CaptainU BLoGtOpiA

If you have the opportunity to go to a college summer camp, by all means, do it! College camps are a great way to improve your game while working under some of the best college coaches around. Additionally, they are a great way to get to know college coaches, learn about the college game, and get seen.

College coaches go to camps for three reasons: (1) pleasure — they enjoy working camps; (2) recruiting — camps are a great way to get to know players and really determine if they are qualified to play for a given team; and (3) income — let’s face it, most college soccer coaches don’t get paid that much and camps help them supplement their income. Of course, depending on who you talk to, these priorities may be ordered differently.

Be forewarned, overnight camps are very expensive, so you have to pick one or two camps wisely — based on your college interests and which coaches will be there. Despite the sometimes exorbitant prices, camps provide you with a great training environment and unrivaled exposure to college coaches. They are truly a win-win for everyone.

Here are links to a couple camps that I recommend: Stanford Soccer Academy; Nick CV All-American Soccer Academy; and Notre Dame Soccer Camps.

I’m sitting in my 12th grade math teacher’s office eying the phone. My nervous fingers dial the number. The line rings once, maybe twice. A baritone voice picks up, a voice that I recognize from US National Team broadcasts. “This is Ty Keough,” the head soccer coach at Washington University. I realize I don’t know what to say and stammer out a few blundering statements about how much I want to play for his team. The whole time I’m thinking, Wow, I sound like I’m five years old. Three minutes in, I decide I’ve already taken enough of his time and end the call. Hmmm, I think, I didn’t do very well with that.

Seven years later I sit on my porch in Chicago with a stack of a dozen folders, calling players I am recruiting for the University of Chicago, where I am the assistant men’s coach. I reach a player – one of our top recruits – and have an awkward 2-3 minute “conversation.” I revert to my more or less standard list of questions: How are things going? Pretty well. Any big games lately? A few. What tournaments are you going to in the spring? President’s Day, Dallas Cup, and Nomads. How are you feeling about UChicago? I like it. Do you have any questions about the school or our team? Not really. This pattern of questions and monosyllabic answers repeats itself time and again. I get through my stack of folders within an hour.

Despite these rather painful examples, phone calls remain an essential part of recruiting. While coaches do a lot of calling, players don’t have to wait around for the phone to ring. Instead, pick up the phone, shake the nervousness out of your fingers and make the call. But then what?

The good news is that college coaches thoroughly enjoy engaging conversations with recruits. If you convey your love of the game and general enthusiasm for joining their team, you can dramatically advance your cause.

To have a successful call, do a little prep work in advance. That way, whether you’re dialing or answering, you won’t be caught off guard. Every few weeks, take a few minutes to jot down a list of talking points including the following:

(1) The Champions League, MLS, and US National Team games you’ve seen recently and a couple of observations about those games

(2) The games you’ve played in lately and what went well (or not so well) in those games

(3) Any technical or tactical questions you have

(4) Things you’d like to know about the college or team that can’t easily be found on the web

(5) Tidbits about your life outside soccer that you’d like to share – what great movies you’ve seen lately, academic accomplishments, etc.

Have this list of talking points in front of you when you’re on the phone. It’ll help make the conversation lively and interesting. Enthusiasm, anecdotes, and a little repartee go a long way. Remember, this shouldn’t be a cross-examination, so bounce some questions back at the college coach. Asking questions is a great technique to get the coach talking and to initiate a dynamic conversation rather than having a mundane, robotic information exchange.

It takes a little practice to be ready for these calls, so do some role-playing with your parents, club and high school coaches, and teammates. Switch roles and put yourself in a college coach’s shoes. This way, the next time you find yourself on the phone with a college coach and he asks how things are going, you’ll be ready to have a real conversation.

Yes, it’s hard to believe. But college coaches are sentient beings too. And they, like other people, have interests and hobbies and enjoy good laughs and good conversation. Why this topic? A comprehensive CaptainU recruiting study has shown that one of players’ greatest fears in the recruiting process is talking with college coaches. So we figured, let’s go out and talk to a few coaches and show how approachable and enthusiastic they are to talk about stuff.

