There is no perfect system for contacting coaches. Many will want you to chase them, while others may become frustrated if you are consistently pinging them. As a general rule, the more interested you appear, the more a coach will try to recruit you. Depending on the level of the team and size of school, the coach can have anywhere from a handful to thousands of college soccer hopefuls contacting them. It’s always best to assume it is the latter and to make sure whatever you do when contacting a coach, you make yourself stand out in a positive way.
The main thing to remember is it’s the responsibility of the coach to follow the rules, so if you are unsure as to whether you are allowed to speak with a coach, they will tell you. If you are not hearing back from a coach, this does not necessarily mean they are not interested in you. However, if you are a senior and it is the middle of January and they have not returned any of your correspondence or phone calls, chances are they do not have a place in their program for you. Time to move on.
Tips that should help you at this stage of the recruiting process:
- Be as proactive about the process as you can. The more coaches you communicate with the more options you have and the more familiar you will become with the types of questions they will ask.
- A college coach can only call or visit you after July 1 of your junior year. That means a coach cannot place an outbound call to you, nor can he or she initiate a visit to your home or school specifically to talk to you about playing a sport at his or her school, until the summer before your senior year. Remember, this deals only with outbound communication from a coach. If a coach tells you s/he cannot talk to you, do not take it personally: it‘s part of the rules.
- It is important to respond to all coaches, and do not burn any bridges. For example, you may desperately want to go to College A, while College B is a distant second. But perhaps you are a right back, and College A has three very strong right backs already, all of whom are returning next year, so that coach may not have a spot for you. College B is in desperate need of a good right back and you would be the perfect fit. If you ignore the coach of College B, s/he will go find a different right back and suddenly you are left without an option. Plus, there are many things, such as a visit to a school, that may change your mind.
- Visit the school. Learn about Unofficial Visits and Official Visits in the Campus Visits section later in this document.
- Do not commit until you are 100% certain.