Commitment Corner

Pride Soccer Club is committed to providing the best and most up-to-date resources for you to better understand the process and how to strategically work your way through it. Additionally, Pride Soccer will host a variety of College recruiting events throughout the year ranging from informational seminars, a College ID camp, and onboarding workshops with our college recruiting and video platforms, Sports Recruits and Hudl, respectively. The DOCs and your coaches will also help to provide individual sessions to answer questions or help guide you along the way.

Myth – Pride Soccer Club has had countless players who were not on the top team in their age group have successful and fulfilling soccer careers in college. If you want to play soccer in college, then there is an opportunity out there for you. There is more than just NCAA D1 soccer, there is also high quality soccer and money available in D2, D3 (only merit aid, no athletic scholarships) and also NAIA and NJCAA schools.

Possibly. Keeping your grades up is a very important part of collegiate athletics. You have to pass certain standards to get into school (NCAA requires a 1.7-2.0 depending on Division) but you also have to maintain a certain GPA (about 1.7-2.0 depending on Division) to remain eligible to play. The program itself may have stricter standards. The best thing you can do in high school is do your best to get your grades up and learn effective study habits. Additionally, you should be thoughtful in your college search about what level of academic rigor and types of programs are the best fit for you.

Myth – The divisions are not delineated based on athletic performance – the divisions were created to provide a unique student-athlete experience for their players. The top half NCAA D2 can generally compete and beat with a large portion of NCAA D1 schools. There are certainly D3 programs out there that can also compete with D1 programs. NAIA, as well, has great teams and coaching staffs who put together teams that can compete with their counterparts.

Performance on the field is the #1 way that you will get seen during the process. If you spend ample time training, developing your craft, and then make an impact during all the games you play, especially showcase events, college coaches will find you. Subsequently, you need to diligently reach out to colleges you’re interested in your freshmen and sophomore year to get on their radar. As you get older, coaches will then start reaching out to you. From here, you have to continue to play well AND develop relationships with coaches over a long period of time. This relationship and trust building are often the building blocks for athletic scholarships.

Myth – You can still compete at a very high level in ALL of the divisions. You can still be an All-American in D2, D3, NAIA, and NJCAA. You can still win a National Championship. The Fall seasons are laid out virtually the same for all the divisions (20 games in the fall across the board, except NJCAA can have 22). The biggest difference comes in the amount of time that college coaches are allowed to spend with their players in the non-traditional seasons (off-season and Spring Season). D1 has the highest demand, D2 the second highest, D3 the lowest and NAIA and JC have very little rules so it varies by coach. This means that non-Division one players have more freedom in the non-traditional season to hold jobs and internships, study abroad, have a more robust social life, and take weekend trips.

You are allowed to reach out and contact college coaches at any point in your recruiting process. Coaches, however, are limited to when they can reach back out to you based on their division. Division 1 schools have the strictest rules and are not allowed to reach out via email until June 15th before your junior year, they cannot call or bring you to campus for visits until September 1st of your junior year. Division 2 coaches can email, call, and bring you to campus for visits starting June15th before your junior year. The other division coaches have little to no rules regarding their communication with you, so use this to your advantage if you are looking at D3, NAIA or NJCAA schools.

It is quite possible, but you have to do a lot of work to perform while you are on the field and to create relationships with college coaches. Soccer is a non-head count sport so college coaches can split their scholarship up however they choose between their players. You might, for example, get a 60% scholarship. There are SO many other opportunities for merit aid and aid based on financial need. It is important to look into these options your junior and senior year as it is rare for coaches to give out full athletic scholarships very often.

It can be a very helpful tool to get you noticed by that college’s coaching staff. However, be aware that ID camps are also huge revenue makers for college programs and their staff coaches. They often will not cap the number of players and will not limit by level of player. Some ID camps will also be coached by outside coaches, instead of solely by the coaches of that program. Before you commit to an ID camp, try and contact the camp coordinator to ask these questions, especially if you are coming from out-of-town or out-of-state. Pride Soccer highly recommends going to ID camps where the coaches have shown interest in you already or you have had multiple contacts with their staff already (For D1 and D2 this would happen after June 15th before your junior year). When a coach already has you on their radar it is much more likely that you will get seen and evaluated while in a large ID setting.

 Myth – Official visits are a way for the college coaches to show their high level of interest in you as a player because they are paying for your trip to campus from their own recruiting funds. This is unlike unofficial visits where the trip is paid by your own family. If you go on an official visit, you and your family are under NO obligation to commit to that program during or after the visit. College coaches will NOT spend the money to bring players to campus who they are not very interested in. Use this to your advantage to help save money on your end.