Three coaches debate whether a September-born sophomore should stay with older teammates in recreational ECNL or move to her age group. They stress emailing college coaches with "ECNL" or "GA" in the subject line and asking for their opinion. League level matters for D1 recruitment, but fit and happiness matter more.
She's a September child. She plays on an RL team. She's going to— she's a sophomore, so she's actually a year up. She should be a freshman next year. She has the option of playing possibly 2011 ECNL versus 2010 RL. What would you recommend she do?
Good question. Just to repeat the question and correct if I'm wrong, he has a daughter who's playing up a year. She's currently playing with sophomores. She has the opportunity to play ECNL RL in her age group. Or currently, or she could play for an ECNL RL team, ECNL team in her age group.
Thank you.
ECNL year below or play above an ECNL RL, is that right? Good question. So what, playoff team, an ECNL RL playoff team? Okay, I would say my immediate reaction without having seen any video and everything else is stay with these sophomores because they're getting recruited by coaches in person more often than the freshmen. However, you should email the coaches that she could be playing ECNL and is choosing to play up an age group in ECNL RL at a playoff-winning team. So specify it. Then when she's a sophomore— or she's a sophomore now, but when she's a junior, she could be playing with the ECNL group theoretically at that point. So let the coaches know you're deciding that. So going back to the labels and the acronyms, they do play a role. And you can see in that example, I'm telling him You can decide to play where in that environment, so it's a really good individual question. Just let the coaches know the situation. So in the subject line though, don't say ECNL RL. Say ECNL, and then in the meat of the email, explain the complicated part. Because you'll get more responses. Same with GA. Say GA at the very beginning of the email. That's important. And your GPAs. Good one.
We just had a player go from ECNL RL to Division I soccer. So it can happen at almost any level for the girls' side. If you're playing GA, ECNL RL, or ECNL. If you're playing in DPL or NPL, it can be really hard to play Division 1. Still possible, but more difficult. The biggest thing though is that also depends on the coach. Like, is the daughter happy? Does she like her teammates? Maybe she should actually go to ECNL. And the one thing I didn't mention in the video, which I should have, is actually when you write the email to the coaches, you should ask the coaches and say, "Hi coach, I have the option to play at this team or this team. What do you think I should do?" And ask the college coaches what they think. And the coaches may say to you nothing really concrete. They might just do something black and white like, "Do whatever feels right for you," which is not what you want to hear. But the reason it's important is because it's a subtle way of telling them that you could do either option. And then for some coaches, they will say, "Hey, that's good. I'm not sure what you should do, but keep us up to date." Now they're invested in your life. So you're asking them not always for an answer, but just so they become invested in your life. If you want to know what showcase you should go to as a GA player or ECNL player, comment the word ECNL and I'll send you a list.
