Seton Hall hires - http://www.shupirates.com/news/2017/12/11/andreas-lindberg-named-mens-soccer-head-coach.aspx
FINE!!! Here's what I got. DePAUL – Craig Blazer, asked not to return; GONZAGA – Einar Thorarinsson, retired; NOTRE DAME – Bobby Clark, retired; PENN STATE – Bob Warming, retired; OREGON STATE – Steve Simmons, contract not renewed TEMPLE – Dave MacWilliams, contract not renewed; St. FRANCIS (PA) – Paulo Neto, not sure what happened SAINT LOUIS – Mike McGinty, contract not renewed SAN DIEGO – Seamus McFadden, retired; Brian Quinn, assistant coach, promoted. SETON HALL – Gerson Echeverry, resigned; Andreas Lindberg, CW Post head coach. Am I missing any vacancies or hirings?
Indeed weird. I followed him a little bit, as one of my sons got an offer from him two years ago and I always keep a tab on the schools/coaches who contacted them. This year he is no longer appearing as coach and his former assistant is "acting as" since August. I tried to find some article or PR about this, but found nada. Kind of a mystery: all parties have been very quiet about this.
In a way, I parallel those thoughts - keeping track of coaches at schools that made a serious (as in $eriou$) offer to my son. I also keep track of the assistant coaches (some schools now have "associate coaches") that do the real grunt work of recruiting. Northwestern - Tim Lenahan is still there, and Assistant Andy Fleming is now Xavier head coach. After we had turned down NU's pathetic offer ("You have to buy into the Northwestern life") and Fleming had moved to Xavier, he emailed my son to see if he was committed anywhere yet. San Diego State University - my alma mater, so I had some emotional attachment to that school. Lev Kirshner is still in control, and Matt Hall has graduated from Assistant to Associate. Kirshner knew through the local coaches' grapevine that we were going to visit USD the next week, so he said that USD's offer would be more than his, but about the same in net costs. Hall, after viewing a HS highlight video in which my son faked left than moved right to run by several opponents, asked "Do you have another move?" University of San Diego - Seamus McFadden has retired after a disappointing year, and Brian Quinn has taken over. My wife is friendly enough with the Quinns that USD was her first choice, and my son and I would have joined her if Seamus hadn't been on top. Their offer was "everything but housing", or almost $40,000/year at the time. UC Irvine - George Kuntz has moved to Cal State Fullerton (so close he didn't need to buy a new house) and Assistant Chris Volk to UC Riverside as Assistant Coach (below the established Associate Coach). This was one of those soccer fairy tales - both my sons were playing in a club tournament on the Irvine campus Labor Day weekend, and the coaches came out to watch. They asked two players on our team to come into the office after their games for a talk. One was my son, and the fairy tale would have been complete if the other had been my other son, but it was not. My son was entering his Senior year of high school, and the other player was in his first year at Palomar CC. The other player ended up at Irvine the next season and played sparingly for them due to recurring knee injuries. My son came in later for a formal visit weekend, where they offered him about half tuition. We told them that we were already scheduled for a weekend visit at UC Davis and would defer our decision until after that. UC Davis - Dwayne Shaffer has just received a 4-year extension on his contract, and Assistant Eric Mild is head coach at DIII Pacific University in Oregon. When Mild left for PUO, he took UCD's women's GK coach Colin Garron with him as his assistant. Garron had been my sons' last club coach before returning to alma mater Humboldt State University to get his Master's and act as GK /Assistant Coach for both men and women there, since they had a combined program with a single head coach. For a short time after the HSU coach left for Cal State East Bay, Garron was acting Head Coach for the program. Our visit to UCD could not include any soccer workouts (NCAA rules say no for DI but OK for DII), so it was suggested that my son could come back in a couple of weeks for their one-day ID camp. We did that, mixing in with mostly HS Seniors and Juniors. At the end of the camp, Shaffer told the attendees that NCAA regulations forbade him from making any offers right there, but that he would be contacting some players later. And not much later - while my son was showering at his HS friend's apartment across the street from the athletic fields and Rec Center, I got a call with the offer we accepted - just about the same as tuition and fees, or a good match for USD's "everything but housing".
Jigga, please! I thought for those of us who have never gone thru the process as players or parents it was very interesting and informative. Would love to see more insight on that process. Most of us forget that with most scholarship offers in non-revenue sports not being for the whole of college expenses that it is often a bidding game and how much you get from a program is often indicative of how much they value you. And the players all talk (and often lie) so a player can be like "I know I'm better than that guy and he's getting 75 percent and you're only offering me 50 so I'm going elsewhere." It's a fascinating discussion. Though probably not for this particular thread.
There are as many paths to college soccer as there are players, I think. Maybe a true confessions thread would be of value.
It's all interesting to me because my son is currently a junior in the process. Would love a thread about recruiting.
When my sons are out of the system, I will be more open about their journey. I will share the maximum possible, without disclosing some sensitive info or data and without embarrassing any one, as so far all have been fair with us: given trust must be protected as it is an ongoing process (never ending?). With the aim to help other parents to make more informed choices. Obviously from the perspective of an Old Europe's dad.
“Jigga, please”? You still got game, Sandon. That was espola’s best posting ever. I have read hundreds of his that were waay worse than that.
Since we are sharing on this thread - Has anyone heard about the new proposal from the NCAA protecting student athletes in all sports ? I may have some of it wrong but the jist of it is - That student athletes in all sports want to be able to transfer without any penalties. All they would have to do is tell the coach that they want to transfer, they would enter their name into a system that all coaches can see and then they could transfer out at anytime for any reason, no appeal, no sitting out for a season. Nothing would bind them to the school. A friend of mine told me that this going to happen in all sports sometime very soon. Anyone else hear anything about this ?
It is far past time for that. Amateurs should move about freely, in all sports. I welcome this, though I have heard nothing on it.
Mark Plotkin to DePaul! Great hire! http://www.depaulbluedemons.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/122117aaa.html
Strikes me as a "know why the fence was put up before you take it down" type of thing. I don't think college players should be prevented from transferring where they want to go, as several football programs have done, but indiscriminate transferring will create other problems. Pandora will need to get a bigger box. I have 2, soon to be 3, college athletes and I don't think turning college sports into speed-dating will be a good outcome for schools, students, coaches or the sports themselves.