I am curious as to how college recruiting goes for Division II and Division II. I help out with a high school program and our keeper is a kid that plays basketball for our school and just came out to keep in shape for basketball. Turns out, the kid loves being keeper and is a natural. Hand-eye coordination is incredible, athletic ability is awesome, he just has no experience playing the game. Spoke to a friend of his and he told her that he is very interested in trying to play college soccer. What sort of advice can I give this kid? He is very coachable and willing to work on his game but his experience is a huge drawback. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Most NCAA Division III schools rely on coaches or players to contact them, unless the coach "knows" them. Then, they check out a game, or have someone watch for them to see the player. The best thing to do, is go online and search for NCAA DII & DIII schools with soccer. NCAA.org is a good starting spot. Another choice is NAIA. NAIA schools are mostly private religious schools, but compete on the same level as some D-II and D-III schools. NAIA.org is a good starting spot. NCAA D-III schools do NOT give athletic scholarships, and don't expect any $$ from D-II or NAIA schools. If the kid is a good student, usually better than a 3.3 GPA, he/she may be able to get academic scholarships. I coach high school girls and boys and I have a list of area schools (Great Lakes Area) that I give to my sophomores and juniors. I tell them their grades are what's going to give them $$ for school. Anything they get for soccer is a plus. It's really up to the kid to go out and contact schools about themselves. You/parent/player really need to be pro-active.
I agree with pretty much everything Tamalak says, though I'll add a couple of other things. Until this year I coached a men's college non-scholarship squad, and these are things that I and/or friends did/do to get players: 1. Use network of alumni and/or former and current players. I always especially used the latter to identify players because someone knew them and they were likely to attend my school. For your player, then, encourage him to talk to any of his friends who play in college. They can put in a good word for him and/or introduce him to the coach. 2. Camps hosted at college and run by coach or where coach is "guest" clinician. This is a great way to meet players and earn a little extra money, so many coaches host camps on their campus. (On a less cynical note, most of them also enjoy the game and working with kids.) So if your kid wants to play in college, I suggest he look at camps hosted or run by that coach. It's a great way to get a feel for the campus and usually has current players as staff members, too. He will learn a lot just by watching the current players interact with each other and with the coach. 3. Play on select team U-17 coached by the coach he wants to play for. Most coaches (including myself) do either #2 or #3 or both during the summer. Again, at your smaller schools (with limited athletic scholarships or no athletic scholarships), finding players who play on your team is a natural for recruiting. The players know you, you know them, so it's just a matter of whether your school is a good fit (majors, cost, location, etc.) So if he can get in a select summer league, he may be able to play for a coach or assistant. Or, better yet, he could try to get on a team with players from the college he wants to play at (obviously on the latter he would have to play up to U-19 or U-21). Most non-scholarship coaches expect their players to play on a team during the summer, and they will often come to watch these games. So here's another possible opportunity to make a connection with someone at the school he wants to go to. Once a player is on a coach's radar, then he (the coach or assistant) will initiate the contact and begin to make the case for attending his college. These are a couple of ideas he could use to get on a team. I'm not sure how old your player is, but it's really doubtful that he's going to get a scholarshp to play soccer at a Div II school or even a good NAIA program. There's just too much competition and not enough $$ to go around--especially for a player who's coming late to the game and plays soccer to keep in shape for basketball. That will kill pretty much any interest right there. Nevertheless, if his goal is to play soccer in college, as Tamalak notes, there are many options. jgw