There are two ways to help you determine what’s realistic for you:

The first is to go watch college soccer games in person.  Watching on TV or streaming games makes the game appear slower and the players appear smaller than what is actually the case.  There’s nothing like being 5 yards from the action to let you know if you can play there.  There are a lot of NCAA Division 3 programs in the area (Southwestern Univ., Concordia Univ. here in Austin and many others within a 75 minute drive), in division 2 there’s St. Edward’s women’s soccer here in Austin and St. Mary’s men’s (and women’s) soccer in San Antonio.  In DI you have UT Austin and Texas State on the women’s side and Incarnate Word in San Antonio on the men’s (and women’s) Side.

The second is for you to get with Coach Mike Smith, our college placement director, after he’s had a chance to see you play.  He attends league games regularly and is happy to meet with players and parents about the recruiting process and what’s realistic for each player.

To (over)simplify it you contact coaches to let them know you’re interested in their school/program, find a way to get in front of the coaches, show them what you can do and then find out if they’re interested in you.  It’s not as simple as it sounds and we’re here to help you through the process.  

Start with either attending our fall College Info Night or watching the video on our website of the 2018 College Info Night.  We usually hold the event in late September or early October.  That will tell you almost everything you need to know like how to research schools/programs, when to start contacting coaches, what to put in an initial email and your profile, etc.

Unless you are a top NCAA Div. 1 prospect (the vast majority are not), sophomore or early junior year is a good time to get started.  Most coaches start trying to watch players when they are juniors or maybe second semester sophomores.  Contacting them a little sooner is great because it can get you “on their radar”.  College coaches at all levels receive hundreds of emails from players and can struggle to get to all those players.  If they see your name for the fourth or fifth time, your name may start to stand out as someone with genuine interest.  You don’t want to be a pest but being persistent is important.  

Now if you’re a senior or about to be – it’s not too late…but get going now!  Most division 1 teams are done recruiting your class but lots of division 2 and 3 schools are still looking.

Yes, you should absolutely send video if you have it.  For those teams who use Trace you can pull video clips from Trace and send them to coaches.  If your team doesn’t use Trace, then have a parent video your games and put together clips from that video.

The ideal video to send to coaches should have 4-5 minutes of game highlights followed by 20 minutes or so of continuous game tape.  If a coach likes the highlights, then they’ll watch the game tape to see how you move off the ball, your speed compared to other players, how hard you work etc.  Always start with the highlights because most coaches will only want to watch continuous game footage if they’re already interested from seeing the highlights.

The highlights should include a variety of clips with you mostly on attack but some defending as well (more if you’re a defender).  For goalkeepers it can be good to have footage of keeper drills included in the highlights.