Soccer through the Ages--Path to Pro-- Beyond the High School Game

Dear Parent,

Dear Athlete,

This letter is to assist parents and players understand the steps they can take to expand their game to the "next level".  As a Referee in Southeast Ohio, I see many players who have the technical abilities but who seem uninformed of the particular access points to the higher game.  This letter is intended to increase the number of players from the southeast who learn to extend themselves to become visible to their next coach and team.

By seeing the bigger picture parents can be prepared for what their role will entail in the coming years, and players can connect their youth club level playing experience within the larger context of the high school, collegiate, professional, and international game.

Extending yourself as a player means--

making the most of each season-- whether it is fun or not, successful or not, challenging or not, the team needs a positive and productive asset who can set emotional issues aside in between the first and last whistle and the player needs to groom his/her sensibility to withstand the pressures of competition regardless of readily perceived benefits.

learning and performing your role on the team--you may want to play attacker, but your skill set has placed you somewhere else, at least for the time being. It is fair to explain to the coach how you do or do not "enjoy" your position as long as you accept the role the team needs done from that part of the pitch.

pursuing positive social relationships-- teams spend time away from the field, and friends on a team make the experience better for everyone.  Try to seek out relationships based on honest emotions that make you feel comfortable and accepted.

working to refine technical skills and tactical understanding-- if you love the game, there are many ways to enrich your understanding, and there is one and one way only to attain technical skill and that requires a ball and player.

establishing a relationship with your next team-- it is difficult to walk onto a pitch with not a friend in the game and perform in front of a coach who has never seen you play.  Coaches want to see you play in multiple situations.  You can help by learning as much as you can about the coach and team and introducing yourself to the coach: watching the team play, learning the players and the style of game, attending camps, inviting the coach to your games, creating an edited highlight video to send to the coach.

For a brief outline of the skills progression from soccer tot to adult see--http://howtosoccerblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/soccer-through-ages-pre-k-to-career.html

At the collegiate level, your choice of teams or schools from which to pursue recruitment attention should arise from your own research on numerous programs--that means the coach, the team, and the team's off-season routines--as well as the Institution from Academic, Geographic, and Financial Aid Perspectives.

Looking through the Geographic lens, two NCAA Division III level conferences come into focus, the Ohio Athletic Conference--http://www.oac.org/sports/wsoc/index-- and the North Coast Athletic Conference--http://www.northcoast.org/sports/wsoc/index.  Also NAIA schools-http://www.rio.edu/newsletter/RedStorm-Athletics-Feature-31.cfm- Rio Grande and Shawnee State-http://www.ssubears.com/sport/0/8.php- in the NAIA and in the Mid South Conference-http://www.mid-southconference.org/sport/0/2.php. 

Some of these coaches come highly recommended as folks who care about the student-athlete and will pursue the best for the young person to assist them achieving their life's goals.

Where you can start is 

search lists of schools in this region for your chosen academic program and learn which programs meet your needs best.  You need not know your exact major, but you are seeking schools that offer areas of study appropriate to your academic and professional goals.

learn about the coaches, team history, and team routines, you are looking for alignment with your positional abilities and what you can bring to the team and for how the team can allow you to play your best game.

research available financial aid outside of any potential athletic award because collegiate coaches have limited budgets and often award their scholarship money to returning players or players who have come from another country.   By becoming a valuable & contributing member of the team, you will earn your right to athletic awards, possibly including scholarship.

introduce yourself to the coach by attending a summer camp at the school, playing for a youth team local to the coach and inviting him/her to your games, playing in Showcase events with your team or as a guest player, or creating a two minute highlight video showcasing your brightest moments from recent seasons.  If there is mutual interest, then a potential relationship may be maintained with a season-by-season check-in. 

Each of these above steps will narrow the field of choices.  Apply these steps to schools outside of these two conferences and outside of the state depending on your geographic preferences.

You will look to generate a list of 7-15 schools out of which a few should be less difficult to gain academic admission and/or afford financially, a few should be mid-range using these same criteria, and a select few more should be more difficult to access, but remain nonetheless realistic.
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Then you can reach out to the coaches with your Player Information Package you worked on since freshman year--an introduction letter including your test dates/scores and a short collage of video clips as described above.

Finally, you should understand that the talent that has gotten you where you are as a player has obviously been supplemented with hard work.  Every collegiate player brings natural talent to the field; it is the athlete whose work ethic, psychological motivation, and talent can synthesize throughout the fall season, who remains the most sought after in sport.

Path to Pro

 It is becoming more widely known that Major League Soccer exists as the top flight of a tiered professional system in North America.  United Soccer Leagues or USL and the Premier Development League or PDL each are arranged as "feeder" leagues for Major League Soccer.

The USL documents the success of transitioning players from the Collegiate to the Professional First Division through their Path2Pro concept.  Top Collegiate level players from NCAA Division I, II, and III and NAIA standout players will spend their summer season playing in the PDL.  These PDL teams have regular spring tryouts and exist as close to Southeastern Ohio as Charleston West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Dayton, and Cincinnati.

The National Women's Soccer League has teams in major metropolitan areas

#	NWSL	GP	W	L	T	PTS
1.	Chicago Red Stars	7	4	0	3	15
2.	Washington Spirit	8	4	3	1	13
3.	Boston Breakers	7	3	3	1	10
4.	FC Kansas City	8	3	4	1	10
5.	Houston Dash	7	2	2	3	9
6.	Seattle Reign FC	6	2	2	2	8
7.	Portland Thorns FC	7	2	3	2	8
8.	Western New York Flash	6	2	3	1	7
9.	Sky Blue FC	8	1	3	4	7

Navigating soccer after high school takes work, dedication, talent, resources, focus, abilities, and perseverance, and it can be done.  As players realize their hard work on the field needs to be supported with a positive social and professional ethic off the field, the relationships between collegiate coaches and "southeastern region" players will improve.

When an expanding base of local players continues their playing careers after their varsity seasons have ended, this article will become less relevant to southeastern youth and parents.  The goal is create a culture from which are launched the model athletes of the next age.

If that goal seems ambitious in 2015, we ought to reevaluate again in 2020.

Mind                                    Body                                 Spirit                                    Soccer