College Scouts & Showcase Tournaments

[Unregistered]

As usual here is the problem. This is one size fits all advice that assumes a certain level of academic intensity and a certain funding ability. Do we honestly this advice fits a family of modest means that has never sent a child to college before? Probably not. Also the tired ascertain that a top D3 team is as good as a bottom tier D1 is flat out incorrect for just the point made in the article. The intensity does impact the quality.

Some of you need to beware that in this journey there are plenty of people who will try to profit from your relative ignorance. Don't lose sight that an article like this one is pandering to a very specific audience, one that has the means to pay for their services, and as such their advice is generally going to say what that audience wants to hear. That doesn't make it bad advice but you certainly don't want to take it as some sort of gospel advice. It is all part of the mix that you need seek out and find to fit your specific goals and variables.

Oh, so now you wish you hadn't posted the article?

[Unregistered]

Oh, so now you wish you hadn't posted the article?

Love when you make a complete fool out of yourself (which is often). I get such a laugh at your expense. Take it to the bank. The person who posted that article and the person you think you are addressing are not the same people.

[Unregistered]

I was reading the site one of those posts came from and came across this.

How to Negotiate a Better Athletic Scholarship Offer

The idea of getting a four year full-ride athletic scholarship is the dream for many athletes and families. As the reality of the recruiting process sets in, you realize how rare athletic scholarships are and how infrequently athletes receive full-rides. If you are fortunate enough to be offered scholarship money, you might be surprised how small the scholarship actually is. This leaves many athletes asking “how can I negotiate a better scholarship offer?” I address that question below.

Your Only Leverage is Other Scholarship Offers

Coaches up their scholarship offers for a few reasons, you improve significantly, they get more money available late or they think they are going to lose a recruit to another school. If we are talking about negotiating a better offer late in the recruiting process, they only thing you can really control to improve your offer is to have more schools interested. Too many athletes think that because they have a school show strong, early recruiting interest, the scholarship offer of their dreams will come their senior year, it probably won’t. You should have a minimum of five schools your senior year showing serious interest, any less and you risk being left with only one (or none) offers.

*It is tempting to scramble late in the process and reach out to schools after you have been committed to a school for several months and you didn’t get the scholarship offer you were hoping for, don’t do this. Coaches are willing to negotiate if an athlete has been regularly talking to several schools, but if you are opening up discussions only after a coach has made their offer, they know you are probably only doing this to try and play that school for more money.

Negotiate on Your Expected Contribution, Not Scholarship Size

Coaches are going to measure their scholarship offers based on how much the athlete will be expected to pay. For example, if two schools are offering a 50% scholarship, but one school costs $20,000 per year and the other costs $30,000, the coach at the cheaper schools is less likely to up their scholarship offer. Always base your scholarship discussions on how much attending that school is going to cost you after the scholarship. If a school is offering a smaller scholarship but will cost the least of all of the schools you are considering, don’t expect the coach to up the offer.

Establish a Timeline on Every Decision

You should leave every conversation with a coach with a clear understanding of what to do next and when it needs to be done. This is most important when it comes to discussing scholarships or financial aid offers. You should know exactly what it takes to get a full financial aid estimate and how long you have to decide on any offers made. Many times coaches are going to make unofficial offers before a school is going to be able to make an official review of an athlete’s financial aid opportunities. Coaches can provide you with a good idea of what kind of costs you will be looking at, but you can’t get an official review from the school until you have applied your senior year.

Trying to get a better scholarship offer is a delicate process where you need to balance not offending the coach making the offer and making sure you look at all of your options. In the end, there is no perfect answer to how to when to negotiate. As long as you have been open and honest with coaches and have been regularly communicating with several schools, you stand the best chance of being able to up your scholarship offer.

[Unregistered]

Another article on that site

How to Know If a College Coach is Interested in You

Once you have put in the work of identifying schools and reaching out to coaches, your list of potential colleges will takes shape based on what coaches are interested in you. Not every program you contact is going to be interested in you and not all coaches’ interest is the same. It is important you know how to read a coaches behavior to gauge how interested they are. In this article I explain the common ways coaches show interest and how that show of interest lets you know how serious they are.

No Contact Means No Interest

Rule number one, if a school hasn’t contacted you (or your coaches) in any way, don’t assume they are interested. Many people think a program might be interested in them, but isn’t showing interest yet because of the NCAA contact rules. The truth is, if a college program wants you to know they like you, they will find a way and they won’t wait. There are several different types of interest from coaches and they all mean different things.

