The path to playing soccer in college on a scholarship is long, windy, and steeped in nuance rules, regulations, and restrictions. iSoccerPath is a C
The path to playing soccer in college on a scholarship is long, windy, and steeped in nuance rules, regulations, and restrictions. iSoccerPath is a California-based company that specializes in education and evaluation of youth soccer players who have a desire to play collegiate soccer. By evaluating a player’s specific soccer skills and scholastic potential, iSoccerPath is able to provide student-athletes with the best possible chance of fulfilling their dreams and playing soccer at the next level while receiving the education that they will depend on for the rest of their lives.
Recently, iSoccerPath partnered with San Diego Surf Soccer Club, one of the nation’s elite youth soccer clubs, and held a College Informational Panel Night to help answer some of the questions that players and parents have regarding the start and completion of the college recruiting and selection process. The panelists included Travis Clarke, the head coach of the Women’s Soccer Program at St. Mary’s College, Matt Hall, the Associate Head Coach of San Diego State University’s Men’s Soccer Program, Trevor Whiddon from Palomar Junior College, and Ryan Guy who grew up playing for Surf before going on to play collegiately at the University of San Diego and then professionally in the MLS for the New England Revolution. Ryan now plays for the Guam National Team.
The panel consisted of experts who each were able to speak to the specifics of how the different competitive divisions of college soccer function. The audience was a mixture of Surf parents, coaches, and players, each with varying degrees of familiarity to the college recruiting process.
[quote_box_center]“I was very impressed with the turn out from the families at Surf Soccer Club as well as their age group coaches and members of the Board,” said Jeff Jaye, Director at iSoccerPath. “ It just goes to show you the respect the club has towards it’s players and families and their goals of becoming student-athletes in college. iSoccerPath is honored to share its program with Surf Soccer Club’s families. We hope to help increase college commitments for all Surf players in the years to come”[/quote_box_center]
One of the more common misgivings that parents tend to have is that by playing for an elite club, their child’s’ road to college will be made easy. Unfortunately, that tends not to be the case.
“By attending this event, I thought I was only going to learn about what you should do to get college coaches to notice you, but what I actually learned was much more than I could have asked for. I learned how to talk with coaches, what talking should be like, how to focus on reality schools and what being recruited and the process was really like for the player,” said Surf player and high school sophomore Remington Hasley.
“Watching my sister go through the recruiting process it all seemed quite easy and fun until I asked how it actually was from her point of view. She said it was cool to get to talk to a bunch of different places about your future but it’s scary and stressful with having to email all the coaches and talking with them.”
“Finding out that schools have interns on social media it wasn’t surprising because I’ve always know that social media can be seen by anyone and if anyone is going to offer you to something like a college scholarship I would assume someone would be looking at who you are on social media.
“I feel that now from attending this meeting I know more about the process to get on the right track to getting scholarship, but definitely not enough to get a scholarship on my own. I think iSoccerPath programs will help people including myself really know everything about college soccer and getting recruited and having people help you who have done this before.”
You can read more about iSoccerPath here.
