University of Colorado, Arizona State, Miami University Those schools don’t even have men’s programs. Seems like a list of what colleges the kids are going to study at trying to fool people into thinking that the kids are playing there.
Didn't know those schools had no mens programs The facebook 'title" to the link is "CSA of Fox Valley College Commitments 2019/Tryouts Announced" and at the top of the linked page the title says '2019 COLLEGE COMMITMENTS'. but I guess above the list they say "Congratulations to these 2019 College Commitment CSA Players/Students', so maybe by having the word 'student" I suppose it is just intentionally misleading vs. an outright lie?
I think it is very intentionally misleading. When discussing schools students will talk about where they have been “accepted” and then where they decide to attend. Athletes use the term “committed.” I randomly picked 3 of these (Northwestern, Indiana, Texas) and none of the 3 kids listed were in the respective schools announcements for their 2019 Recruiting Class.
I think it is very intentionally misleading and this type of thing has led to a lot of confusion for kids. While I have always thought Toe Poke's description is 100% accurate, when my son was in high school he and his friends would tell me I was wrong. My son would routinely come home from swim practice (when he was a junior) and tell me "Sam just committed to Texas" or "Tom just committed to Iowa State". I would look at him and tell him he was mistaken because Sam is no where near good enough to swim for one of the top 3 programs in the country and Tom is in trouble as Iowa State cut men's swimming 20+ years ago. My son would then correct me as they were not going as athletes, they just "signed that they were going to school there". I'm not sure if parents have skewed this to make it look like their children were recruited or sought after or if they tell their kids "we sent the deposit check, you are committed" so kids wouldn't change their mind but it was prevalent at our high school and I'm not surprised a club would take advantage of this.
I can't believe CSA does this. It's totally misleading and pretty much ridiculous. Look at the Eclipse or Inter pages. https://www.chicagointersoccer.com/Default.aspx?tabid=263144 I guess it needs to say Soccer College Commitments
Come on man - how many clubs are doing this? If you're shocked then you must be new to youth soccer! Hey remember the 2014 National Champions from Crystal Lake? I remember a U13 player from Cary Defenders who had college recruits and International pro teams "lined up outside her door" for a signature. Yup it happens. Hey there is also a club touting that they are the best in the business for girls but not too many people know that they are $700,000.00 in debt! Just another example of how parents need to learn more about youth soccer in order to figure out where their player will be happy and improve.
Many post the actual commitments to play college soccer. I have never seen one post academic commitments. I hopefully will never again see one posting academic commitments that they are trying to fool people into believing that they are soccer commitments
Did it fool you? I've seen this before. I'm not appauled like some. Clubs make mistakes - they are not marketing machines. Again - goes back to the parents steering the ship (supply & demand). Youth sports seems one of the few industries that can set the demand and charge for the supply. Parents need to put a little into this before they go chasing dreams of college and pro deals. If they dont, this sort of "stuff" will get them all the time.
How about all the times Magic, Fire Jrs & Sockers would market players they only had for the last year or two of their youth careers before they went pro?
I don't keep up with soccer stuff too much, so I am a little naive. I do know that over the years I have looked at many hockey and baseball clubs college commitment page and it's always the kids that are going to play college ball or hockey. I have never seen a youth sports page that says College Commitments and it lists where the kids are going. When you couple the term commitment and sports, we are talking about playing college sports.
The difference is those kids actually played for those clubs at some point. I don’t think the clubs are claiming players that never played for them while this appears to clearly be trying to trick people.
It's a general statement. And yes those clubs used players in a way to mislead parents. Don't act like that's not true. If your interested in jamming CSA have at it. But to come off so shocked and appalled as if misleading potential customers in youth soccer has never been seen at such a level since the film The Never Ending Story is quite disingenuous.
This is beyond sleazy. No where close to posting a soccer commitment for a kid that played a year or two. Will the post next year cover “players/students/applicants”? Then they could list Stanford and Duke as well.
I don't disagree that those clubs are misleading people intentionally but there is some truth to the statement since the kid played for them at some time. Claiming a kid is playing at a school that doesn't offer men's soccer is a whole different level of deception. I like CSA. Always got along well with their coaches and appreciated how they tried to play the right way. I would be calling out anyone making this type of claim
Misleading. They all do some degree of this. No one here I'm sure falls for this but I'd guess easily at least 90% of parents are fooled
They don’t all do this...not a true statement. Sockers makes this a very explicit part of their marketing (far more than any other club I’ve seen) and it’s very clear the kids they highlight on twitter and Instagram are playing soccer at the colleges they “committed” to”. And it’s a ton of kids relative to most clubs. I don’t believe they list if they received a full/partial scholarship though. Several kids at u19 have full rides at Indiana Univ and I don’t think that was pointed out in Sockers social media posts.
Exactly Sockers does not say full, partial, or NO scholarship... They are not differentiating so in my book they're in the spectrum. I've talked to enough parents, sat in enough parent/club meetings to know they are leading parents on. As far as I can tell, the entire youth sport business model is to keep parents dumb. It's taken me a couple years to sort it all out and I've still got things to figure out. It's obvious why clubs want to keep parents dumb as they get to keep their hands in our pockets. My impression from talking to parents who i have been in it is that they don't want to have to admit they're getting fleeced, so it's very difficult to become enlightened. Not sure why you are trying to pass the koolaid here. Everyone here is too smart for that. You'd be better lurking for new parents over at Olympic during May.
There are very few full scholarships (athletic aid) awarded in mens or womens college soccer. Men allow for a maximum of 9.9 scholarships (if fully funded) and women have a max of 14.4. But whether you get a full, partial or no athletic aid you can still be recruited and commit to play at a school. So listing the college commitments in any of these cases is accurate. In addition, the way the process works is for college coaches to look first at other forms of aid a player may be eligible for (financial, academic, other), the parents ability to pay, and what they have to provide for with athletic aid. So even if a player claims they have a "full ride" it is typically not all athletic aid.
What are you talking about? They profile kids who ***are going to play soccer at the university they are going to****. The kids with full rides are getting the same treatment as kids who just maybe going to a university to play. Each one they post asks a specific question *about* the recruiting process. This cynicism re: Kool Aid is such a load of crap. Stop the hate when it’s clearly misinformed. Go to sockers fc Instagram page right now and tell me I’m wrong. Please. I do agree that most youth sports benefit with uneducated parents. Not unlike US Soccer / MLS profiting off a completely ignorant fan base.
This is spot on. Most parents have no clue (sadly) that it’s insanely difficult to get a full ride athletic scholarship. It does happen but it’s rare. Anson Dorrance has talked about this openly many times and it’s enlightening to say the least. There’s only so much $ and regardless of how great a player is They aren’t going to win games all by themselves (ie without a very strong cast around them)