If a Coach Gives You Their Personal Contact Info, That is a Great Sign

College coaches guard their privacy and while you can often find an email address and phone number for them on the school website, their personal info isn’t listed there. If you are a high value recruit, a coach will give you their personal cell phone number. Additionally, some coaches have a personal email (not listed on the school website) and they might give you that as well, so you can easily contact them. If you are fortunate enough to get this info from a coach, use it and show interest by calling and emailing your with questions.

Personal Letters or Emails Saying “We Know Who You Are”

The next best level of contact to receive from a coach is a letter, email or phone call, letting you know they know who you are and they will be continuing to watch you. This usually means they have you ranked in the second tier of their recruiting class and your offer (whatever it will be) will need to wait until they know what is going to happen with their top ranked recruits. This is a great position to be in (most schools miss out on their top recruits). If you are getting this type of interest, you will have to be patient because your offer is going to be determined by the recruits they have ranked ahead of you.

Impersonal Letters Inviting You to Camps or to Fill Out a Recruiting Questionnaire

The introductory level of interest a college program will show you is sending generic letters inviting you to camps or asking you to fill out a recruiting questionnaire. While this is better than not receiving anything, many athletes take this to mean the program is seriously recruiting them and they don’t follow up properly. Think of this a request for a highlight video or upcoming schedule; these coaches are looking for the info they can use to make a preliminary evaluation and see if they want to follow up and watch you more. It is critical you respond to any school that shows interest and don’t stop until you are getting personalized letters or phone calls.

With the stress and anxiety of the recruiting process, it is easy to over think communications with college coaches. If a program is very interested in you they will show it. If you aren’t getting the “we are in love with you” vibe from a school, they are probably still interested, but you might not be the top recruit. Keep working at it and your options will begin to materialize.

[Unregistered]

Decided to google "women's soccer recruiting and ran across this site. http://www.d1soccerrecruiting.com/ I wanted to post a link to it to dispel the notion that there is only one person out there who sees that there are different approaches to being recruited.

Hello. My name is Frank Johnson

In order to ensure that our daughter Emily would be seen by coaches of targeted schools, we devised and implemented a unique and thorough strategy and then we worked that strategy relentlessly.

Most families, when they seek out advice from coaches and other families, are told that they need to 1) play for a Development Academy club (for boys), an ECNL club (for girls), or a super club; and, 2) play in major college soccer showcase tournaments every year. We call that the “volume” approach - a strategy which advocates being seen by as many college coaches as possible.

While we would never say that approach is wrong (many families use that approach and are successful), we believe that our “targeted schools” strategy was at least as effective as the “volume” approach, if not more effective.

Whichever strategy you choose, we believe that our tips can be used effectively. Even if you choose the “volume” approach, we believe our tips will prove helpful to your family as you navigate the maze of college soccer recruiting!

[Unregistered]

Here are a couple of resources for the D3 crowd

D3 Recruiting Hub: http://d3recruitinghub.com/
Tier One Athletics: http://www.tier1athletics.org/blug/
D3 Sports On Recruiting: http://www.d3sports.com/columns/on-recruiting/index
Division III Women's Soccer Recruiting Questions: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...questions.html
DIVISION III RECRUITING - QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE: http://www.uaa.rochester.edu/nadiiia..._rec_guide.pdf

[Unregistered]

Hands-Off Approach to NCAA Rules

January 21, 2013 By Allie Grasgreen

GRAPEVINE, Texas -- The National Collegiate Athletic Association's massive rulebook is a little bit lighter now, with the Division I Board of Directors' approval Saturday of a series of regulations that allow for greater flexibility in recruiting.

The two dozen rules, effective Aug. 1, wipe out myriad restrictions on timing, methods and frequency of communication with recruits, potentially giving the upper hand to larger programs with manpower to spare and accelerating the already-intense athletics arms race. But that's to be expected under the NCAA's new guiding regulatory philosophy, which forgoes "competitive equity" (aimed at ensuring that no one program has an advantage over another) in favor of "fairness of competition." The former principle is the reason the rulebook has swelled to more than 400 pages, members of the group that recommended the proposals said here Friday at the annual NCAA convention.

When recruiting prospects, Division I programs will be permitted unlimited use of text messaging, social media (both of which were previously prohibited), telephone calls (previously limited to a certain number per week) and printed literature.

Greg Sankey, executive associate commissioner and chief operating officer of the Southeastern Conference, described the approach as "taking a step back and not worrying about things that, practically, can't be dealt with."