How can young players use this? Put together a list of talking points, call a college coach, and have a conversation.

Listen Here:

Don’t just listen here! Subscribe for free to our podcast feed using iTunes. Just click the button at the top right that says “Subscribe with iTunes.” iTunes will automatically grab all future episodes and serve them up on a platter.

New York Times reporter Bill Pennington is in the midst of a very interesting series of articles on college recruiting. They are: Expectations Lose to the Reality of Sports Scholarships, New Rules Threaten Sports Tryout Process, and the latest in the series Recruits Clamor for More From Coaches With Less. There is also an excellent audio interview segment with Pennington that can be found here.

Watch this.

The Chelsea soap opera rages on. First they fire Jose, then they lose the Carling Cup to lowly Tottenham. All of the sudden Roman Abramovich cares about the Carling Cup and people are talking about Avram Grant getting sacked and replaced by….Frank Rijkaard. A maelstrom of rumors fly back and forth, mud is slung, denials ensue as do denials of the denials. And it all leads to this hilarious and telling quote from Rijkaard’s brother Herman, who claims that Frank is happy where he is:

“Frank has money. He can eat two or three steaks a day if he wants to.”

I’m a bit tired right now, so I want something quick and easy.  The fastest goal in women’s college soccer will do it for me.

If college recruiting had a motto, it would be this: “What the [insert expletive of choice] am I supposed to be doing?” It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Most players and their parents have never been through the process. Or maybe they bumped and scraped their way through it with an older sibling. The pressure mounts as they realize each player only has one chance to get it right.
The response to the question above is an emphatic, “Don’t leave it to chance!” The odds don’t work in your favor. At least five competitive youth players are vying for each college roster spot. You can roll the dice and hope the right coaches contact you, or you can grab the bull by the horns and make recruiting work in your favor.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t require that much effort. A couple of hours a week is all it takes to do a really good job. Which brings us back to the original question of what on earth you should actually do.

Let’s focus on high school juniors for the moment. By the winter of your junior year, you should be recruiting in earnest. (This strategy can also be applied to elite sophomores or seniors who haven’t nailed down a spot. Just expand or abbreviate the timeframe.)

The first thing is to sit down with a cup of hot chocolate and take a deep breath. Don’t panic; everything is going to be okay. Pull out a 2008 calendar and map out your strategy. Here are the most important activities to put on the calendar:

1. Build a list of schools – Winter 2008, – Find 5-10 colleges that have the right blend of academics, social life, and soccer. To build this list, schedule an appointment with your college counselor, talk with your friends and family, ask your soccer coaches what they think, and use college selection resources on the web like Destination-U and Cappex.

2. Initiate contact – Winter/Spring 2008 – Introduce yourself to the coaches at the colleges you identified. Start with a soccer resume that contains your club and high school soccer info, academic info, and pictures.

3. Convince them that you’re serious – Spring 2008 – Communicate with each coach at least once a month. Update them on your latest exploits and let them know that you’re really interested in playing for them. Don’t fret, you aren’t bothering them. In fact, you’re making their job easier.

4. Get seen – Spring/Summer 2008 – Let the coaches know where you’re going to be playing. If they’re going to the same tournaments and you’ve convinced them that you’re serious about playing for them, they’ll probably make an effort to see you play. If your tournament plans don’t overlap, go to one of their summer camps, which are a great way to get a ton of exposure.

5. Have the tough conversations – Summer/Fall 2008 – Once a coach has seen you play, ask for his honest opinion. Is there a place for you on his team? You may not always get the response you’re hoping for, but at least it allows you to narrow your focus to the teams that are interested in you.

If you want recruiting to work in your favor, it takes a little effort. Fortunately, the emphasis is on “little.” A small time investment to get organized, put together a strategy, and actually follow it will go a long way. 

Watch Messi lean back to put Barca on top today.  Seriously, how do you think of doing that in the box?

The day Liverpool got their second best win under Rafa, we bring you Sunday’s amazing goal that saw them blow the FA Cup to Barnsley.