A parent describes sending over a thousand personalized letters to college soccer coaches and traveling constantly to showcase his son, but getting no responses. The College Soccer Guy explains that hundreds of players compete for each spot and offers to help him stand out through smarter recruiting strategy.
Why do you need to play ECNL or MLS Next or Girls Lead Academy or Boys Lead Academy or NPL or EC4 or US Youth National Soccer League in order to play, or USL Academy or UPSL, in order to play college soccer? Part of it is all of the travel you have to do so you get seen by these coaches. College soccer dad, don't you think the travel is just so great?
I love it. I see parts of the world that I would never have seen before. You know, my boy is riding up front. He's in first class. He's in first class because I want him to stretch his legs, to keep loose. Actually, his mom insisted. But I don't mind sitting like this. I mean, I'm only 6'3". I'm only 6'3". It's only a 6-hour flight. I think I can do this. It's all, it's all for my boy. It's all for my boy.
What position does your son play?
What does he play? What does he like to play? Is he going to play? That tends to be the question every time I travel 6, 6.5 hours down to the airport. Is my boy even going to play, or am I just going to be picking up soccer balls during warm-ups? I don't mind actually, because it keeps me moving. But I don't know what position he's in. Somewhere, somewhere in the back there. He's a big boy and he throws his weight around pretty well. He was killing it.
Have you had any conversations with college coaches leading up to this?
They won't talk to me. I try. I've sent letters. I've had assistants send— I believe we've sent 12 to 1,400 letters on my stationery. I mean, I'm on the letterhead, by the way. And I have not had a single response. Is it me? Or is it my boy? They don't know what they're missing, frankly. I'm gonna get a film crew out to show this stuff. Probably not next week because I'm traveling, or the week after because we're traveling, or the week after because we're traveling. I'm gonna set up a little studio situation for him because I have to get somebody's attention.
If you're a parent that feels like this gentleman and you're not getting responses and you think your son is the level, maybe they are, maybe they're not, but the point is that I want to try and help you if you think your son or daughter is the level and you're doing all of this traveling. It can be so much, so especially if you're sending 1,200 letters, you need to do it correctly. And if your son or daughter is the level, there usually is a team out there, but remember, if you want to go to that school, there's another 400 kids that also want to go to that school. So what are you going to do to be different? And I'm the College Soccer Guy and I help you play college soccer.
