College ID Camps

I think they can be all over the map, but 1, 3 and 4 look a lot like camps we looked at and, in some cases, my son attended. He's headed to a DIII school starting in the fall that had a summer ID camp a lot like No. 1 in your post that he was invited to after they saw him at a tournament. Another DIII he decided against had a similar camp.

The school he chose also holds half-day winter futsal ID camps (he did that one, too, but after he had their offer). The schools that eventually offered him all saw him play before their camps and had him on campus afterward for an overnight to interact with players before making offers (so get ready for more travel ;-)).

FWIW, in the end we (well, I, anyway) wound up preferring the singe-day camps. Between video, scouting at tournaments and the camp itself, it always felt like the coaches saw enough (granted, he wasn't aiming for DI once he hit his junior year so I can't speak to that, and a bad half-day camp in one case did end one school's interest).

 

We went through the ID Camp thing a year or so ago. We did some college specific and some "3rd party" camps.

Most of these camps are money makers for the college, they're not specifically for finding talent. That doesn't mean someone won't blow away the coaches, and we actually had one camp where a coach called DS before we were 5 miles down the road.

That being said, the $195 for the "one day" (if they get a lunch break and if they start on time affects how much "training" they get) seems a little high to me, but not out of the ordinary.

Heck, #2 seems REALLY high to me. $450 for seven hours of soccer?

Most camps will have coaches from multiple levels of colleges. Unless there's a specific college he's interested in, I would probably pass on #2. #1 and #4 I'd want to get some more details as far as schedules.

Other things to think about.. is lunch provided, bring your own, or away on your own? Are the trainings recorded? Can you get a copy of them?

 

If the bolded is true, he's got no one to blame but himself (and possibly you).

Step#1: Record ALL of EVERY game. If you don't already have one, get a tripod (<$100), an HD camera (<$200), and a couple of SD card (<$50). A team may have someone who does this already.
Step#2: Your son watches every game and comes up with "highlights"
Step#3: Learn to edit the highlights together, preferably with some way to indicate which player is your son. Davinci Resolve is a free, fairly powerful editor. It takes some getting used to, but learn the basics for what you need. There are others out there, and you can even pay a service to do the editing.
Step#4: Create a Youtube page for your son (free). Upload every game, and the highlight reels. You can either make the videos public (anyone can see), unlisted (need the link to view), or private (must be an "allowed" user). I suggest public, but unlisted will work.
Step#5: *HE* reaches out to coaches via email/text if he has numbers. Introduce himself, and provide links to the highlight reels. Let the coaches know there's complete games available if they're interested.

Your son will have to put work in to get recruited. I've got a post on here with a link to a podcast where my son was interviewed about his recruiting journey. He admits he wishes he had done more (and that I had pushed him to do as much as he did).

ETA: IIRC, college coaches can't talk to him until June 15 following his sophomore year. He can reach out to coaches but I don't think they can reply until after June 15.

ETA2: If it's a college he might be interested in, reach out to the school about doing a campus tour after June 15. Let them know he'd like to talk to the soccer coach and they'll probably arrange it. It might be an assistant, but you want to get the conversation started.

ETA3: Make sure he has a "professional" email account... <firstname><lastname><gradyear>@host... johnsmith_2025@gmail.com. Use that for all recruiting. Don't use "soccerboy14_bestdefender@hotmail.

ETA4: If you've got the skills, you can come up with a webpage, a resume, and business cards to hand out.

 

Oh, it's the NCAA that has the "June 15 after sophomore year" contact rule. NAIA has no restriction.

Another thought... if it's a school he REALLY thinks he would want to play for, arrange meetings with other schools (preferably 2-3) before that one. He wants to be comfortable talking to coaches before it REALLY matters.

If he does any ID camps, make sure he goes up to the coaches after everything is done and a) Thank them for their time, b) ask if there's anything they noticed he needs to work on.