NCAA President Mark Emmert created the Rules Working Group as part of his reform agenda, which also includes revamping the enforcement structure and academic standards for athletes. This group's members recommended the set of proposals to deregulate the rulebook in favor of regulations that are "meaningful, enforceable and supportive of student-athlete success."

In a news conference after the board meeting, Emmert said that a year ago, he "would have expected a knock-down, drag-out fight" over the shift away from an equity-based approach. But by Saturday, there was virtually no debate, he said; as NCAA members talked it over throughout recent months, it made more and more sense.

"You can't say [the University of Alabama] doesn't have a competitive advantage over a school that just started playing football 10 years ago," Emmert said. "We're not going to try and overcome those natural competitive advantages that people have, but when student-athletes step onto the field, they know the other team's got the same number of players, got the same number of coaches, got the same number of scholarships."

Only one proposal didn't make it through Saturday -- No. 13-2, which would have established a uniform start date for recruiting contact for all sports, but (consistent with the idea behind all the new rules) it will be up to individual colleges when to allow contact for each sport.

The board tabled that rule until April's meeting, where the working group will bring forward a modified proposal that will likely include three or four start dates for different sports, Emmert said, rather than one for all of them. The board, which comprises 18 college presidents, postponed the vote because some academics were concerned the flat date was too intrusive for high school students -- that they should be focused on their education, not on recruitment.

Currently, each sport has its own individualized recruiting calendars. Proposal 13-2 would have allowed off-campus contact with recruits beginning the first day of their junior year in high school and communication with recruits on or after July 1 after the completion of their sophomore year in high school.

At a Division I forum Friday, members of the working group presented their recommendations and sought feedback from those who were shut out of Saturday's closed meeting. Presidents, conference commissioners, athletics directors, faculty athletics representatives and athletes were largely supportive of the proposals, except for 13-2, which received some pushback.

"A one-size-fits-all approach might not necessarily be best for all our sports," said Noreen Morris, commissioner of the Northeast Conference and chair of the Division I leadership council. "Why put forward a proposal that may not have a consensus, that might then go into an override discussion ... and put a negative spin on the package in general?"

(The rule that generated the most discussion at last year's convention -- which would have allowed conferences to permit colleges to offer $2,000 stipends to athletes to help cover the cost of attendance -- was automatically suspended after more than 160 institutions submitted override requests. Working group members mentioned the stipend at Friday's forum, noting that it's still in limbo.)

The working group had argued that under previous rules -- which for some sports didn't allow contact until July 1 after the student's senior year in high school -- athletes and coaches didn't have enough time to form proper relationships and get families all the information they needed to make a decision.

Athletes who were in town to receive the NCAA's Top 10 Awards, which honor students who graduated a year ago and were successful athletically and academically, agreed. They said they would have liked fewer restrictions on communication and more time to interact with different programs before committing.

"It would have been nice to just know my options," said Miles Batty, a cross country and track and field athlete who attended Brigham Young University. Under NCAA rules, colleges couldn't recruit Batty until the July before his senior year of high school -- just a couple of months before signing day.

Athletes also spoke in favor of two other proposals that eliminate restrictions on methods and modes of communication during recruiting (13-3) and restrictions on sending printed recruiting material to prospects (13-5-A).

Wendy Trott, a University of Georgia graduate who was on the swimming and diving team, said she was often confused about she what was or wasn't allowed to do when communicating with athletics programs.

"Anything that makes it simpler or easier to understand" is a plus, she said.

Emmert said Saturday that athlete input was "profoundly important." What with their common sense and experience, Emmert joked, perhaps the NCAA should just have them write the rulebook themselves.

Regardless of who does the rulemaking in the future, they'll have to honor a new commitment to "fair competition." Proposal 2-1 codifies that new approach; it "acknowledges that variability will exist among members in advantages, including facilities, geographic location and resources and that such variability should not be justification for future legislation." (2-1 also includes commitments to "diversity and inclusion.")

Sankey said Friday, "We're talking about fair competition, but we're also talking about realities."

The key is that all athletes are held to the same standards, which the revised rulebook achieves, said Curtis Schickner, an athlete who competes at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and was a member of the working group.

"We may not have the same caliber of talent or facilities, but when we go there every day, do we have the same ability to win?" he asked. "I think that's what's most important to student-athletes."

Looking forward, when considering new rules, membership should consider the following, said Brian Shannon, faculty athletics rep at Texas Tech University and president of the Division I-A FAR group: "Does this proposed rule advance one of the commitments? Does it support one of the commitments? If not, why are we looking at it?"

