The College Soccer Guy shares five moves for high school players on recruitment visits: stay with current players, pay your own way if needed, attend even unfunded visits, ask players tough questions about coaches, and treat it like a job interview. Face-to-face time with coaches matters more than official funding.
5 things I would never do if I was going on an official visit. I'm the College Soccer Guy and I help you play college soccer. Number 1, if the coach asks you, would you rather stay at a hotel or would you rather stay with the players, you should always stay with the players. 2, sometimes the coaches will be a little bit stingy and they won't like pick you up from the airport or they will tell you, you know what, you need to sort this out on your own, part of your travel. Do it. You're talking about hundreds of dollars in an effort to potentially get a scholarship worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just put up the money yourself and go on really important. Number 3, people will tell you that it's not an official visit, meaning, right, they're not paying for everything, maybe you're not sleeping with the players. It doesn't matter. To get an offer, all you have to do is get to know the coaches and the coaches to get to know you. So if it's not technically an official visit, nobody cares once you make the team. So if they invite you to campus and they're going to meet with you and they maybe specifically tell you, hey, you know, you can't sleep with the players because of your age, or it's not technically an official visit, who cares? It doesn't have to be an official visit. Yes, it can be nice to get an official visit, we can work on that, but getting to know them and getting to see them in person is all that matters. Face to face, one on one. So if it's not an official visit, go anyways. Number 4, make sure that you ask the players what they think of the coaching staff, and you can do so in a genuine way. The players will always tell you the truth, and that won't go against you. So one day when you're at your visit, you want to say to one of the players, hey, could I possibly speak to you for a few minutes about your experience here? And they'll go, great. And if you really want to go to that school, you want to make sure you love that coach. And you say to the player, what is the coach like to the players that don't play any minutes? What is the coach like to you who's maybe playing every minute? What do you think of the coach as a person? And if they tell you bad things, traditionally speaking, that's a pretty telltale sign that the coach is not a good person. The players are— have no agenda, you know, they want to help you get recruited to that school. Most of them will, you know, graduate by the time you get there, so they're not too threatened by you. And they're normal high school kids, they were once in your shoes, so they want to help you if the coach coach is going to be an awful human. Number 5, remember that this is an interview. You're not there to really take in the experience and see if you like the school. Now, of course, that is inevitably what happens and super important also, but you're really there as a job interview. So you need to open every door, you need to shake the coach's hand, you need to be very polite to every single player, you need to ask the players about their life and what their, you know, life outside of soccer is, what school is like. The coaches are going to ask the players, what was this student like on the visit. And that is there at that point your job to have impressed the players as a person. If you want more help, comment call and we can schedule a call with you and your parents.
