SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Carolina Elite Soccer Academy 2012-2013 ECNL Overview

Harry, you were gone for 5 months and came back right in time for tryouts justifying the costs. You have been missed

The Furman team next season will be loaded with CESA players. The Furman coaches do not travel (at least I have not seen them on any coaches list) to any ECNL events. So they have figured it out. They can get what they need right in their own "backyard". Of course, it had to be necessary for the players to travel to Texas, New Jersey, Washington state etc., etc.... to get the offer from Furman.

Of all the scholarship offers, are any of them even close to a full ride for playing soccer?

If that is the case, then the travel may well be worth it.

I guess this is another case of different strokes for different folks. ECNL has been a great experience for our daughter. She was offered by a University that saw her play at an ECNL event. She was able to go on visits to ACC and Big East Universities that saw her play at ECNL events. Maybe her experience would have been the same just playing in the Premier league, but I don't believe that to be the case.

The biggest benefit of ECNL is the visibility of a large range of coaches. At our last ECNL game in Sanford FL, there were over 70 coaches watching our girls perform. It's been a while since I've seen that number of coaches roaming the sidelines at a Premier game.

Is playing in the ECNL more expensive than Premier league...Yes
Is it break the budget more expensive? No, in our case it cost about $2000 more per year.

The U17 girls will be the first group to complete the ECNL cycle, so I don't believe they make a good baseline to determine whether ECNL is worth the expense or not. You need to let a couple of groups age through before you could really start measuring the stats.

Looking at the U17 commitments thus far, all except one are going out of state. Do Premier league games usually have coaches from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Richmond, and Columbus State University in attendance? I know the ECNL events did. Again, I think when we look at where girls are being offered in 4 or 5 years due to ECNL exposure and high level of competition the benefits will be plainly evident.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that our daughter thinks it is pretty cool going to Texas, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, etc. to play soccer. I hope one day she will be able to tell her children about the experience. Mom and Dad have also really enjoyed the trips. Again, we have enjoyed the ECNL experience and in our opinion it has been a great investment in our daughters future. Of course, your experience may be different.

CITG,Bomber and others i do see your point. The cost for sports these days in this economy has gotten out of controll. What i think some of you are missing is that playing in ECNL gets a player in front of college coach's from all over. It is up to the player to play well at these events to get recruited. Not only that, players cant expect a coach to just show up and watch them play. The player needs to do the foot work so coaches know where they are going to be. The good thing like with Furman which is a beautiful school is they are in CESA's backyard and get to see these players often. What a parent really needs to look at is what kind of training their kid is getting with the club they are at. If the training is not up to par and a player does not improve then it will not matter what coaches they play in front of. if playing in front of coaches from other states or training does not matter than it can be cheap for a kid to play. Its called rec soccer and its about 20 bucks a year.

You can get better exposure to 235 college coaches by entering your team into the NCSL Capital Cup in Northern Va. in November. $400 for the weekend, it's a real deal recruiting weekend with the best colleges in Div. I, II, III and NAIA. Colleges coaches are given a binder with a personal bio of every player listed by team. All of the top 100 college soccer teams are represented in that one weekend of play. By the way there other other great clubs besides SC Utd and CESA get your head out of the sand.
Mom's and dad's save the money and second mortgages and go there, oh bye the way you can guest play. Fill out a player bio on line, print it and go to the tournament headquarters you will get picked up by a team to play. I played in it in 1989 and was recruited directly off the field after my third game.

Playing in front of all the Coaches from all over the country??? OK, that may be all well and good, but very few players leave their geographic home base region to play in college. So, is the fact that all the Coaches were invited and they come, just a "sales pitch" to get you to "buy" in to the ECNL experience?

Also, college soccer must be a new thing. Did it start like say 5 years ago? I mean, how could it ever existed before without the ECNL feeding it???

What will be next. First it's rec, then travel soccer, then Premier, then ECNL...

With every "next level" means more $$$ out of your pocket.

If you look at most of the D1 rosters in SC you'll see that most of the players are not from SC clubs. When you look at college recruiting in soccer in this state I don't think we have a very good reputation as a whole. When my daughter played in tournaments for CESA the only time you saw the big colleges watching our games was when we were playing the bigger clubs like Ponte Vedra, BOCA(Premier League members),and they were their to watch them, not us. ECNL is just another money making venue. $1300.00 a year. PLEASE!!!

If you have to be in the ECNL to get looked at by Columbus State, really there is something very wrong with this picture.

Columbus State is in the Peach Belt Conference, hardly a national soccer power.

Get real!!!!

I believe there are good clubs in sc other than cesa and sc utd. I think we all know that college coaches are not lining the sidelines just to watch a sc club team play. Getting back to my earlier post. A player can not just expect that a college coach is going to see you play if they do not know you are there. It does not matter which club you play for or how much money you spent. The player has to let coaches know where they are going to be and then have to play well when they are. I do not think ecnl is there to feed colleges as bomber said but to get kids in front of the coaches. We all it is for someone to make money weather it is a club.ecnl people or a crooked politician.There are some great tournys a sc club can go to for exposure like up in VA but what is the difference than going out of state for ecnl. Those tournys are out of the area that some of you say these sc kids will play in college. Mostly northern and mid atlantic schools show up. You cant go by a posted coaches list because most do not show up or ever planned on coming. It is a selling tool for the tourny.My question would be how many players in sc from clubs other cesa,sc utd which i figure includes mt pl are getting recruited to play in college. I do not mean just going to college because we all know that is a different argument. If someone can and has the time post a list by club of who has committed to play in college. My next question would be where is everyone getting this 1300 cesa is charging. Im not saying they are not but maybe i missed it. I saw 675.00.

Why do people keep mentioning what CESA charges when the CESA fees are not as high as South Carolina United, and South Carolina United is not able to even offer girls ECNL if they want it.