Five moves for elite high school soccer players targeting Division I: build interest from Division II and III programs as backup, attend college games in person to catch coaches' attention, hit fall camps before showcases, send full-game videos plus short highlight reels, and consider personal coaching to navigate the process.
If you're an ECNL player and you're a senior, here are 5 things you must do to make sure you play Division I soccer. Number 1, if you do not have interest from other Division IIIs and Division IIIs and you just want to focus on Division I, you are in trouble and you cannot only do Division Is. You must have interest from other schools. One, because it's a backup in case your Division I doesn't work out, but the Division I schools are going to inquire about your schedule and they're going to inquire about you coming to a game, and if you cannot say to them, I have other interests, it's going to be a red flag for them. Number 2, you must go to games this fall. Now there's 2 ways to go to games. The first way is you message them and say, "Coach, I will be attending your game on X date. Would it be able to shake your hand in person?" Now of course this has to be a local school, and remember there are 2 teams that go and play against each other, so you could email both teams. And you'd be surprised how often the coaches say, "Yeah, we would love to have you at the game and we'd love to shake your hand in person." The second way is you say to a team that maybe is a plan B school, or maybe not your top but still one you want, and you say, "Coach, I'm thinking about coming to a game this season, "Which game would you recommend I attend?" Now the coaches know you're serious about theoretically attending, and even if it's not your top choice, maybe because you showed seriousness, they will respond to you with a little bit more interest, and then they'll watch your video, and then they'll invite you to a camp in the fall, and then they could make you an offer right away, or they'll invite you on an official visit where you can sleep over with the team, and then all of a sudden you get yourself to play Division I soccer. Number 3 is you do need to consider their camps in the fall because that is the last way to guarantee you get seen. They're not gonna come to your league games, and their showcases that you typically have for ECNL are kind of not available at this point or not going to happen until January, February, in which case most of those teams are done. And you need to be able to send full games, multiple full games, like 2 or 3. But the coaches won't watch full games, so then we make these every-touch videos, and that's super important. If you really want— if you want help playing college soccer, give me a call. Link's in the bio. I will talk to you soon.