 

In the old days, multiple day camps with kids staying in dorm rooms were the norm and quite valuable as a way for the kid to see if they could see themselves at the school since they get the dorm and cafeteria experience as well as the soccer. Now, it's more common, especially in certain parts of the country, to have one day camps or two one day camps back-to-back. The switch started as camps resumed after lockdown because colleges didn't want to host kids overnight on campus. Some schools continued it because of pandemic restrictions and others continued it because it actually allows for more flexibility. For example, if you are going to a place in an area with multiple schools, they sometimes all host camps the same weekend (e.g., a long weekend like MLK or President's Day). This allows kids to sample different schools and it allows schools to attract more kids overall. It also allows kids to identify those who are really interested v. those who are just sampling.

Bottom line, though, is that camps are going to be pretty low value as an identification tool (as opposed to a information-gathering tool for you and your kid about their level, preferences, etc) if you haven't had some contact with the school in advance so they know who you are and are primed to look out for you. The ones with the most value are small, on campus, run by the coaches of that school, and where your kid gets to train with or in front of the key decisionmaking coaches. They are the ones where the coach personally invites you after seeing you in a game setting or at least after they have seen your highlight video. Ideally it comes in a text or call rather than an e-mail, but if it's an e-mail and you are unsure whether the invite is personal and reflects serious interest, respond and ask to set up a phone call with the coach. D3s are going to be better right now because those coaches can speak to you. D1s can't yet and they can't even respond to your inquiries other than to give you information about the camp.

 

Take this for what it's worth...

1) Maybe in the email (with the link to the video), just mention the video includes both UPSL games and HS games. THEN, on the video, in the bottom left(?) corner, indicate "GRC HS vs Potomac HS/Sept 3, 2022" or "UPSL Team vs UPSL Team/October 8, 2023". Just a thought/suggestion.

2) We did join NCSA. I'm not totally sold on it, as in I don't think every potential college player needs to go out and join. All of the contact information available on it is available on the web. So you don't need NCSA to find the contact information. However, if your child (general), doesn't have an idea of where they want to go, it does make researching colleges easier than what you can do on your own (IMO). It allows you narrow schools down by state, by division, by major, size, etc. *I* used it more than DS in just looking at what's out there. So it CAN be helpful. "Necessary"? Eh, not so much.

3) I was the one who suggested the business card. The only cost was the printing (I did the design). You can get 50 for $12 at Office Depot right now. There was a sale or coupon or something and I got like 500 for $10. No, we didn't hand out 500, probably less than two dozen to coaches. But MANY coaches responded positively to them. Figure they're seeing 75-100+ kids at a camp. Now they have something physical to take back to the office with them to remind them of you athlete. We had:
* Picture
* Name
* Graduating Class
* Height
* Weight
* Link to web page
* QR Code to web page

Yes, I built a recruiting web page for him. It had videos, contact information, academic information, and quotes from coaches. We heard back from one coach that he REALLY liked it. YMMV of course. If you don't do a webpage, have a link to the videos and contact information on the cards.

Now, we did all that and how did he choose his college? A former HS teammate invited him to come take a look at the school. So all of the above didn't do anything at all. But you don't know that going in.

 

If you ask 10 different people, you're going to get 10 different opinions on what/how to include things on the reel.

I did four highlight reels... two included HS and club, one was HS only (senior year), one was club only. The first one I just threw highlights together with not much organization. The ones after that I grouped based on different categories. He's a CB, so not a lot of goals. But I used tackles, headers, long passes, clearances, passing, avoiding pressure, etc. I slated each segment and then put the contact slate from the beginning at the end again.

You can put 3-4 OUTSTANDING highlights (of any type) at the start to get a coach's attention and then go into others.

Personally, I probably wouldn't use a "fouls drawn" segment, but I wouldn't avoid it. If you have a good move to get around someone then get fouled, include it.

I also included music on ours, and that's another subject that will have a lot of different opinions. Do you do music? Do you use natural sound? Silence? A combination?

The longest video was 6:11 and the shortest was 3:22. You want to keep the pacing up, and make sure you somehow highlight your player on EVERY play.

