A soccer mentor coaches a high-performing center-back on contacting Berkeley's coach. The strategy: reference a specific Berkeley player, mention your own credentials, acknowledge a prior email, and pitch yourself in person. Coaches want genuine interest, not generic outreach.
Uh, what position do you play? Center back. Center back. And of the schools here at this amazing camp, who would you like to speak to? Uh, Berkeley. Berkeley. Have you spoken to him yet? Yeah. Okay, he's a really cool guy. Uh, what's your GPA? 3.9. Excellent. And did you watch Berkeley this year at all? Uh, yeah. What did you like about them? He's gonna see this probably, so I'll cut it up, make you look good. I just thought they looked good. Okay. I don't remember. You play center back? Yeah. So this is an interesting scenario because Cal Berkeley's coach is a great guy, and because he's such a good guy, the other coaches are too, but he's talkative and personable, is he would love if you go up to him and say, I watched number X play center back and I thought he did X really well. Just look up a highlight video. You don't have to watch the whole game. You don't have to have ESPN even. Just go. He will flip because he's the coach and he's the one that made them play really well. Because then he'll be like, you really care. Do you think he'd like to hear somebody who has a 3.9 that plays in Portland Timbers? I think that would meet his accolades. Now, he likes humans. I'm not saying— you seem like a great kid. But if you don't express that to him, then he may pick somebody else here who has been more personal. Have you emailed him before? Uh, yeah. And has he responded? No. Okay, perfect. He's a really nice guy. You don't go up to him and say, you'll never hear from me, why didn't you email me? But you can say, I emailed you, coach. And what I would do, like, if you have time, go right now on YouTube and look something up at Berkeley. And like look up some highlight and just say, I thought this guy was good, and then go up and tell him that, and he will love it. Deal? Yeah. Okay, cool. Comment the word review and I will tell you what level you can play based off of your video.
