My College Recruitment Journey ⚽️

If you’re new to this community, my name is Ethan Harris. I wanted to start this newsletter by highlighting my journey. In my youth, I played competition, region, and varsity soccer before playing academy-level soccer for Real Salt Lake’s academy. I was selected to travel overseas with a select few such as Taylor Booth. (now playing for the USMNT and Utrecht FC in the Eredivisie)

I received interest from the Air Force Academy, a division one program playing in the WAC, through a college showcase. My main takeaway from that experience was that there is a simple path to getting looks at playing college soccer.

This is how I did it:

1. Build the best relationship with your club, academy, or high school coaches.

2. Make sure you play on a team that attends high-level college showcases.

3. Do your due diligence in communicating your college soccer goals with your coach and email all of the coaches attending the showcase.

Why does this work?

This works because your coach is going to be in communication with the coaches attending your team’s games. They normally ask for the coach’s feedback and what players to look for.

If your name is mentioned and advocated for, you have emailed them/contacted them in some form, and your game shows for it, then there is a good chance you will get a response from one of those coaches.

Instagram profile set up:

Instagram profiles should include your GPA, team, position, email, and a link to your YouTube channel or highlight reel. Utilize the Instagram highlight feature to put all of your highlight clips in. Do this by posting the reel, posting the reel to your story, and then adding the story to an IG highlight.

Follow as many college coaches as possible and consider DM’ing a link to your highlight reel if they follow you back.

Post one highlight clip per week:

• 8-12 seconds

• Add captions if applicable

• Use trending sounds

Emails that get responses

Here is a simple video highlighting some decent practices on how to write a good email. I have a slightly different method that I use in my job every single day, so I’ll link both:

Common method: The IMG Academy coach talks briefly about do’s and don’ts for email writing.

My email example:

Subject: You attended my game

Body:

Hey, Coach ___,

It was mentioned that you attended (team 1) vs (team 2). I wanted to follow up and express my interest in playing for (college). Given your success last year in (mention specifics about the season), my academic and athletic goals align. Here are the quick stats from the season the highlight reel was filmed during.

• Goals:

• Assists:

• LINK HIGHLIGHT REEL

Let me know what you think!

Best regards,

Ethan Harris - Class of ____

Put your phone number

What I like about my email method is that it gets straight to the point, it’s personalized, and it stands out from the more basic emails coaches get from players.

Checklist to start on TODAY:

Let’s switch gears now that we talked about my college recruitment journey, how to build your Instagram account, and how to write the perfect email to college coaches.

Use the bullet points below to immediately get started on building your personal brand. This will come in handy for years to come!

• Create Instagram, Youtube, Hudle account

• Buy gear to start filming games

• Create a highlight reel (long form)

• Create highlight clips (short form for Instagram reels/YouTube shorts)

Path to College Soccer Summarized:

1. Go through our checklist and build your personal brand

2. Get on a team that attends high-level college showcases

3. Build rapport with the coach and make clear what your college soccer goals are

4. Email coaches attending the showcases

5. DM your player profile, highlight reel and social media accounts

Feedback is appreciated :)

I’d appreciate some quick feedback to make this truly valuable for you and your soccer journey! In the comments let me know what you’re hoping to get out of this newsletter. Feel free to include topics, pain points, goals, and anything else that I can do to save you time and money on this, which, at times, is an overwhelming journey.