SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP High School Soccer: Hurt or Help?

>>[Hurst66] Why do you need to go to Disney?<<

>>[futbol(soccer)] The same has to be said for the player - the more exposure you have the more choices you have. The caveat is the player must be capable.<<

The talk about "being seen" quite correctly calls out that a player has to market herself or himself to coaches. But I think that what is overlooked is that it's not enough to be seen, or to be recruited. A player has to be ready to play at the next level. And in college, that's particularly tough because each year you've got a new round of players coming at you to take your position on the team away -- you're not protected by single-year age brackets any more.

I realize that many players have a single-minded focus on getting a college coach's attention. And while marketing will help, the thing that helps the most is having the individual talent and skills that make that coach step up and take notice.

I remember two kids who were criticized on the high school thread for missing one day of a preseason tournament to play in a college showcase and one day of practice to play against Furman and Clemson -- and that was all that they missed for the entire high school season. In the case of both, they were much more interested in developing to become better players than they were in being seen by some mythical college scout. Let's face it, the decision to play against Orangeburg-Wilkinson or the decision to play against Clemson from the standpoint of becoming a better player is pretty much of a no-brainer.