Recruit Them Young
I was one of the lucky college coaches. I coached at Purdue University from 1999-2001. I recruited kids who had their driver’s license. They went to Homecoming. The parents allowed them to watch R rated movies. They probably had their first kiss and their second. Most likely they wrote high school papers on topics like Global Warming, The Ivory Trade, Roe vs Wade, Brown vs The Board of Education and how Hip Isn’t Hip if You’re Trying to Be Hip. In other words, I recruited seniors in high school or as I like to call them – little baby adults.
Today, college coaches recruit players out of nursery school.
College Coach: “Good balance. Likes to kick things. Prone to temper tantrum’s but I like her moxie. We can offer 50%.”
Parent: “Excellent, as soon as she’s old enough we’ll get her on a team. Is there anything she should start doing to prepare?”
CC: “Absolutely, here’s the program that all of our K4 and K5 recruits get. It includes everything from core training exercises to a list of coloring books geared toward the history and future of our program.”
P: “Fantastic! We’re very excited. It was a difficult decision but we let our daughter decide and she picked you guys. She really likes your school colors.”
CC: “They’re great aren’t they! By the way, what does your daughter plan on studying?”
P: “Well she likes eating and filling containers with anything that can be poured.”
CC: “So Food Science?!”
P: “Yes, probably Food Science.”
CC: “Perfect. We’ll see you in 2028!”
I did a fair amount of recruiting while at Purdue. For a guy who didn’t know how to talk to 17- and 18-year-old girls when I was 18, I still stunk at it when I was 29. I picked up recruits at the Indianapolis Airport in my 1984 cobalt Royale Brougham Luxury Sedan. A car that made most seniors in high school think, “Did your grandparents die and leave you a car?” Actually, I bought the car, thank you, and loved it. That machine glided along the pavement like a rolling day-dream. The front seat was a luxurious sofa. The steering wheel could turn 40 degrees and I’d still be going straight. The backseat was a matching luxurious sofa capable of seating between six and eight recruits. The trunk was bigger than a college dorm room and perfect for a few bags of soccer balls, golf clubs or dead bodies.
Luckily, the car became a quality conversation piece. I made dumb jokes about how “it’s like driving on a cloud” and how “it works well for napping” and “drag racing in retirement communities.” One kid, from Georgia, seemed to like the car and our conversation. I figured she was a shoe-in since I had her belly laughing about some toothless gas station cashier. She went to Auburn instead. I guess there are fewer rednecks in Alabama?
Over time, I found my recruiting niche: ask questions and don’t be phony – a fairly simple formula. I even helped land some pretty successful players, though it might have been the allure of the Royale Brougham.
The North Carolina Tar Heels are guilty of starting the trend of prepubescence player recruitment. From 1982 to 2000, NC won 16 of 19 National Championships due, in part, to their ability to get commitments from the best players in the country before other schools ever made contact. Rumors are they had a complex system of scientists, hypnotists and scouts inundating, brain-washing and drugging the kids. Either that, or they told their current UNC/US National Team players to talk to the Youth National Team players and tell them to come to UNC – I’m not sure which. You can’t blame UNC (unless, of course, you had to play them). They had a great program and a good school. They sold a quality product. Hell, in the 80s and 90s NC intra-squad scrimmages were more competitive than their games.
One day, the Head Coach told me we were going to have a sophomore on campus and we were going to make her an early offer. The process of getting a sophomore on campus is similar to grade school dating. According to NCAA rules, you can’t call the player yourself or email them. Therefore, like grade school, you send notes through other people. “Ask Nicole if she likes my school.” “Tell her I like her.” “Tell her I want her on my team.” “What did she say?” “Does she like us?” It’s quite sophisticated and how can I say this – stupid.
By the early 2000s everyone began imitating NC’s recruiting method of making offers to freshman and sophomores. It’s now the norm. I’ve yet to speak with a single coach who likes recruiting high school freshman and sophomores. I’ve yet to speak to a single coach who thinks it’s what’s best for the kids. Yet, I’ve yet to speak to a single coach who thinks the trend of recruiting young kids will go away if the rules don’t change.
And the rule just changed. In 2019, the coaches passed a rule disallowing any contact with freshman and sophomores on or off campus. Then they allowed official visits for juniors. What does this all mean? Hopefully, it means kids can play soccer for a few more years – as kids.
But don’t worry, someone knows a way to recruit them younger – like subliminal messages attached to insta-facebook-snap-twitter or randomly walking near potential recruits and talking about your program in a loud voice, “We could really use a left footed attacking midfielder from Springfield, MO with good grades in the class of 2022! We’d probably give that person 85%! I’m from The University of Your Dreams All Come True by the way and my email address is…”
Adoption might be another option; cloning would make the process super easy.
