Make the Call: How to Talk to College Coaches

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.

Recruiting in the New York Times

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.

Simple Steps to Recruiting Success

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. 

The Podcast Goes to Zambia…and Other, Closer Destinations

In the latest episode of Radio CaptainU, we look near and far at how soccer is being used to solve the world’s problems. We start in our own backyard with Urban Initiatives and then take a trip through the magical inter-tubes to southern Africa with Grassroot Soccer. Nate joins the podcast juggernaut and stumps me with obscure, forgettable, annoying trivia about the English 5th division. We dig into our mailbag to answer a pressing recruiting question and also meet the Neil Armstrong of CaptainU.

Listen Here:

Download: Radio CaptainU – Episode 5

The Podcast is Back!

After a hiatus of a few months, Radio CaptainU, our podcast is back in effect. In this episode, Avi talks with Kelly Shulman, one of the players on CaptainU and we hear from our EPL and European soccer critic in residence Brian Raffaele.

Listen Here:

Download: Radio CaptainU – Episode 5

The Recruiting Pyramid Part IV: Crunch Time for Effie

You may remember our dear friend Effie.  Over the course of three posts, we’ve taken 25 top D3 soccer schools and narrowed them down to four that make sense academically and socially for Effie.  Those four are: 6. Rochester (N.Y.), 7. Case Western Reserve (Ohio), 11. Johns Hopkins (Md.), and 13. Puget Sound. (The numbers represent where these teams stood in the rankings a few weeks ago.).

What I think is so interesting and compelling about this approach, is that we haven’t looked at their soccer profiles yet.  Instead, we’ve honed in on the colleges that makes sense for Effie as a student.  Whether you start with the top 25, or just a random sampling of schools, if you use this approach, you will be left with a handful of colleges that meet your academic and social needs.  The great thing is, there will probably also be enough college soccer teams that 1, 2, or 5 will be a good match with your soccer needs.

It turns out in this ridiculous, protracted, and hypothetical case, that Effie had an absolutely wonderful visit at the University of Puget Sound.  Not to take anything away from the other schools, but the time he spent with the team and the coach at Puget Sound really set it apart. He loved the facilities, and the way the team played.  He also really enjoyed his experience at Case Western.  So he’s decided to focus his recruiting efforts on those two schools.

And that’s how you can start with a huge pool of colleges, and narrow it down to focus your recruiting efforts.

The College Selection Pyramid: Part 3

Back to my hypothetical friend Effie and the college selection process. He’s been studying hard over the last week to retake the SAT while I’ve been prattling on about Cobi Jones and Greg Ryan.

If you recall, Effie is a high school junior and a good student (B+, 29 ACT, 2040 SAT.) In Part II, we took that week’s DIII Top 25 and narrowed it down to seven schools, based on academics. The seven colleges still standing are:

1. Trinity (Texas), 6. Rochester (N.Y.), 7. Case Western Reserve (Ohio), 10. Centre (Ky.), 11. Johns Hopkins (Md.), 13. Puget Sound (Wash.), 19. Washington (Mo.)

The next step in the college selection pyramid is to further winnow the pool based on “social” characteristics: social life, political tendencies, location, etc.

Here’s what Effie wants: he’s location agnostic, though he wants to be in a relatively urban setting. He’s renowned at school for his break-dancing, but doesn’t want to go to a school where the social life is dominated by fraternities. He sings in an a capella group and wants to continue that in college (he likes the arts in general.) And he wants a school where there is lively political discourse.

[An aside: Effie may seem a little precocious. You may be asking yourself, "How many 17-year olds are break-dancing, arts-loving, politically curious man-children like this figment of Avi's imagination?" It's easy to default into an "all I want in college is soccer" shell, but you really have to challenge yourself to push it to the next level and determine what else matters to you. Maybe it's something as simple as proximity to the beach, distance from your parents (close? far? really, really far?!) or weather. No matter what it is, make a list of the things that matter to you, and use that list to evaluate each remaining college.]

Based on Effie’s social preferences, four colleges remain: 6. Rochester (N.Y.), 7. Case Western Reserve (Ohio), 11. Johns Hopkins (Md.), and 13. Puget Sound.

[A disclaimer: I did just a quick review of the seven schools above to get to this list of the Chosen Four. And I confess, I didn't find "insane break dancing scene" in any of the four remaining schools' literature. In the real world, you'd probably want to look at them a little more comprehensively. Talk to college counselors, check out websites, talk to students.]

Notice that we still haven’t talked about soccer. But that’s okay, we still have four very good teams in the running. We’ll get to that in the next go around.

This Just In…

US Soccer plans to host its first US Soccer Youth Development Academy Winter Showcase in Dallas. I will most certainly be there. Any latitude south of Chicago during February is very appealing. I fondly remember a bike ride last February on a -5 degree day. Anyhow, if you’re not familiar with the US Soccer Youth Development Academy — whew, that’s a mouthful — it’s the federation’s attempt to streamline and improve the youth development system. Here’s how they describe it:

“In a broad move designed to improve the development environment for players throughout the country, the U.S. Soccer Federation has taken the initiative in formalizing the nationwide development academy. Created to provide players with the best possible opportunity to develop, the U.S. Soccer Development Academy was initiated after a comprehensive review of player development systems in the United States and around the world.

