De Anza Force Soccer Club, one of the nation's elite youth development clubs and iSoccerPath, the leading college education company have partnered to
De Anza Force Soccer Club, one of the nation’s elite youth development clubs and iSoccerPath, the leading college education company have partnered to bring a new level of awareness and education for the membership of De Anza Force. The agreement will see iSoccerPath provide extensive education relating to the transition from youth to collegiate soccer for all of Force’s players from school grades eight to twelve, including the various Force affiliates across greater northern California.
This union represents a tightening of a relationship that dates back several years. iSoccerPath’s College Soccer Panels events division has hosted coaching education panels with Force for the past four years, and now iSoccerPath’s services will be available directly to the Force membership in order to optimize each player’s opportunity to become a collegiate student athlete.
“We believe that what separates us from a lot of the other clubs in the Bay Area is our commitment,” stated De Anza Force Director of Coaching Jeff Baicher. “We spend a lot of time educating and working with kids on the recruiting process, and about 96% of our elite players get into colleges. The reality is that most players can play in school. It just depends what level that is, whether we’re talkig about a community colled, a DIII university, NAIA etc, but as a club we only have so many resources to be able to really hand-hold players through the process.”
Where the club’s resources expire is where iSoccerPath comes into the equation.
“Our goal is to have all FORCE players and their families at the forefront of the process of becoming student athletes and getting into college thru soccer. ” said Jeff Jaye, Managing Director of iSoccerPath.
“ Working with Jeff Baicher over the past 7 years on various club projects and watching them grow their commits and develop an infrastructure that includes ECNL, USSF Development Academy, and NPL is going to be a great project for iSoccerPath.”
Despite their status as one of the top clubs in Northern California for college commits year after year, the vision of the club and board is to increase those opportunities for the Premier teams and affiliates coming on board to join Force in 2017. Force have aimed to double their numbers from 36 to 70 commits on the boys and girls sides per year.
The ambition to constantly improve is one that suffuses the entire club. There is a commitment to striving for excellence that differentiates De Anza Force from your everyday youth club.
“When we go to any of these showcase, you’ll see that the De Anza Force teams play differently. We like to play the right way instead of just chasing that ‘win’ that at the end of the day might not be best for a player’s individual development,” said Baicher. “At the end of the day, things are always changing. The reality is, and this is something we talk about within our club constantly, that every year you need to reinvent yourself. If you aren’t, someone else will. These various leagues that have been around for a while are going to need to reinvent themselves to provide more value to players and parents.”
One sure way to provide value to families is to integrate the iSoccerPath curriculum into the De Anza Force club model so that each player has a realistic understanding of what needs to be done in order to secure a roster spot at the college or university that best suits them. With this union, Force and iSoccerPath have demonstrated once again, their knack for leading the line.
