A college soccer player advises recruits to chase the right coach and program fit, not school prestige. He played at small Valparaiso instead of a big name and got better coaching, playing time, and internships. Start recruiting in 8th grade, build real relationships with coaches, and make sure they want you as much as you want them.
If I could only give one piece of advice, I would tell you that I want you to think about your coach. Yes, academics will always come first and you should always focus on academics first, but that's obviously. What many of you are not thinking about is you want to go to NYU or MIT or Hamilton or Duke or Stanford, but you're not taking into consideration whether or not you would like the coach. We have many players that are adamant about playing Division I. They go play Division I, they're miserable at the environment, and now they're like, well, Division I is, it's soccer at the end of the day. I want to play minutes. Like, this is going to be the last time I get to play competitive soccer on a team. I want to play minutes. Played college soccer at Valparaiso, a school in the middle of nowhere. I'm from Malibu, California. My coach is going to come to my wedding. I met my longtime, first-time relationship there. I had the best experience ever, and I did play all the time. It wasn't a name school, but I loved it, and I got a great education, and I got internships that helped me do what I'm doing today. Fortunately, in the college soccer world, there are not very many of them. You know, you'll find a lot of dicks and people that won't respond to you and make your promises. Now, I have a list of coaches that I really like, but also we need to make sure they like you, and this takes time to develop that relationship. We have to email them, we have to see what they're like with you on a phone call when you're campus. It takes time. You're not going to get recruited in a month. This is why I need you to start in 8th, 9th grade, because it takes time. If you really want to play college soccer, comment "call" and we can schedule a call with you and your parents.
