Ask the Coach, Women's College D1

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With more time on my hands than I like, and understanding the angst so many of you are going through with regard to your recruiting process, I figured I could offer to answer questions/provide some perspective.

Note: I am a Women's College Coach at a D1 school, and have experience at the D3 level too.

I will be as honest as possible and not afraid to say "I don't know," as there are a lot of unknowns right now, even for us!

3, 2, 1, GO.........

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^^ Also, I forgot to add, seeing the number of Trolls on this site, I hope to keep this informative and clean for those who have legitimate questions. Hopefully, the negative posters will just be ignored.....

[Unregistered]

My daughter is a 2023 Keeper. If and when the NCAA opens up the ability to have individual College/University ID Camps, how useful are these in gaining exposure as a player and lead to actual offers/coach interest and contact?

[Unregistered]

What are the two or three most important characteristics you look for in a D1 player?

What are the most typical ways you scout players?

Do you focus on specific positions when recruiting players or just pick the top 7 to 10 players you rank and hope that 5 or 6 commit to your school?

[Unregistered]

My daughter is a 2023 Keeper. If and when the NCAA opens up the ability to have individual College/University ID Camps, how useful are these in gaining exposure as a player and lead to actual offers/coach interest and contact?

Not the coach but your GK (or any player) should first have list if programs/schools that may be good fits for academics and soccer. GJ need a longer list. Not every program is looking for your year and when they are, you have to win the one open spot over all the others. It's more challenging than for field players

Hopefully life gets back to normal and your GK will be in showcases before needing ID events to seal the deal. If coaches don't come watch they're not really interested, but a quality GK should get some interest if you target right . Only go to ID events where there seems to be genuine interest. ID events help plump recruiting budgets and they really only are looking at maybe 15 field players and a few GKs. You can waste a lot of time and money going to events where you don't have a shot

[Unregistered]

With more time on my hands than I like, and understanding the angst so many of you are going through with regard to your recruiting process, I figured I could offer to answer questions/provide some perspective.

Note: I am a Women's College Coach at a D1 school, and have experience at the D3 level too.

I will be as honest as possible and not afraid to say "I don't know," as there are a lot of unknowns right now, even for us!

3, 2, 1, GO.........

At what age should my D start attending “camps”

[Unregistered]

How many pages will it take for people to realize the OP is a troll? So sad to see this happen time after time.

[Unregistered]

My daughter is a 2023 Keeper. If and when the NCAA opens up the ability to have individual College/University ID Camps, how useful are these in gaining exposure as a player and lead to actual offers/coach interest and contact?

Great Question....they can be very useful. Players that attend our clinics put themselves into a different category than an email as it shows they have a genuine interest in our program. It is also very useful for the player as it is the only way to communicate with a coach before June 15 Soph year, and actually interact with the staff and experience their coaching styles. It also will provide a sense of the program, school, players, etc.

That being said, it can be expensive to attend, especially if long travel is involved. The cost can add up if you are doing more than a few. If it's possible to get a sense of interest from the coach through you're club coach--We are limited in our communication with club coaches but can provide a general sense of interest--that may help focus on attending clinics that would be realistic fits for your daughter. If you are not getting a lot of exposure through showcases and/or are interested in schools that haven't seen her play, then it can be a good way to get in front of them. And, while we always want to see players play with their club at some point, the clinics are a good way to do an assessment.

[Unregistered]

How many pages will it take for people to realize the OP is a troll? So sad to see this happen time after time.

I'm not a troll...which you will see by my answers. Don't think a troll would take the time to answer these without making weird comments like yours. I am passionate about the sport, love what I do, and am making good use of the extra time I have now to provide assistance to young recruits. I've been in the game so long because I actually care

[Unregistered]

At what age should my D start attending “camps”

If you are looking at D1, then I would say 9th and 10th grade. Our "ID Clinics" are open to 8th graders through 11th graders. Division 3 has a slightly later timeline so you could attend those Junior year, and in some cases even Fall of Senior year.

[Unregistered]

I'm not a troll...which you will see by my answers. Don't think a troll would take the time to answer these without making weird comments like yours. I am passionate about the sport, love what I do, and am making good use of the extra time I have now to provide assistance to young recruits. I've been in the game so long because I actually care

LOL. You're really making a difference in the lives of our youth and young adults.

How are you going to deal with players who choose to kneel for the national anthem?

[Unregistered]

What are the relative benefits and downsides of choosing a mid-range D1 with an average academic reputation versus a top, academically elite D3 school?

[Unregistered]

What are the two or three most important characteristics you look for in a D1 player?

What are the most typical ways you scout players?

Do you focus on specific positions when recruiting players or just pick the top 7 to 10 players you rank and hope that 5 or 6 commit to your school?

Another good question!

Aside from being a very talented soccer player (which all our recruits are!), we look for specific traits that we have found to translate to success at the next level. In terms of soccer, we really like girls that will "compete" on the field. The player who runs down a ball that is likely going out of bounds, or doesn't shy away from a tackle, or tracks back and wins a ball they just lost. The ones that also demonstrate a certain grit and are focused and dialed in at all times. The game at the next level becomes so much faster, and more physical, and sometimes it's this mentality to rise to that level that sets players apart.

We attend all the usual showcases that all coaches do (ECNL, DA before they went belly up, sometimes the NL), and also target specific league games that might be local and easy to see good talent. Our clinics have resulted in us identifying top level recruits, and finally a big piece of it is our personal connections. Most coaches have developed huge networks of contacts by way of colleagues, club coaches, former players, friends....those people sometimes are the best resource as they know our program, our school, and can recommend players they know would be good fits!

We do target positions based on a very detailed depth chart that we use which shows our team projection as far out as we have players committed. We locked up 10 recruits for 2021 because we have a huge class graduating so 2022 will be much smaller, more targeted, mostly attackers and wide players.

[Unregistered]

What are the relative benefits and downsides of choosing a mid-range D1 with an average academic reputation versus a top, academically elite D3 school?

There it is. He's back. He's been quiet for months but it seems Covid hasn't done him in yet

[Unregistered]

LOL. You're really making a difference in the lives of our youth and young adults.

How are you going to deal with players who choose to kneel for the national anthem?

Not sure why the insults, but the kneeling will obviously be an issue this year, and I'm sure our athletic department will have to weigh in on that, but no word yet. If we even have a season.