Evaluation / Advice

1. I left our first Showcase for our team a few weeks ago and the Director says you should have a 3rd party evaluate players wanting to play college ball. This will set a pace of what type of schools to look for. Is this correct?
2. I have other people say unless your kid plays ECNL your chances to play at TCU, UNT, SMU or any D1 schools for example will never happen. Is this correct?
3. I hear ODP is good for a resume but the ODP comments are 65% negative for a 03-02's.
4. I also hear paying for a service to help get your kid exposure is a waste of money. Is this correct?
I coach a decent 02 team ranked 25 and some girls need help getting proper exposure. Without a scholarship a few of these girls will never go to college. I am just wanting advice and a resource to where my girls can get a decent player evaluation and a plan. Below is one player who's dream is to play at TCU where her family went to school. She's an 03 playing 02. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Yq59eK_C0
It sounds like if your child dosen't play on a Elite AD or ECNL team chances are slim to none.

Any suggestions or advice would help.

Thanks,

htrevino wrote:1. I left our first Showcase for our team a few weeks ago and the Director says you should have a 3rd party evaluate players wanting to play college ball. This will set a pace of what type of schools to look for. Is this correct?

It always helps to get as many objective opinions as you can.  What you will find is that just like anything else, there will be a range.  Some will have a higher opinion of where the player belongs, some will have a lower opinion, but most will probably fall in a consistent range that will be pretty realistic.

htrevino wrote:2. I have other people say unless your kid plays ECNL your chances to play at TCU, UNT, SMU or any D1 schools for example will never happen. Is this correct?

Never say never, but the data generally supports that statement.  Below are links to the 2015 and 2106 list of college signees from LHGCL.  There are some very good schools on the lists, but you will see that the lists are heavily skewed toward lower rung D1 schools, D2, and D3 schools.  Also attached is a link to a site that maintains a fairly comprehensive list of Major D1 signings.  You can search by school and find out what level of team most of their players are coming from.

http://www.girlsclassicleague.org/page/show/2013952-2016-college-signees
http://www.girlsclassicleague.org/signees

https://sites.google.com/site/soccerrecruits/

htrevino wrote:3. I hear ODP is good for a resume but the ODP comments are 65% negative for a 03-02's.

Others far more qualified than me to comment on ODP and it's impact.

htrevino wrote:4. I also hear paying for a service to help get your kid exposure is a waste of money. Is this correct?

Depends.  A lot of it is about getting a coach's radar, and some of the services can help with that, especially if the player's club/coach isn't a "household name" with reputation for placing kids in college.  If you are at one of the "household name" clubs, you will probably get more mileage using the club's resources/connections (coaches, DOC, recruiting coordinator, etc.), than using a service.

htrevino wrote:I coach a decent 02 team ranked 25 and some girls need help getting proper exposure. Without a scholarship a few of these girls will never go to college. I am just wanting advice and a resource to where my girls can get a decent player evaluation and a plan. Below is one player who's dream is to play at TCU where her family went to school. She's an 03 playing 02. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Yq59eK_C0
It sounds like if your child dosen't play on a Elite AD or ECNL team chances are slim to none.

It depends on what the kid/family is looking for, and how much legwork they are willing to put in to reach their goal.  If the kid has a "dream school", start e-mailing and calling the coach on a weekly basis, and definitely attend a camp at the school.  Coaches want kids that want to go their school, and kids wants to go to schools where the coaches show that they want them.  

However, even with that, you have to objective and realistic.  Usually the camps will be staffed by current players.  Watch those players when they are demonstrating drills or scrimmaging or just goofing around, then compare your kid and be realistic...  "Can you legitimately see your kid hanging with these kids on the pitch?"

Also, academics play a HUGE role in the amount of scholarship $$$ from Big time D1 all they way down to D3.  A kid may not be a D1 soccer talent, but with good grades, can get significant academic money to play at a D2, D3, NAIA, or even a JUCO. In many cases, they will get as good, or even better education, than at many D1 schools.  The more realistic the expectations, and the more open the mind, the higher the chance of finding of mutual fit.

Camps work also. My daughter got some D1 interest by being seen at a camp last summer. She is LH D1. You don't have to play or pay ecnl to get the notice you just have to get out there.
Your club and High School coaches can usually help through their contacts

Forgot to mention, another way to gauge whether or not a player may be a good fit for a school, or if they are chasing a pipe dream, is to go to the team's website and look at the player profiles for the players on the current roster. In most cases, the player profile will list a history of what the player's HS and Club experience/accolades were. It will give you a good general cross-section of the level of player that coach/school is successfully recruiting. You can even cross-reference that against the team stats for the past season and see which of those players on the roster are getting significant minutes.

In general, you would want your player's resume to stack up against the players on the current roster.

htrevino wrote:Without a scholarship a few of these girls will never go to college.

The focus needs to be on school work.  There is way more scholarship money in academics than in sports.

And a highlight video needs to be against good competition!