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I believe Furman recruited more SC players under the previous coach. The current coach seems to have recruited more northeast players. Could be because he is from up north to some degree.

Talking with some folks I know in the U-17 ranks of CESA there has been very little contact from Furman if any.

They are letting a lot of good players with premier experience go to others schools in the State. Premier players in SC should be getting contacted early by Furman. Other schools are certainly making contacts. Newberry, Winthrop, Francis Marion and Erskine to name a few.

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From one who knows

"Other schools are certainly making contacts. Newberry, Winthrop, Francis Marion and Erskine to name a few."

Problem is those schools aren't in the same league are they? If you are a bigtime player in SC the schools that may be interesting to you are USC, Clemson, Furman. After that....you have C of C and Winthrop.

Quite a drop to the other schools.

Daddy,

I really don't think Winthrop would be interested in scheduling Newberry. The top four teams in the South Atlantic Conference (D2) each year could give ANY team in the Big South (D1) a run for their money. The SAC often gets three teams into D2 NCAA championships. The Big South advances only their conference tournament champion into the D1 NCAA championships, where they generally get hammered by an ACC school in Round 1.

Not as big of a "drop off" as you think.

Big Daddy:

The point still remains, Why is Furman not contacting these premier players. I only mentioned some of the smaller schools who are contacting these players. I did not mention that Clemson and USC have contacted these players as well.

Where is FURMAN???? Are they out there???? Are they just a northern school playing in the south?????

Just asking.

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From one who knows?

I am puzzled how anyone on this message board knows whether or not any colleges are or are not contacting recruits. My daughter has just experienced the recruiting season; she is a senior heading to college to play soccer next year. We learned a few things.

(1) Coaches are under pressure to recruit and they pass along that pressure (This is the worst part). We are often asking 16 and 17 year olds to make BIG decisions—when they grow up and change a great deal in that last year of high school.
(2) The coaches we have had contact with are almost without exception truly good people who are working very hard for their colleges and their programs.
(3) Recruiting is a network. Club coaches and college coaches help each other target players. In other words, if coaches are not contacting players, it is possibly for two reasons: The player isn't the quality the coach wants or the coach is aware that the player is not interested.
(4) Players are part of the contacting process. Letting a coach know you are interested is important.
(5) Coaches miss players and players are some times wrong about where they want to play (or if they want to play at all). This is complicated.

Are our state schools aggressively keeping our top young women in state to play at our fine programs? I would say not nearly enough.

But I think few of us know who these coaches are contacting—and I doubt we can suggest that any coach/program is NOT contacting.

Here is an interesting question, at least to me in terms of the recruiting process.

Unlike football or basketball where if your kid is good enough to be recruited to play at Clemson, USC, Furman, Wofford.......they basically get a full ride. In soccer however scholarship money gets pooled in with other sources of scholarships to put together a package.

So how as a parent are you supposed to know if the Furman coach even knows you exist, let alone have interest. And if there is interest......what kind of package can be put together for your son or daughter? And when is it appropriate to be doing this?

I would hesistate to encourage my child to chase a Duke or a Wake Forest or a Furman education/soccer career unless there was a reasonable probability of a good package.

Advice I've heard in the past is the best way to do this is pick the school you want to go to and flood that coach with interest. Well, if that school is Furman and the package is insufficient.....as a parent have I done my kid a disservice by encouraging them to chase something that wasn't realistic?

Point to this is.......given the inadequate amount of scholarships available for soccer.....my guess is that coaches at schools like Furman need to be a lot more proactive with potential recruits than would the coach as Clemson or USC.

P&Y,

Great post. Thanks.....I agree with most of what you wrote.
For boys.......in between Furman, Clemson, USC, Winthrop, C of C, and Wofford......we have approx 15 full scholarships available per year (9.9 scholarships /4 years * 6 schools). Assuming those scholarships are offered as 1/2 scholarships. there should be about 30 boys getting 1/2 scholarship per year.

How many of those kids are instate? And if limited....why? Not good enough? Or coach wants to recruit from CA, TX or NY?

I agree about money; that is a key issue. In girls soccer, most colleges are COUNTING on academic money. And the expensive colleges are at a real disadvantage unless the recruit has $$$ from other sources. But I believe the bigger programs count on girls wanting to come. This is a much different world that guys sports. Ultimately, I think this is where you see how the world is not completely fair. The elite female athletes still will not see $$$ for college or a career as often as elite males, right?

Why is this? Don't girls get an extra 3 scholarships for soccer? With Title 9 I don't see how the girls get shorted.

Not saying they don't.....just don't knwo how thats possible in the very quantifiable world of sports, scholarships, and gender equity.

Market forces—people would still rather see male athletes in college and professional sports. This is a reality. In the big picture, many fine female athletes are being ignored while many, many marginal male athletes get chance after chance to play college and pro sports.

I'm not complaining, but observing. Having a daughter who is an athlete and a wife who was an elite athlete, it does seem unfair.

Even our girls teams have male coaches more often than not.