The ECNL Sales Pitch - Fact or Fiction

[Unregistered]

So these are the below top 100 programs you want to discount?

Hmmm....Harvard or Yale vs FDU...Brown or Dartmouth vs Sacred Heart. OK, you got me.

If Harvard, Yale, Brown start showing records like Wake Forest, Stanford and Duke, then we start talking. Please tho don't let this detract from the "package" decision these girls made even tho I don't know them as it is admirable they can excel at both academics and athletics.

[Unregistered]

Then play for NEFC. There also is big difference between being a primary recruit and a marginal or walk-on recruit.

The thing that you can't escape is that by any metric the Stars and Scorps have been superior, not matter how much you dilute, downgrade, deflect, distort. The final outcomes are still the outcomes.

Wasn't that what the Stars class of 2012 basically showed. Most of the players on their commitment list were evaluated by the ECNL mouth piece, TopDrawer, as being essentially average or below average players and when you read the individual school press releases, none of them were being hyped up as though they were viewed as a recruiting coupe. It seems pretty clear most of the players are reaching for programs above their ability but if you want to focus just on the names of the schools it sure is a pretty list.. as far as lists go...

[Unregistered]

Such impressive lists of commits to d-1.

Let us ask ourselves a couple of questions.

What percentage of incoming freshman to College are soccer players? How do all the others get accepted?

How much did all the other incoming freshman's ( non-soccer players )families have to pay to get in ? Not just the $$$, but the time, the effect on family life, all those quality hours on the highway, in airports staying in motels and eating pedestrian food ? Nearly every weekend and Holiday since the child became a teen or now even pre -teen, spent on the journey.
And what does that sort of childhood do to the overall development of the child? The world revolves around them? Parents will go through hell and high water to push the child through? Chasing College Coaches around from field to field, trying to get an audience like they are the Pope?

After it is all over, if those lists of players even play for 4 years, graduate, and can apply themselves to the adult world, will one be able to look back and say if it was all worth it or not ? Until that day, you can talk all you want. That's the bottom line. When you have done everything and anything for them , what will your relationship with them be? What will their relationships be like to other young adults? Will they be able to cope without parents tweaking , adjusting and tampering in their lives , as the did for most of their childhood?

Has it all been life enriching or life draining?

[Unregistered]

Chasing College Coaches around from field to field, trying to get an audience like they are the Pope?

Great picture but totally illegal from a recruiting perspective. Have you ever been through the college process or just doing a slam job on recruiting rivals?

[Unregistered]

Wasn't that what the Stars class of 2012 basically showed. Most of the players on their commitment list were evaluated by the ECNL mouth piece, TopDrawer, as being essentially average or below average players and when you read the individual school press releases, none of them were being hyped up as though they were viewed as a recruiting coupe. It seems pretty clear most of the players are reaching for programs above their ability but if you want to focus just on the names of the schools it sure is a pretty list.. as far as lists go...

Your frantic need to trash these girls and Stars is sad.

[Unregistered]

Great picture but totally illegal from a recruiting perspective. Have you ever been through the college process or just doing a slam job on recruiting rivals?

Probally more times then you.

So having competition specifically set up to display talent in front of College coaches, and having parents gushing with pride posting " 43 Collge Coaches watching", and other drivel is illegal?

Don't you see were this has gone, and what the future potentially may bring? More fragmentation, more discrimination, more unequal opportunity for children .

[Unregistered]

Probally more times then you.

So having competition specifically set up to display talent in front of College coaches, and having parents gushing with pride posting " 43 Collge Coaches watching", and other drivel is illegal?

Don't you see were this has gone, and what the future potentially may bring? More fragmentation, more discrimination, more unequal opportunity for children .

No following coaches from field to field and seeking audiences off (their) campus is illegal. Or perhaps it should be put that college coaches can't talk to prospects and their parents off campus until an NLI is signed. Coaches attending games is perfectly legal.

And you would know this if you'd ever been through it - much less multiple times.

As for unequal opportunities? Are you joking? since when is the world fair? My kid isn't a national merit scholar or a concert violinist, is it unfair the attention those title holders get?

[Unregistered]

No following coaches from field to field and seeking audiences off (their) campus is illegal. Or perhaps it should be put that college coaches can't talk to prospects and their parents off campus until an NLI is signed. Coaches attending games is perfectly legal.

And you would know this if you'd ever been through it - much less multiple times.

As for unequal opportunities? Are you joking? since when is the world fair? My kid isn't a national merit scholar or a concert violinist, is it unfair the attention those title holders get?

Coming soon to a community near you...the Elite Merit Scholarship League and the Elite Concert Violinist League.

[Unregistered]

No following coaches from field to field and seeking audiences off (their) campus is illegal. Or perhaps it should be put that college coaches can't talk to prospects and their parents off campus until an NLI is signed. Coaches attending games is perfectly legal.