“The showcase matches are part of a nine-month season in which 122 teams will compete in more than 1,800 matches in conference play. With 2,440 players, 244 coaches and more than 200 referees participating in individual conference games, travel partner weekends and showcase weekends, the Academy boasts the most comprehensive platform for youth competition in U.S. Soccer history.”

As with everything of this ilk, there have been a wide range of opinions. And here and here. While I’m all for a system that builds American talent and continues our takeover of the Premiership there are some red flags:

1) Cost: The costs associated with youth soccer are already exorbitant. I’ve heard of families spending tens of thousands of dollars each year between club fees, ODP, and travel. That’s just an outrageous amount. Are people going to have to dig even further into their pockets? And what are the implications for families that are less well off?

2) Adult Involvement: We can’t ever forget that youth soccer is about young people. It’s not about parents, coaches, or US Soccer. It’s not about grown ups living vicariously through youth players. It’s about the kids themselves. Everything that’s done should be done in their best interest.

3) High School Soccer: This issue always creates a firestorm of controversy. People have been trying for years to dismantle the high school system, but isn’t playing for your school and your friends an integral part of growing up as an athlete? Emphasizing high school soccer isn’t going to win us the World Cup, but perhaps undermining it will really undermine the youth soccer experience at large.

Blog! Why Every College Team Should Have One

I was just talking to a computer geek friend of mine (let’s see how he responds to that moniker!) and we were discussing the power of blogs. Blogs are an incredibly inexpensive, simple way to reach people. For those of you who aren’t tech savvy, fear not! Writing a blog is essentially as simple as navigating a website and writing a word document. Then you click “Post” and the magic begins: you can share your thoughts, pictures, results, and analysis with the entire world — or in this case, fans, alumni, parents of your players, and recruits.

There are a number of simple blogging tools. Blogger and WordPress (which I use for this blog) come to mind. (1) Sign up, it’s real easy; (2) write your first post and include a sweet team photo; then (3) send an email out to your fans, alumni, parents, and recruits to share the good news that you are now a blogger!!

Let me know when you’re up and running!

The College Selection Pyramid: Part Dos

So I blogged last week about selecting a school based on #1. Academics, #2. Social Fit, and #3. Soccer Fit. In part two of this 73 installment series (jk) we’re going to put said methodology to use. Let’s see how it works. I’d like you to meet our test case, my new hypothetical friend Effie Salinas, a high school junior at Tappahannock South High School in Tappahanock, VA. (BTW – all details come from one of the most amusing sites on the web, Fake Name Generator. Refresh often!)

Academics First! I argued oh so eloquently in my last post that if you start with a huge, overwhelming pool of colleges (say all of those on planet earth) and then cut out the ones that aren’t in your academic range, you’ll reduce the pool drastically. To be practical, we’re going to start with this week’s Top 25 DIII men’s teams. In the real world, I recommend college counselors and Destination-U to help narrow the field.

Okay, so Effie is a high school junior, a good student (B+, 29 ACT, 2040 SAT), and he absolutely loves chemistry. The ionic bonds in lithium fluoride move him to tears. Let’s see if we can narrow the Top 25 accordingly. I’ve underlined (and linked to) the schools that more or less fit his academic needs.

1. Trinity (Texas), 2. Amherst (Mass.), 3. North Carolina Wesleyan, 4. Loras (Iowa), 5. Messiah (Pa.), 6. Rochester (N.Y.), 7. Case Western Reserve (Ohio), 8. The College of New Jersey, 9. York (Pa.), 10. Centre (Ky.), 11. Johns Hopkins (Md.), 12. Middlebury (Vt.), 13. Puget Sound (Wash.), 14. Stevens Institute of Technology (N.J.), 15. Capital (Ohio), 16. New Jersey City, 17. Emory (Ga.), 18. Franklin & Marshall (Pa.), 19. Washington (Mo.), 20. Carleton (Minn.), 21. St. Lawrence (N.Y.), 22. New York, 23. DePauw (Ind.), 24. Williams (Mass.), 25. Dominican (Ill.)

Voila! Where once there were 25, now there are 7, which is a much more manageable number. No doubt, there are some controversial choices in there. But at a certain point, you’ve gotta start cutting fat. I didn’t include Amherst or Williams because, much as I love dear Effie, those colleges would be serious “reach schools.” (By pure coincidence — I swear! — they also happen to be the arch rivals of my alma mater, Wesleyan.) Hopkins and Case Western are also reaches, but probably more reasonable. The rest are really in the wheelhouse — schools that Effie might get into on any given day.

The most important point is that with reasonable rigor we just cut out 72% of the original pool. That makes our job waaaaay easier. Up next, we’ll narrow the pool even further, based on Effie’s social preferences. Stay tuned…