 

Here is a twitter thread, take it for what it's worth, that give ideas of what to include for each position. You'll have keep clicking the quoted tweets to find the position your looking for.

When the 1st 4 clips of a CB are:
⚽️🎥 A Tackle that sends a message
⚽️🎥 A header that makes a statement
⚽️🎥 A set play header finish
⚽️🎥 OB gets beat & you race over to save their bacon with a great slide tackle (Big bonus points if you hook slide the ball ⚽️, pop up &… https://t.co/Fx0wawuHhZ

— Don Williams (@Don_K_Williams) March 30, 2023

When the 1st 4 clips of a CB are:
⚽️🎥 A Tackle that sends a message
⚽️🎥 A header that makes a statement
⚽️🎥 A set play header finish
⚽️🎥 OB gets beat & you race over to save their bacon with a great slide tackle (Big bonus points if you hook slide the ball ⚽️, pop up &… https://t.co/Fx0wawuHhZ

— Don Williams (@Don_K_Williams) March 30, 2023

 

You might follow this Twitter account: @ImCollegeSoccer

Lots of different perspectives from what appear to be anonymous coaches included in its feed.

Re highlight reels, w/my son wrapping his senior year and committed, we've done 5: One for each of his past three years combining the best of club and HS (probably 4/5 of each is club) and then a couple of smaller reels specific to a tournament to give him something fresh to send coaches to extend conversations before he'd picked a school and was still talking to a few.

We went no music after I heard a couple of coaches say they didn't like music (one said he just turned down the volume on all of them because he watched so many). I liked the game audio -- hearing his coaches and teammates say nice job or whatever. But I've since talked to a couple more coaches who say they like good hype music. Who knows?

My son is primarily a defender, and highlights as you're reading can be tougher. We went with what we considered to be best plays first, whatever they were. One year that was a nice goal (while playing as a wing in that game), but I even left out a goal or two to emphasize other stuff.

He isn't a wreck-'em style center back, so he only had a little of that kind of thing to highlight, a clear detractor for some coaches (one coach told him after scouting him that he wasn't enough of a destroyer for that team). But he has a lot of highlights that show technical ability, vision, passing from the back, ...

The school where he wound up seems to really value that in all of its players and there were a couple of others who showed real interest based on that, too. Two of them found him rather than the other way around, so I think he may be a little fortunate -- if possible, watch some game video or go see teams play that your son might be interested in to see if they're a fit on field for him as you guys target schools.

And, bottom line, good luck. It can be quite a process, even at lower levels.

 

My son isn't an amazing dribbler (he's competent but not in any way flashy), so we didn't leave a bunch of those on the cutting room floor in the highlight reels. But we included very little (one clip that comes to mind ends with him quickly winning a foul, fwiw).

But I've gotten the distinct impression over the years that his club coaches and at least some of those who scouted him cared much, much more about how quickly he moved a ball along to a teammate (and did it with purpose, not just moving it to move it) than how far he could advance it alone.

I know there's a legit criticism in there that American soccer devalues the creative dribbler, but it is what it is. If I had a buck for every "get it off your foot!" I've heard at games the past five or so years ...

 

I think a problem good dribblers have to face is at younger ages (even U13-14 and definitely below), they can take on and beat 2-3 defenders. When they get to U15-17, that's not really an option. You want to take on a defender 1v1 and beat him? OK. You're double and triple teamed? Get the ball off your foot. But I think some of them think "oh, I can beat multiple defenders, I've been doing it for years!" Not many would argue that the SMARTER play is to find a teammate. After all, if you have 3 people on you, a teammate HAS to be open.

My kids were never the strongest, never the fastest (with a ball), never the best dribbler. But where they stand out is making the SMART plays. I never did figure out how to include that on a highlight reel.

 

No doubt. As my own son aged we watched a handful of the kids he started out playing with run into that wall. Some (maybe most?) never grew out of it, even a couple who come to mind who have played all the way through. The two I'm thinking of have never changed -- occasionally it yields nice results in high school soccer (almost never for club), but the tougher the competition the more frustrating it is to watch.