The ECNL Sales Pitch - Fact or Fiction

[Unregistered]

Well if fools like you would stop from flying out of your chairs every time someone gives an accurate criticism of the ECNL and then use stupid ill formed logic trying to refute that criticism perhaps more people would accept some of the other points a few of you make. If you will look back and reread the post that started everything it was a critique of the fool who posted a listing of the college coaches attending the Chicago ECNL event as a way to show how important those events are. The response was quite on target because once you realize kids are popping up on college coaches radar screens prior to the whole "showcase" process that everyone seems to feel is so necessary you should start to realize that recruiting works very differently than it is being portrayed. The poster's point was if you child has talent, the college coaches will find them. He is correct.

NT and IR players are showing up on coaches radar without showcases - ok fine. I will conceed that most of those players could be recruited by almost any school sight unseen - but that accounts for less than 150 players per class. Once you get below those "top" 150, there are still many d1 spots available and many players who need to get seen.

The college coaches want to see those players playing. That is why coaches come to showcases. This is true regardless of how the player initially gets the attention of the school - resume, coach reference, what ever.

Before you jump on camps are a better value, maybe so, but there must coaches must also see value in attending showcases, otherwise they would not be attending showcases and players can only go to so many camps. If players are interested in 10 schools it becomes really difficult to use the camp process to sort through them.

ECNL events are great for showcasing if your target school list matches the list of schools attending these events. The same can be said for non-ECNL showcases. There are more than a few (Disney, PDA, Surf Cup, Vegas, ...) that have similar attendance lists. Smaller, more local showcases are also great if their attendance list matches yours.

The bottom lineis that kids who are showcasing should be looking at clubs who are attending events whose coaching lists match the target school list of the players.

DYOR

[Unregistered]

That is not the truth, that is one of the many arguments that ECNL clubs make and you dolts believe it. You play just as many truly bad teams as the rest of the local non ECNL top teams in MA do.

Using the gotsoccer rankings from last summer (the last point where the ECNL teams played a full schedule), By the end of next week Stars u15s played teams ranked 1,2,3,4,7,18,24,30,41,48 by that list.

There are no other teams in Mass that ECNL comes close to playing a schedule of that difficulty.

[Unregistered]

Really!

Coaches are allowed to:
Send you athletic or sports camp brochures, NCAA Educational Information and Questionnaires.

A coach can also accept phone calls from you as long as they are at your expense but remember that if you leave a message on an answering service the coach is NOT ALLOWED TO CALL YOU BACK.

Coaches are not allowed to:

To call you on the phone.
A coach cannot send you any written recruiting information.

D1/D2 rules. Not for D3. The poster doesn't say which division.

[Unregistered]

So true. They should ask themselves why the ECNL has a U15 age group if they don't believe coaches are actually watching. The highest level players do start getting contacted in the 8th grade. It is a fact. When kids are getting identified as young as 12 it shouldn't be too much of a stretch that they also start getting recruited early as well. Now if a player starts getting recruited in the 8th grade why do they actually need something like the ECNL? The comment about counting college coaches is spot on. That is just a little task they give parents to keep them occupied. Means nothing.

This thread is getting more and more off base and less factual by the post.

First of all, ECNL U15 has nothing to do with college recruiting. It has to do with ECNL clubs recruiting and winning.

Next, there is no such thing as recruiting 12, 13 year olds. There are plenty of kids that are identified locally and through ODP and the coaching community is aware of these kids. But no college coach is going to recruit them. The top local colleges will watch them because it is in their interest to keep a local kid local. Other than those handful of kids, no college coach cares about a kid before 15.

Kids bodies change and their developmental progress changes between 15 and 17. Top players get committed and recruited early. That's like 120 or so kids nationally. The rest of the kids are all one big bucket - ok, several big buckets based on talent, physical and technical abilities. Coaches start crossing the kids OFF their list first after that 120 or so are gone. Then they start making decisions about the other players on their list and decide their top 4-5 recruits at each position. Thie does not happen at U15. They start at U15 looking at the players in the spring of that Freshman year and really start in at U16 in the fall/winter and are finalizing their targets in the summer and fall of U17 (end of sophomore and early junior year).

To believe your child is being looked at or recruited before this is absurd. The sole exception is the kids in the national pool.

[Unregistered]

This thread is getting more and more off base and less factual by the post.

First of all, ECNL U15 has nothing to do with college recruiting. It has to do with ECNL clubs recruiting and winning.

Next, there is no such thing as recruiting 12, 13 year olds. There are plenty of kids that are identified locally and through ODP and the coaching community is aware of these kids. But no college coach is going to recruit them. The top local colleges will watch them because it is in their interest to keep a local kid local. Other than those handful of kids, no college coach cares about a kid before 15.

Kids bodies change and their developmental progress changes between 15 and 17. Top players get committed and recruited early. That's like 120 or so kids nationally. The rest of the kids are all one big bucket - ok, several big buckets based on talent, physical and technical abilities. Coaches start crossing the kids OFF their list first after that 120 or so are gone. Then they start making decisions about the other players on their list and decide their top 4-5 recruits at each position. Thie does not happen at U15. They start at U15 looking at the players in the spring of that Freshman year and really start in at U16 in the fall/winter and are finalizing their targets in the summer and fall of U17 (end of sophomore and early junior year).

To believe your child is being looked at or recruited before this is absurd. The sole exception is the kids in the national pool.

ECNL u15 has nothing to do with college recruiting? You are really naive.

