre player, and around freshman year we all of a sudden starting getting deluged with invites to recruiting and ID camps/events/etc. All with a fee of course. It's one big money-making racket, so be wary.

for D1 colleges not yet Junior year player - If the email mentions a specific game the coaches watched and includes the coaches CELL phone number. There is likely actual interest. Due to recruiting rules this is about the maximum additional information coaches can slip in to a "camp invite"
For D3 and NAIA colleges - there are no recruiting rules at younger ages so If the email does not mention specific game, what they liked about the player, coach cell phone, etc. it is generic.

I do not know if D2 is the same as D1 but I think it might be..

At this stage it doesn't hurt to take 10 min to make a call to the coach. Even if they didn't leave a number, you can find it online. Within 10 min, you will know exactly what the coach does or doenn't know about your daughter.

With our oldest, we found that the small, no-name obscure schools were reaching out first because they knew they couldn't compete with big name/popular schools. In some cases it was spam where they sent letters to everyone hoping someone might actually reach out. In a few cases, they had some legit interest.

Depending on your kid and what they want out of college, a lesser known school may be a good option. They are very desperate for sport talent because the good kids go to other schools and even at D3 they can help with money by finding grants and academic scholarships.

1- yes
2- depends, but doesn't matter (see #1) - coach *might* have been at her game, but this invite goes out to the whole book of players at a Showcase Tournament.
3- no

Please understand how a Showcase Tournament works - how impersonal and how much of a cattle call they are. Here is how it works for the College Coach (this is coming from someone with direct knowledge)

1) Coaches either receive a hard copy or download a copy of the tournament booklet.
This booklet has the players jersey number, email addresses, sometime position. No phone numbers or home addresses.
2) The coach will then upload the booklet into their system and then they can send out blanket invites to their ID clinics.
3) Coaches will sit at a complex from roughly 8a-6p recruiting and see ~20 games over the course of the day. If the complex doesn't have multiple fields, you probably wont get a coach there. They go to games where players have *reached out to them already* they don't randomly show up to a game.
4) Coaches will generally reach out to the club coach before contacting a player directly and personally.


Please understand, that when you come on to the message board to ask genuine questions, you are getting answers from people who also don't know what they are talking about. For any real & pertinent information, please ask your club coaches. If you can't trust your coach/club to give you good information, then why are you playing there? Do your own research, get educated. And no, this isn't the place to do it.

I love this "it's one big money-making racket" story line. Come up with something new...

It's just plain boring and tired and beyond lazy!

There are costs to running events, there are NCAA rules (as much as we all think the NCAA is terrible), and coaches and staff are not taking the time out of their lives to do this for free.

You parents have been OK with soccer extracting every dollar out of your wallets for 10 years, now when little Johnny or Suzie is in high school, a $150 ID clinic is a "money-grab"

So the answer you gave is worthless?

I'm glad that's what you took out of this.

Thats for you to decide. What is worthless or not.

What costs? College staff is salaried, they use their own facilities. Many of them don't even provide lunch. They get 100 kids but only care about 15 of them. I wish my business had such fat operating margins.

Whatever you gotta tell yourself...

Speaking of denial...you must be a college coach

$10,000 for one day's work ($100 a head). Not bad.

Most college coaches depend on camps to enhance their salaries. Many coaches wouldn't be coaches otherwise.