pathway to playing soccer in college

College Soccer INFORMATION AND ASSISTANCE:

When a player excels at their sport there are always next steps. More competitive practices, better training environments, and travel opportunities. Throughout school there are milestones. A first goal, the first time tournament win, and the first time seeing the next level of competition. Leading to play at the club or High School team level.

However, the biggest of these transitions for competitive soccer young athletes is the transition from club or high school soccer to college soccer. Where do these players start and what are these players doing to garner the attention of college coaches?

As a word of advice, you will want to start your research before the player’s senior year but if you are starting in the final year of high school it is never too late to get started.

NCAA

Every player pushing to play in college would like to play division 1 soccer. The NCAA’s estimated probability of competing in division 1 college soccer includes 1.3% of men and 2.4% of women. The overall percentage of athletes participating in the NCAA soccer is 5.6% for men and 7.2% for women. The question now is how good do I need to be to get a scholarship? The easiest way is to go to a division 1 game. Can you see yourself competing with the players on the field? When you are viewing division 1 schools you must be able to assess where you or your player will fit into a program based on their experience and skill level. It can seem impossible but with some understanding of how the process works you will be much more likely to find a college soccer program.

If you would like to test your skills against the type of competition in your age group looking to attend a school it may be a good idea to attend their school’s soccer ID camps, however, understand that a lot of coaches use these ID Camps to make money. Also, a lot of players, especially local players, are INVITED to attend and these are the players that coaches are truly interested in when viewing players at these Camps. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attend some of these these camps but before you commit to paying for these camps find out how many kids will be attending and ask how many players did the coach invite to attend and how many coaches from other schools will be there, this will give you an idea if attending a particular ID camp makes sense or not. If the attendance is ridiculously high, then it’s just a money maker for the coach or if there are not many other school coaches there, then it is limited to just a few choices and if there are a lot of invitees, then those coaches are spending time recruiting rather than watching new players. If you feel you want to attend, you will have exposure to players outside your local setup, division 1 players, coaches of the program(s), and other players looking to play at the highest level they can. Some camps may give you a good idea of where you stack up against the competition.

Division 3 is comprised of the most schools of any division with 409 for women and 394 for men. If you are considering division 3 schools be sure that there are academic motivations in choosing a school. Third division schools cannot award athletic scholarships and have more restrictions in off-season practice rules. There are highly competitive division 3 schools throughout the country that can compete with other divisions but in bulk the division 3 is more focused on providing a quality education with sports as a supplement to university services.

If you want to play NCAA sports at a Division I school, you need to register with the NCAA Eligibility Center at eligibilitycenter.org Plan to register during your freshman year of high school.

Click here to learn more about the NCAA.

NJCAA

The NJCAA is a collection of community and junior colleges throughout the nation providing 2 years of college soccer before transferring to a 4 year school or graduating with an associate’s degree. Often players will use this as a stepping stone to save money, improve their grades, or to assess their competitive edge. Junior college coaches have a shorter period of time with players so they need to make it count. These coaches often utilize international players and connections to division 1 schools to lure quality talent to their program. With that being said, there is a lot of parody between teams in these college soccer leagues.

There are players from other countries attending to pursue a pro career in the United States and also players who decided to join the team as an on-campus activity. There will be teams that can compete and beat NCAA teams and others that are trying to start a program with the current players attending the school. It is crucial that you understand the program and its coach prior to signing. Be sure to visit campus and attend a kickaround with the team if at all possible.

What can a school offer?

There are only six sports where all scholarships are full rides and soccer is not one of them. If soccer doesn’t require full scholarships, what can they offer? Often scholarships are split up among the team’s players as the coach sees fit. Coaches have a set budget and will split the resources in whatever way will comprise their team the way they would like. Only 2% of high school athletes win sports scholarships at NCAA colleges and universities. When looking at a school there is a lot to account for. How are the academic and athletic facilities? What is the outlook of the school’s current athletic community? Does the school have academic programs that allow your player to be a STUDENT-athlete? This might seem like a lot to take in but when you are on campus it will be important to take these into account as you will have to visit more than 1-2 schools to make a decision. In short, a school can offer some financial assistance but the schools vary widely on funding. Finding a culture that will foster friendships and development of your skills may be the best outcome for most students.

STEPS TO TAKE TOWARDS COLLEGE SOCCER:

There are a few ways to get you noticed by college soccer coaches. First, whether you play for a Club team or a High School team, videotape every single game. If you’re playing on a Club team then get the parents to get together to hire a videographer and each parent pays a portion of the fee. If you’re on a High School team ask a parent to video each game or get a student who may be involved in videography in school and you can pay him/her a small fee for each game. If you have neither revert back to parents hiring a videographer to tape all the games and share the expense. If none of these are options then the High School boosters hire a videographer for SOME games and they will share all content.

Once you have enough content in your video(s) you will now need to edit it to suit your purposes. You can hire a professional to do this or many times, players have friends who are able to do the editing on your behalf to save you on costs. This is a really important step and you will need to study all the tape to ‘create’ all the really good parts so that the editor can make a tape you will be proud of. The specific data is your responsibility and it’s time consuming so you should take it seriously, go through it meticulously and get another set of eyes to review what you’ve decided upon to use in your player profile tape.

Now that you have ‘created’ your profile tape, you now need to identify your 50 top schools that you would like to attend AND you think you have a chance of playing and reach out to them to express your interest in their University. College coaches are inundated with emails from prospective players so the way to grab their attention is to attach your player profile tape and, hopefully, that will make the difference for them to reply to you. Whether you’re on a Club team or High School team you need to also send them your soccer schedule and ‘invite’ them to come watch you play. If you’re on a Club team, the college showcase tournaments are the best way to be ‘seen’. There are many showcases and tournaments and depending at which level you wish to play, it isn’t always the top tournaments that will get you noticed. There are lower level showcases that lower rated Div 1 or Div 3 schools attend because they know they can’t compete with the bigger Div 1 programs. If you do not belong on a Club team that attends these showcases, then invite these coaches to your High School games to see you play. One piece of advice I can give you is pick the SCHOOL first over the soccer program because you want the experience, soccer or not, to be a good one!! Remember, you’re going for FOUR years and if soccer doesn’t work out the way you envisioned, you’re on a campus that you should really enjoy. SHAMROCK makes this process EASIER because we provide the TRACE video system which will deliver all your video to you via email after every game and not only does it provide the entire game footage, it provides each players specific footage of just their highlights, making it so EASY to edit the highlights you want to send to any college coach you desire.