Spring of u15 is where recruiting for players at that level really starts to take off. There are many coaches scouting at that age group for showcases aimed at d1/d2 caliber players.

[Unregistered]

FOr many players, the ECNL is not about recruiting. It's about taking advantage of the opportunity to play agianst the best teams in the country.

Then why did someone post a list of college coaches attending Chicago?

[Unregistered]

My kid was and the first recruiting contact was a letter form UCLA the fall of her freshman year after she attended a national camp in Cali. Never received anything earlier than that.

Please post the names of the collgfes since you are on the inside and we are on the outside looking in.

You just said the critical thing that the parent of the normal run of the mill kid does not understand. She was at a national camp in CA. She has been identified through ODP and is in the national pool. That is 30 or so players. She is not the example for the commone everyday player. Every school wants a national pool player. A friend's daughter received OFFERS in emails from schools on Sept 1 of Junior year (when coaches can email a player) she never wrote to, talked to or anything else, but she was/is a national team member.

BTW, unless the email was a basic contact either providing information about UCLA or about a camp it WAS a recruiting violation technically.

The typical kid gets an email from a coach about a camp or clinic because the coach has email addresses for EVERY kid that attended a showcase tournament. That is what most parents get and think it is a real recruiting email. You will get them from good schools and fourth level schools. It means nothing most of the time. It means simply they are trying to get numbers up at their camp where they make money.

You guys have got to learn a few things.

[Unregistered]

What about Uconn? #1 most of last year in top polls! Also Brown was in top 20 most of the year! BU? They lost to Uconn 1-0 in the last 2 min at home this past season. knuckle head !!

Uconn women were under .500 last year.....

[Unregistered]

Or gambling or fixing games...right? Never at BC

Well if we were talking about the Men's Basketball team then this might be valid. We were talking women's soccer, so not sure I get your point.

The reason Men's basketball can be gambled on is that PEOPLE CARE ABOUT IT. There is no line on a women's soccer game. No line means no one cares. No line means you have no incentive to fix games. In fact, BC plays in a tiny stadium on the North Campus where virtually no students live, because no one cares. Not even at BC who is by far the best program around.

[Unregistered]

Then why did someone post a list of college coaches attending Chicago?

You people are really over your heads. Someone posted it to prove a point. Which they did not accomplish. Look at the college coaches list that attend PDA, Vegas, Disney, and Surf Cup. Same thing, same impressive lists. Even Jefferson and some other next tier showcases attract these coaches.

U15 is not a recruiting year. It is a preliminary contact year for you and your dughter to get on a list at the colleges she is interested in. Period.

You have no reference point for how the ECNL was created to actually believe the whole thing was about college. IT had nothing to do with college recruiting from the start.

Red Bull used to run a national "league" that you had to be invited to participate in because of the team's performance. It was not really a league but was the top tier of teams in an age group in bigger tournaments. It was a place that college coaches spent more time at than the next tier of players at showcase tournaments as the teams earned their way there and therefor there we generally better players. Not all the teams from a club were included btw. Red Bull stopped supporting the "league" and it ended. The core of that group of clubs - Stars, Eclipse, PDA, etc - got together and created ECNL in order to have the "best" competitive environment, right the wrongs of the games v practice time and create an exclusive marketing/recruiting ability to get top payers and also to create a common schedule and automatic inclusion instead of having some of their teams excluded from the selection process.

Adding the U15 age is no different than the DAP programs adding a pre-academy program. Revenue, marketing, recruiting and "development."

ECNL has marketed itself brilliantly to you all and to college coaches. You all are too naive to understand the reality and unless you have a historical perspective you don't want to listen either. College coaches like the ECNL but have not left the regular showcase and recruiting process behind and are also getting a little weary of the ECNL as well as their experiences have not always been what was advertised.

This is just reality. I no longer have a dog in the fight. Just trying to give some semblance of reality to all of you.

[Unregistered]

My kid was and the first recruiting contact was a letter form UCLA the fall of her freshman year after she attended a national camp in Cali. Never received anything earlier than that.

Please post the names of the collgfes since you are on the inside and we are on the outside looking in.

How many years have past since your daughter was in the 8th grade. Think there is any chance the timeline might have accelerated since then?

[Unregistered]

From an exposure standpoint though, only the (ECNL) starters are getting that level. Unlikely that the remaining 12 are being looked at as seriously as perhaps your daughter is, especially if she is in the top 6-12 on her team.

I'd agree with this statement if you'd written top 4 of a Mass non-ECNL squad.

[Unregistered]

Thanks for the insight. I feel much better now knowing that it has come from someone in "the know". Sorry - no one is recruited in 8th grade.

Actually, NCAA rules prohibit contacting HS age players. Which is why various programs target 8th graders. It happens in basketball and football as well.

[Unregistered]

How likely is it for a team that is not state champ and not playing reg. 1 to get into Disney? So it really doesn't matter what coaches are there if you don't have a guarantee that you'll be there.

At least if you're at a tournament there's a chance a coach will come see you. If you're not there there's no chance.

[Unregistered]

The highest level players do start getting contacted in the 8th grade. It is a fact. When kids are getting identified as young as 12 it shouldn't be too much of a stretch that they also start getting recruited early as well. Now if a player starts getting recruited in the 8th grade why do they actually need something like the ECNL?

on my daughter's college visits, after being recruited as a 9th grader, multiple coaches suggested she move to an ecnl team to continue her development. they wanted to know she would be challenged and playing at a high enough level, so she moved.