Asked what Saturday's vote meant for his reform agenda, Emmert said, "it's huge."

"It is a singular accomplishment in Division I when they can make changes that set a completely new tone for rules, how rules can be made, and what the philosophical underpinning of those rules is," he said. "This is a movement toward greater responsibility at the institutional level, that will allow them more flexibility and will focus the rules on those things that are real threats to the integrity of sport -- away from things that are mostly annoying."

A complete list of the new legislation can be found here.

Divisions II, III consider legislation

Division II approved parts of its own "ease of burden" package. While it defeated a proposal that would have eased rules on official and unofficial campus visits, Division II approved two others. One specifies that for students who aren't yet enrolled in college, their amateur status will be jeopardized only by receiving a benefit from an agent or entering into an agreement with an agent. The other rule specifies that prospects may try out for a sport beginning June 15 before their junior year in high school, as long as the student has either completed high school eligibility in the sport or their sport's season is not under way.

Division III passed a rule Saturday allowing coaches to use social media to communicate privately when recruiting prospects. Divisions I and II already allowed it.

After a 45-minute debate, Division III also passed a controversial rule requiring colleges to test and confirm athletes for sickle cell trait, a genetic condition in which red blood cells can become deformed and cause health problems. Next year, all incoming freshmen will be tested; the year after, testing will expand to cover all athletes. Some critics urged against the proposal, saying it was medically unsubstantiated.

[Unregistered]

Trying to add some quality information to offset the usual nastiness and misinformation that creeps into these recruiting threads. This article is about D3 softball but it has some wonderful insight into how recruiting is actually done at that level particularly about how important college showcases are to prospects targeting the D3 level.

Recruiting at the Division 3 Level

It seems like I have this conversation at least three times a year. Whether it is with travel ball coaches at tournaments, Division I coaches at camps, or new coaches here at my current school, Willamette University, I get asked the same question. “How do you effectively recruit to the D III level”?

I have been at it now for 13 years and my answer stays the same. “It is more an Art than a Science. You have to make many strokes and will develop many layers. And just like real Art many will like it and most will hate it”.

I often relate recruiting to being a GM in Major League Baseball. There are big market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox (Division I) and small market teams like the A’s and the Twins (Division III). As a recruiter of a “small market” team, there are different ways I go about recruiting athletes to come play for our program.

The first thing that I had to learn was how to work with a limited budget. My recruiting budget is only $1,500 a year so that means I cannot travel to see most players play. Many players and their parents do not understand that I cannot travel to every tournament to see them play and they take this to mean that I am not interested in them. This is not true. I go to the Las Vegas tournament in June, the Forth of July tournament in Denver, and one tournament in Southern California in the Fall. I also attend the Valley Invite in Oregon because it is a local tournament. Thanks to many coaching friends, I often share hotel rooms and rental cars to help keep costs down.

Camps are another way I help keep my recruiting costs down. I try to work as many camps around the country that I can. We also partner with NIKE and US SPORTS Camps to run an Elite Camp at Willamette very summer. Camps are such a great way for me to see a player for a week and interact with them to see if they like our program and if they can fit in with us.

Recruiting services like Cathi Aradi and Kelly Jackson, and friends of our program like Jerry Wallace and Mike McCauley are also valuable to our recruiting efforts. With no costs to me, they have helped fill my rosters for years now. Being on a phone call away basis with them, has really help attract more players to Willamette.

For this article, I did a count of my current roster. 40% of our players, I coached at a camp, 40% came from recruiting services and friends, and only 20% of them came from players writing letters and sending their video to me. This underscores the importance of the personal contact with recruits rather than impersonal letters.

Another area that makes us different than most is: what we look for in players. Every program is different and has different needs from year to year but what we look for at Willamette stays the same. The first thing I look for is if a player can “fit” into our system of play. I know a lot of coaches look for the best athletes that they can “coach up” to their specific needs. At Willamette and most D III schools, we do not have the one-on-one time with athletes to get them where we need them. At Willamette we see if a player can run, because you can’t “coach up” speed (you can make a player quicker but hard to make them faster), we see if they have a high softball IQ, because we do not have enough time with them to teach them the ins and outs of the game (we try to give them the little things to make their game more advanced), and we see if they are a good character person, because softball is a Spring sport and they need to be trustworthy from September to May.

The next thing is to look at their grades and SAT scores. At Willamette we recruit to an ever, rising profile. Currently, our profile is a 3.7gpa and a 1500 SAT score. A lot of parents and players think that I am not interested in them. I really am but I do not want to waste their time or mine if they are going to get denied admissions to our school. This is often a difficult conversation to have with a parent that knows their child is a good student and feels they are smart enough to go to any college.

