Coach Don Williams
College placement expert for SRUSA. “A” Lic 30+yrs coach and recruiter USL, NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA, & Youth
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• Head of Operations – North America at Sports Recruiting USA
• Former Head Coach at Feather River College
• Former Women’s Assist and Goalkeeper Coach at Calif State University, East Bay
• Former Head Coach Men’s Soccer at Ohlone College
• Former Assist / Keeper Coach Bay Area Seals at USL Championship
I’ve heard quite a few complaints about older international players taking college roster spots at good NCAA DI, DII, DIII & NAIA schools. I’m going to tell you how players can give themselves a leg up to be able to play at top schools too.
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1. Take a Gap year playing either in the or overseas.
You can even take a few classes to get a semester ahead which could mean you’d get to play during your masters degree year or have an extra semester for classes you weren’t able to compete on time to grad in 4
Kids tend to grow a lot emotionally, mentally & physically that year after HS
2. Play JC soccer for a year or two.
You’re taking general Ed classes yrs 1.5 anyhow
You’ll save a ton of
Prove yourself & be all regional or all American & get great grades, you’ll be of extremely high value to 4 year schools
3. Take your best option (NAIA, DII, DIII) even if it’s not your dream school.
Prove yourself there.
Be all conference, all regional, all American.
You can transfer up levels IF you proved yourself & dominated.
It’s not just transfer downs on the portal, there are up ’s too
We have a lot of these scenarios with our clients.
Many of those coaches will pre-agree to support the transfer of the player proves themselves as good enough to move up.
No more complaints, you have options & choices.
If you play D1 you're a stud.
If you play D2 you're a stud.
If you play D3 you're a stud.
If you play NAIA you're a stud.
If you play at a JUCO you're a stud.
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ONLY 7% OF HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETES
become college athletes, it doesn't matter
what level you're at.
Be Proud, Be GRATEFUL!!
From a DI coach today:
“If we don’t have a season, I need to see how many of my seniors plan to stay to play next fall. If we do play, I anticipate we will have less players sticking around to play another year, which will open up some spots.”
As we’ve been sayin for a while now, there is going to be a lot of late recruiting going on for the class of 2021
Message:
“This is _________, She is an ECNL GOAL KEEPER a 4.0 student and wishes to go to Stanford, Arizona, Washington or UCLA”
In my job, this is a flag
Players make a wish list- they focus so hard on on it that they ignore the other 1300 possible “right fits”
The more open minded a player is to all the possibilities, the better chance they will find the right fit and be happy.
2021 is going to be a video heavy recruiting class.
Players coming to me with bad video:
blurry
not sure who they are in the clips
bad angles
poor play section
I need good video that shows them at their best & where it is easy to tell who they are in every play.
Quality of the video DOES matter.
I need full match film too! Preferably 2 matches.
Matches must be vs good quality opponents... Yes we can tell the difference between good opponents vs sloppy bad level opponents.
2021 Class is going to be a video recruiting class.
most don’t realize but...
The #1 tool college coaches use to find recruits isn’t web sites, or web pages, ID camps or recruiting events.
The #1 tool used by a vast majority of college coaches is their well cultivated, trusted network.
You want greatness?
Sheer athleticism is important, but it’s not nearly enough
It’s about passion, love for the sport above all & a willingness to let it embrace and encompass you
Enjoy watching
Spend every spare moment loving the ball
Playing, juggling, taking it with you everywhere & getting in millions of touches
Then let your destiny unfold
Recruiting Tip
Try to make a habit of responding to coaches contacting you ASAP - a lot of players don’t check email regularly and wait a day or two or more -
One way to stand out is to answer them fast!
College coaches are always pleasantly surprised when I respond immediately
And don’t follow up to an email you’ve sent with no response asking, “Have you read my previous email yet, Coach?”
My advice to every player and their family – Stop looking to your left and right to compare yourself vs others.
Happiness in most often found in the joy of your own journey – not in the journey of others.
It amazes me, that with roughly 2100 women soccer programs & 1100 men’s programs, that I hear people complain that they emailed 10 coaches & only heard back from 1 or 0. If players are going to promote themselves – they need to show more tenacity & perhaps be more realistic.
What’s one way to be sure a person NEVER forgets you? Walk up and punch them in the nose! Soccer Players: Take that concept & use it in your highlight video. Open with clips that make you unforgettable by metaphorically punching coaches in the nose with clips that WOW!
Advice for players attending an ID Camp Stand out from the pack Shake hands Introduce yourself Be: First to show Last to leave Helpful Kind Prepared Competitive Humble Grateful Realistic Outwork everyone including the coaches Listen Learn Be the best version of yourself you can be! At least then you can say you gave it your all.
I’ve seen too many deflections over 50yrs that could have been stopped had the keeper stayed on their feet
The example I use is that you don’t see a shortstop with a much smaller ball hit at twice the speed (up to 150mph) going on their knees
It’s about the hands
It’s bio mechanical physics.
Weight is being transferred downward in anticipation of the ball making a predictable path.
It’s physically very difficult to take the bodies wt going down & transfer it to a different direction when the deflection comes
Why oh Why do keeper coaches allow keepers to drop to their knees to make a save?
I’m not talking about a smother save (which are also waaaay over used IMO)
A keeper dropping to their knees is a 100% tell tale sign to me that the keeper is going to need to be re-trained.
My best advice is to not panic and just start committing for the sake of committing.
I see some doing that and my bet is that we will see a lot more transfers coming up.
It is not time to panic!
Not for 2021's or 2022's.
There are a lot of quality schools and soccer programs still looking.
And I do mean LOTS!
Take your time to find the right fit.
I’m not sure that the general public understands college is senior level
Coaches jobs by & large depend on winning
Better players are needed to win
Not every HS player is good enough to play
There are roughly only 8,500 openings in college annually for 500,000 High School aged players + international players.