College ID camp

New to the boards, there is a lot of good info here.

My taking my 2004 son to his first college ID camp this weekend. First for me too, my older 2002 daughter isn't interested in playing college soccer, but my son is.

It's probably a little early, but I wanted to get the ball rolling.

Is there anything that I should take or do to be ready for this? I've read in a few places that I may need to put a one page CV together for him to give to interested coaches.

It's way early, but I want to start thinking about it.

Thanks

Is it a dedicated camp for one college at the campus, or a remote location camp with many coaches from different schools? Either way, at his age this will just be a chance to get on the radar of any coaches that may be interested. You can put together something, but all they really need is name, age, team, coach and contact info to invite you to future ID camps. He can use this camp to get contact info as well so that he can invite coaches to see him at games/showcases. Good luck!

Thanks for the reply.

It's a remote location with multiple colleges.

I'm mainly just trying to get him to see what he has to look forward to and the other boys that he will have to compete against to earn a spot on a college team.

A chance to learn for the both of us.

electrichead72 said:

New to the boards, there is a lot of good info here.

My taking my 2004 son to his first college ID camp this weekend. First for me too, my older 2002 daughter isn't interested in playing college soccer, but my son is.

It's probably a little early, but I wanted to get the ball rolling.

Is there anything that I should take or do to be ready for this? I've read in a few places that I may need to put a one page CV together for him to give to interested coaches.

It's way early, but I want to start thinking about it.

Thanks

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Sorry to be blunt in advance. So many here are girls parents and one thing you probably already know but to be rhetorical, college coaches recruit and ID girls early as in your son's age but for boys, it would be an exception if he is even ID'd. If your son is on the BYNT pool, maybe. Usually they wait until Junior year because puberty and maturity for boys are much later than girls.

They will separate the camp by grade and usually they put 9th graders with 8th graders, if any. Almost no coach even pays attention to the group. That said, you also need to know that the coaches are there because they are being paid to be there. Its a bit of boondoggle for them.

These aggregated ID camps are good to do once for experience but keep the expectations low. Its usually better to attend your targeted school's ID camp (although that too is a money maker and lots of pre camp work needs to be done to make it worthwhile).

Have fun and enjoy the experience this weekend!

Thanks for the reply.

No worries about the blunt talk, I'd prefer to hear that.

I'm not a nutty parent who thinks he's going to get offers from all of the coaches there that day, I just kinda want to see what this is all about. I want him to see something new, as he's been on the same club team for three seasons and I don't want him to stay stuck in that hole.

He's pretty driven for a young kid and if he sees what he needs to be eventually, then he'll set some goals and work to get there.

As mirage stated, boys recruit later than girls. Having said that, DD did the SDSU college ID camp with a couple of teammates as an 8th grader. I think that it may have helped her to be less nervous once the ID camps started to matter.

outside! said:

As mirage stated, boys recruit later than girls. Having said that, DD did the SDSU college ID camp with a couple of teammates as an 8th grader. I think that it may have helped her to be less nervous once the ID camps started to matter.

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In retrospect I don't really think ID Camps ever really matter. My dd went to a number of camps both college specific and ones put on by companies with alot of coaches. She met dozens of coaches through these camps and none of them ever initiated any sort of recruiting from these camps unless she was specifically invited to the camp by a coach that had seen her play. The only value is for your kid to get a feel for a particular college campus and whether they would like to go there regardless of whether they play soccer. ID camps are in place mostly just to make money for the school, coaches, and camp companies. So I recommend to save the money and only attend if a coach has seen your kid play and has specifically invited them to attend the camp. If you can't tell the difference from a specific invite vs the customized generic camp email that everyone gets, call the coach and ask if they have seen your kid play.

Every path is different. It was at a college specific ID camp where my DD was noticed. She was not invited, we looked it up, registered on-line and showed up. At the end of camp they called me onto the field. She is a freshman on that team now. This was a smaller camp in the winter.

At the large (college specific or not) money maker camps I would be surprised if anyone gets noticed. DD went to a winter ID camp at UCI that was run by the players. After that camp DD got in the car and said "Hi, my name is blank and you did not see me at all today".

I thought I would post a quick wrap up here for any that might be interested.

I think overall it was a good experience for my son. A very organized process, no fooling around or wasting time.

I learned the rules of recruiting, so to speak. As my son is a freshman in HS, he can't be contacted by any of these coaches. He did have a 1 on 1 evaluation with a D1 coach to help him figure out what he needed to improve on, so my son was happy with that and it gives him goals to work through.

I talked to the coaches about all the differences in clubs and leagues and how they feel about it, so that was good for me.

They did drills for about 90 mins and then (3) 30 min games. My son wasn't outclassed by the other players he played against in his age group, so I think he's in a good position for now and can work into being what the coaches say they are looking for.

If you're player is interested in specific schools an dedicated camp for one or more college(s) at the campus can be worthwhile. Generic "exact" type ones or the ones that are too large not so much.

Bigger Tournament's is one place to get id'd like http://surfcupsports.com/college-cup/ They use scoutingzone.com so your player can email the coached before hand and invite them to your games for example, this is a good first step in the process.

Remember with the new recruiting rules, there are no coach led unofficial visits until Junior year of HS. They are now using college specific camps to circumvent this rule, so as Simi says above, look for the personalized invites where the coach has already seen your kid. If they are truly interested and want your kid on campus, there won't be any ambiguity.

Surf Cup is actually the tournament that all of these coaches mentioned they would be at this upcoming weekend, along with Vegas Cup and other larger tournaments like this.

That is correct about the rules. You can contact them, but they cannot respond unless it is at a camp.

electrichead72 said:

Surf Cup is actually the tournament that all of these coaches mentioned they would be at this upcoming weekend, along with Vegas Cup and other larger tournaments like this.

That is correct about the rules. You can contact them, but they cannot respond unless it is at a camp.

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Right, the challenge is actually being accepted into those tournaments. Vegas Players Showcase in March is easy enough, but Surf (summer or fall), Disney, Dallas, Jeffersons, are all difficult, unless your kid is part of the DA, then Surf summer and DA showcases/playoffs. If National League team, then some of the high profile games are a part of the tournaments.

Glad you guys had a good experience. It is true that each case is different and is not very good to generalize what may or may not happen in this subject. So much is player dependent that its meaningless to generalize.

That said, do goto one of the desired school ID camps. Will warn you that UCxx ID camps are not recommended. It is better to focus on a smaller school ID camp where there are less attractions from the world. UC camps are pure fundraiser.

As one mentioned earlier, our older kid had the most success in winter ID camp (was in January, and CIF makes exception to these - coordinate with your HS AD), where the ratio of players to coaches are much higher in your favor.

Best time to start serious ID camps is probably the spring camp in his 10th grade year. Follow up that summer and he can start to have meaningful discussions with coaches once he is in the 11th grade.

Good luck.

Thanks for the feedback mirage.