The last major hurdle to clear is having the financial aid talk with parents. With cost of sending a child to college rising and the down turn of the economy, this conversation gets tougher and tougher. Most D III schools are private and expensive (Willamette’s total budget is just over $49,000 for 2011-2012) and trying to convince families that it is worth the investment is a hard sell. We mainly focus on the players next 40 years of their lives not the next four. When we sell the “whole life” package, it makes that $49,000 a great investment.

The rising costs of playing travel ball is just one of the problematic issues out there today. I often have parents tell me that they invested their savings into their child playing travel ball with the hopes of them getting a college scholarship. For some reason, that is difficult for me to understand. I know every family has their own philosophy and that philosophy is best for them but I hope I invest my savings into helping my children go to the college of their choosing, to get a great education that will help them to a great future. Playing softball in college is a great thing but “investing” in travel ball seems riskier than the stock market these days. Who knows what school the kid will end up at? Or whether they will stick it out at that school or with that team or with that coach? Hopefully, kids are playing because they love to play and it is fun and their parents are supporting them, not investing in them.

One thing that remains true and constant is that recruiting is the lifeline to any program. Recruiting is one of best parts of my job. I love getting to know new people and having great conversations about Willamette and our program. It is always fun to go watch softball and not have to stress about coaching it. Recruiting is great and I look forward to the summers at the ballpark every year.

[Unregistered]

Dear Mr. Frank Johnson,

Thank you your correspondence.

For the majority, surely you know that a hybrid approach is utilized. In other words, you are describing the categories of "volume" vs "targeted" too starkly.

Players tend to choose to play at the highest level attainable for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, many feel that their best chance to maximize their potential and thereby make themselves the most attractive for potential suitors is to train and play in the most competitive environments available. This is not to say that a player/family can't piece together a regimen that will approximate, duplicate, or possibly even surpass how the majority may go about this, but generally speaking, presuming feasibility, most will choose "best available" in their area. The same logic explains why invitees to national camps and national team experiences rarely turn them down.

And in terms of actual recruitment, here in New England the clientele is such that "targeting" already has been part of the equation for many families. Most realize quite well that just showing up at a showcase with no prior contact and no targeting of "what you want" is a fool's errand. And the majority of the clientele in New England appear to be relatively happy with how the process works out for them.

Good luck Frank.

[Unregistered]

Interesting that the only post that gets responded to is the one that seems to validate there being another approach other than just the showcase approach which the author of that website attributes to the DAP/ECNL clubs. Attacking that post certainly seems in character with this forum, that's for sure.

[Unregistered]

Understanding Your Level of Recruitment

http://www.ncsasports.org/blog/2013/...l-recruitment/

[Unregistered]

Checked this thread about a half an hour ago. It's had 30 page views in that time but no posts. 4,481 page views right now at 10:10 with 115 posts. Rather amusing how little interest there is in actual useful information yet when posters are bashing the crap out of each other with utter nonsense the page views spin up out of control. No wonder we have made for media travesties like Ferguson.

[Unregistered]

Checked this thread about a half an hour ago. It's had 30 page views in that time but no posts. 4,481 page views right now at 10:10 with 115 posts. Rather amusing how little interest there is in actual useful information yet when posters are bashing the crap out of each other with utter nonsense the page views spin up out of control. No wonder we have made for media travesties like Ferguson.

In what way is Ferguson a "made for media travesty"?

And maybe your "actual useful information" isn't that useful, since it is all common sense that the sophisticated New England crowd already is well-versed in. And since everyone knows that instead of providing helpful, neutral information to "the public" there are clear agendas attached to your feigned philanthropy.

[Unregistered]

In what way is Ferguson a "made for media travesty"?

And maybe your "actual useful information" isn't that useful, since it is all common sense that the sophisticated New England crowd already is well-versed in. And since everyone knows that instead of providing helpful, neutral information to "the public" there are clear agendas attached to your feigned philanthropy.

Are you that dumb not to see through the whole Ferguson setup? Lemming.

[Unregistered]

Are you that dumb not to see through the whole Ferguson setup? Lemming.

For sure. The US government can pick two random guys out of a crowd in less than a week when it comes to something like the marathon bombing but yet they will sit back and let the city of Ferguson be consumed by agitators. If they wanted to stop that thing they could have done it over night and have all of the real trouble makers in jail. They chose not to and one really has to ask why.