And you would know this if you'd ever been through it - much less multiple times.

As for unequal opportunities? Are you joking? since when is the world fair? My kid isn't a national merit scholar or a concert violinist, is it unfair the attention those title holders get?

Perhaps you should read this article.

http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/club-...m_medium=email

The whole basis behind the discussion is that there is SO much contact going on between under age players and college coaches that they should just relax the rules because they essentially are just a sham.

If you have been through the recruiting cycle with a child of your own you will know that all of this is far from easy. Decisions need to get made and often they need to be made before a child is mature enough to make them. Quite frankly the whole situation stinks and it is really not a great experience for a lot of the kids, never mind the parents. That is why it is so irksome when the clubs parade out a list of commitments. If you have been through it you know they are selling something they had very little involvement in. Heck, half of these coaches won't even make a phone call for a player and here they are taking credit for the getting the kid to a college program. That is just as much a sham as saying there is no under age contact.

[Unregistered]

Having a chance to go to Harvard or Yale is VERY impressive. I'm sure very few of the players on their rosters would have no chance of getting into those schools without support of the coaches.

I don't see very many Aztecs, MPS or NEFC at Yale or Harvard.

I also think the NEFC coaching director is from NEFC as well

[Unregistered]

Perhaps you should read this article.

http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/club-...m_medium=email

The whole basis behind the discussion is that there is SO much contact going on between under age players and college coaches that they should just relax the rules because they essentially are just a sham.

If you have been through the recruiting cycle with a child of your own you will know that all of this is far from easy. Decisions need to get made and often they need to be made before a child is mature enough to make them. Quite frankly the whole situation stinks and it is really not a great experience for a lot of the kids, never mind the parents. That is why it is so irksome when the clubs parade out a list of commitments. If you have been through it you know they are selling something they had very little involvement in. Heck, half of these coaches won't even make a phone call for a player and here they are taking credit for the getting the kid to a college program. That is just as much a sham as saying there is no under age contact.

I happen to agree about the early commitments; however, our college decision experience was completely unlikethe bolded above.

The quote that was objected to stated that player/parents follow coaches all over fields to talk with them. I have never seen that and if you think about it that would be just about the stupidest way to go about the illegal contact referred to as it is pulic. So please don't create another strawman argument about me "saying there is no underage contact" when that was never said. I am also unaware of any rules that prohibit contact based on age - location, method, who calls - yes - but not age.

[Unregistered]

Having a chance to go to Harvard or Yale is VERY impressive. I'm sure very few of the players on their rosters would have no chance of getting into those schools without support of the coaches.

I don't see very many Aztecs, MPS or NEFC at Yale or Harvard.

I also think the NEFC coaching director is from NEFC as well

You keep trying to make this a Stars vs NEFC thing when it really isn't. Might you consider that some people see commitments in an entirely different light than you do and do not agree that using them to sell a club's brand name is an appropriate thing to do. Having sent my fair share of children off to college I believe that I can safely say that if the Aztecs, MPS, NEFC or any other club around here had a player that had the credentials and desire to attend an Ivy League school that those players would have just as much an opportunity to go to one of them as a similar player from either the Stars or Scorpions. The fact that you incessantly keep trying to make it seem like those clubs give players some advantage over others is revolting because it simply is not true.

[Unregistered]

Having a chance to go to Harvard or Yale is VERY impressive. I'm sure very few of the players on their rosters would have no chance of getting into those schools without support of the coaches.

I don't see very many Aztecs, MPS or NEFC at Yale or Harvard.

I also think the NEFC coaching director is from NEFC as well

Another dumb argument! Due a little research and you will find an Aztec player on the Harvard roster. You will also find plenty sprinkle through Ivy's. On the girls side 90% of them our great students so it's more about where they want to go and what they can afford. If you can get into Harvard they will recruit you. How many kids are going to their coaches going I want to go to Harvard or Yale?

[Unregistered]

btdt, why do you keep posting on this? What's your real issue here? Why can't you say anything nice about these other clubs? If you don't want to give the clubs any credit can you at least give them a fair shake about attracting high caliber players, and, no, not just because they went there in the last year or so but many who started at a young age.

And did you get muffled by your club about posting here and bringing so much negative attention to your club? Is that why you keep seeing we are barking up the wrong tree? Because you've been told not to be posting here making your club look so bad and so desperate?

[Unregistered]

btdt, in regard to your post no. 831, are you prepared to argue that NEFC does no promoting and has no commitments or alumni list?

And Harvard and Yale don't recruit you just because they can get you through admissions. If this was true, more than half of the NESCAC and other elite D3 players would be going there.

Is there any length you won't go to in your efforts to discredit Stars and Scorps? You have really destroyed any remaining credibility you had left.