News for the Week of March 28, 2011

Program Notes for the Week of 3/28/2011:

Soccer meetings have been held with the players over the past few weeks and I would encourage you to follow up with your daughters on what the coaches communicated at those meetings and what areas were identified for improvement.  You want to be able to put your daughter in the best possible position to earn a spot on one of the teams this fall.

Last week everyone should have been e-mailed the college prep guide and we are going to continue along the college recruitment theme over the next few weeks.  Once again, I would like to remind everyone of the program that ALHS is putting on entitled "The Student-Athlete and College Recruiting" on Monday April 18th at 7:00 p.m. in the ALHS Performing Arts Center.  This is another resource for people to get more information about scholarships and playing sports in college.

I am also going to reprint below the part of our College Prep guide that has to do with College soccer summer camps:

The College soccer camp is a tremendous opportunity for your daughter to display her soccer skills in front of prospective coaches. These camps are a win-win situation for the athlete and the school. Because of severely limited recruiting budgets for women’s soccer, it is nearly impossible for coaches to see a large pool of candidates. This is a major reason why they run summer camps – to bring the recruits to them. Remember also, that they are limited in when they can contact a player and the number of contacts they can have with a player. Generally, college coaches cannot have contact with prospective players until the summer before their Senior year and then the contacts are of a limited number based on NCAA rules.


However, the player can have unlimited contact with coaches at any time starting in their Freshman year as long as they initiate the contact through such methods as filling out the specific sport questionnaire for each college, sending the coach results from their season, informing them of upcoming tournaments they will be playing in, making college visits and by attending summer camps. The advantage to the players is that they get to display their skills to coaches over an 8-12 hour period over the course of 3-5 days plus personal contact. This is much more beneficial than having a coach come to one or two 80 min. games against possibly suspect competition where you are being substituted for frequently. In addition, the girls are hopefully improving their skill set at these camps by playing against higher level competition and learning college level techniques. If you are expecting college coaches to wander into Memorial stadium to see your daughter, this is not realistic. You have to put yourself in front of the college coaches and be very persistent at it. You have to make college coaches want to recruit you, not wait on them to recruit you.

Like everything else in the recruitment process, you need to focus in on the schools where you believe you have a realistic opportunity to play and then attend their summer camp. Now, which colleges run these summer camps? The following is a list of the schools in Ohio which are hosting camps this summer for high school aged players:

Miami Univ.                                 Div. 1
The Ohio State Univ.                   Div. 1
Univ. of Cincinnati                       Div. 1
Univ. of Dayton                          Div. 1
University of Akron                    Div. 1
Kent State Univ.                        Div. 1
Youngstown State                     Div. 1
Ohio Univ.                                Div. 1

Capital Univ.                            Div. 3
The College of Wooster           Div. 3
Hiram College                          Div. 3
Ohio Northern Univ.                Div. 3
Wittenberg Univ.                     Div. 3
John Carroll Univ.                   Div. 3

Cedarville Univ.                     NAIA
Ursuline College                    NAIA

In addition, all Big Ten schools have soccer camps along with major schools such as Notre Dame, Marquette, and Pitt. In fact, every major conference D-1 school has a camp and you can access information on any camp through the college’s website.

You need to start making your summer plans now as these camps fill up quickly. Also if you select a camp, be sure to fill out the school’s soccer questionnaire and express your interest in playing at “ABC” college so they are aware of you when you come to camp.

A new development that has sprung up this year at many colleges is something known as the “College ID camp”. These are one day clinics held at the particular college in which the girls receive a day of college level soccer training and the coaches have the opportunity to initiate the recruiting process. Girls that they “ID” would certainly be invited to attend their summer soccer camp and the coaches will keep certain girls on their “watch” list. These ID clinics are held in the Winter/Spring and some colleges have already held theirs. So, if you are interested in a particular college, check their website and be sure to get an early start on this next year.


Soccer Site of the Week:
In keeping with the recruiting theme, this week's featured site is:

http://www.recruitingrealities.com/

This is the site of popular recruiting expert Jack Renkens, who appeared in the Plain Dealer on a regular basis last year. It has tips, links and publications for purchase.