ECNL Championship Draw

MakeAPlay said:
I keep having to remind myself that there are mostly ULittle parents on the forum. There will be a lot of coaches and at least 15 or so will be watching most games and I have seen 80+ on the sidelines for games. College coaches recruit players not teams. You will be surprised at how many diamonds there are on teams that aren't at the very top of an age group. Some of the best players come from those teams that are in 6-10 ranking range in an age group. You might see a couple players that are pretty dominant that make a decent team really good because of their individual brilliance. It's definitely worth the money for 95% of the players. You just have to ask yourself 4 questions and be honest with yourself.

1. Is your player going to play at least 33-40% of the time?

2. Does your player have the grades and time management skills to play college soccer?

3. Does your player REALLY want to play college soccer?

4. Is your player will to put in the work to contact the coaches (with a little parent assistance)?

If the answer is yes to all 4 it is worth it and she will find a college that is a good fit. If not, get her on a good select team as club soccer and all the travel is a waste, unless of course you don't care about the $31-$40k you are going to spend on it (more power to you if you don't).

Either way good luck to you and your player.
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Great post so helpful! Thanks for all the insight
 
MakeAPlay said:
Very true sir. Coaches recruit players not teams.
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To put it in perspective for ulittle parents. As a comparison, YNT team rostered players (YNT caps) have around 35-40 players on average in each age group. There are 22,000 high schools, meaning there are 22,000 class valedictorians per year. Another reason why regarded YNT players with a 3.0-3.5 GPA get admission exceptions to top univerisites.
 
NoGoal said:
To put it in perspective for ulittle parents. As a comparison, YNT team rostered players (YNT caps) have around 35-40 players on average in each age group. There are 22,000 high schools, meaning there are 22,000 class valedictorians per year. Another reason why regarded YNT players with a 3.0-3.5 GPA get admission exceptions to top univerisites.
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When club coaches tell parents and parents post get good grades and test scores. It's for the average club soccer player. A college head coach has to balance out their overall team GPA (monetary bonus) and can't pull admission strings for those players.

True story, a class of 2016 player verbally committed to UNC as a preferred walk-on (no scholarship money) and she wasn't a YNT player. She did NOT gain UNC admissions on her own merit and the head coach did NOT try to get an exception (why would he). Yet, if the player was Brianna Pinto...I bet she gets the admission exception. The player ended up playing for San Diego St, still a very good academic Cal State School though.
 
NoGoal said:
True story, a class of 2016 player verbally committed to UNC as a preferred walk-on (no scholarship money) and she wasn't a YNT player. She did NOT gain UNC admissions on her own merit and the head coach did NOT try to get an exception (why would he). Yet, if the player was Brianna Pinto...I bet she gets the admission exception. The player ended up playing for San Diego St, still a very good academic Cal State School though.
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If the player gets no money and no help with admissions, and all the coach is committing to is to let her walk-on (effectively try-out) should she gain admittance on her own merit, technically I do not think that is a "commit." In order to sign a letter of intent, you must be a scholarship player. But we understandably expand the commit definition to include players who get admission assistance -- a "golden ticket" in the parlance of many schools, particularly the Ivy League or D3 schools, and never sign anything. Expanding that definition to players who get no admissions help at all from soccer seems a stretch, though every club list includes them.
 
Dos Equis said:
If the player gets no money and no help with admissions, and all the coach is committing to is to let her walk-on (effectively try-out) should she gain admittance on her own merit, technically I do not think that is a "commit." In order to sign a letter of intent, you must be a scholarship player. But we understandably expand the commit definition to include players who get admission assistance -- a "golden ticket" in the parlance of many schools, particularly the Ivy League or D3 schools, and never sign anything. Expanding that definition to players who get no admissions help at all from soccer seems a stretch, though every club list includes them.
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She was a preferred walk-on. Preferred walk-on don't need to tryout and are given a roster spot. Thus the reason most parents and club coaches state, grades are important which should already be a given.

As for my example it's to prove there are admissions exceptions for average academic YNT players vs an average club player verbal commit. As the saying goes, the scholarship offer indicates how much a college coach values a player.
 
bababooey said:
Look at it this way Lambchop.......for some parents spending large sums of money on the club soccer experience (traveling far and wide for their player) is really prepaying the cost of college tuition if their player gets serious scholarship money. It's a gamble for many parents. Do I spend lots of money while my player is U8 to HS Senior year for club soccer, long distance tournaments, privates, etc. and hope it pays off with scholarship money? There is no one answer that will apply to all parents and players.

I agree that going to Chicago for a four day tournament is a big ask from parents for what could be very little payoff for their players.
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Ok fair enough it's a lot of money ,... Especially if folks believe coaches aren't going. So now,.. Let's say your child is committed - do they take that same attitude and not go because they are already committed?

Their team is still competing in playoffs. So they should live out their commitment to their team, and if they are committed,.. I can guarantee their future coaches will be there checking in on their progress.

Teams like west coast u18 as mentioned all are committed, yet are still flying across the country to try and win a national championship.
 
My DD's play on an ECNL team and believe me there is going to be alot of Exposure and Coaches there... If you go to the ECNL website and check out the Colleges and Coaches that have committed to attend by name, you might be impressed, I know I am!

There are not too many venues like the ECNL Playoffs and Showcases that will have the Quality and Quantity of DI, DII Coaches watching the best Elite Girl Club teams compete on a National Level.

It is Expensive, but this is the part of the Deal when you sign up for Elite Soccer if your team does well you expect to play on a National Circuit, is it worth yet yes! Whether my DD gets the Golden Ticket of a scholarship or not.

At the end of the Day . . . I am going to give my DD the best competitive platform to compete on, the resources needed and the best possible chance to pursue her dreams, all within the reasonable means that I have.

In my opinion, there is no other league or venue in America that has a proven track record of delivering the types of quality teams and players that feed into the College network, in particular, the Power 5 Conferences.

Word...!
 
Kongzilla said:
My DD's play on an ECNL team and believe me there is going to be alot of Exposure and Coaches there... If you go to the ECNL website and check out the Colleges and Coaches that have committed to attend by name, you might be impressed, I know I am!

There are not too many venues like the ECNL Playoffs and Showcases that will have the Quality and Quantity of DI, DII Coaches watching the best Elite Girl Club teams compete on a National Level.

It is Expensive, but this is the part of the Deal when you sign up for Elite Soccer if your team does well you expect to play on a National Circuit, is it worth yet yes! Whether my DD gets the Golden Ticket of a scholarship or not.

At the end of the Day . . . I am going to give my DD the best competitive platform to compete on, the resources needed and the best possible chance to pursue her dreams, all within the reasonable means that I have.

In my opinion, there is no other league or venue in America that has a proven track record of delivering the types of quality teams and players that feed into the College network, in particular, the Power 5 Conferences.

Word...!
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Kong - I have disagreed with a fair amount of your previous posts, but this one is very good and I agree with your position. Thank you for the thoughtful and honest post.

Good luck to your dd and her teammates.
 
I see Surf Cup has their annual "accepted teams" link up. Does Silverlakes do that at some point?

I also see Surf Cup has a DA only bracket. I know DA is only supposed play other DA teams but both Surf and Silver are prior to start of official season? I'm hoping to see a few ECNL versus DA games, you know, just to see what we see. I am hoping Silver doesn't have a DA only bracket to appease.
 
GoWest said:
I see Surf Cup has their annual "accepted teams" link up. Does Silverlakes do that at some point?

I also see Surf Cup has a DA only bracket. I know DA is only supposed play other DA teams but both Surf and Silver are prior to start of official season? I'm hoping to see a few ECNL versus DA games, you know, just to see what we see. I am hoping Silver doesn't have a DA only bracket to appease.
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I would too, but I doubt it's going to happen. It was made clear early on that DA teams would only play in tournaments with a DA only bracket
 
Silverlakes would have slammers beach and legends for sure. Beyond that,... It's hard to say

But looking at the ages across the board

Surf has

Surf
Blues
West coast
La Galaxy
La Galaxy sd
Pats
Real

And then the out of area teams

Burlingame
Ca thorns
Crossfire
Psv
San Jose Earthquakes
FC united
 
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