Visitor from the east coast here with an 04 GK daughter who is quite serious about playing top 30 D1 in college. I am a complete novice at college sports and recruiting generally so would love some tips from this forum. She’s playing on a mid-level DA team (sweet spot between seeing no touches on the ball during games and being pummeled), doing some specialized GK training, emailing coaches before showcases, all of that stuff. Has even had some interest from YNT coaches. But it’s not clear to me how the landscape works for keepers or whether the advice she’s getting from her coaches, who are good but not great at the college recruiting thing, is enough. Any tips for us for this year, her sophomore year in HS, before what I hear is the real action next fall?
GK Girls college recruiting — how different from field players?
- Thread starter MMMM
- Start date
Mystery Train
GOLD
I wish I could say there’s one reliable process to follow that will always work. But there’s many roads to Rome... as someone else on this board says.
It’s not a lot different for keepers than field players except the process starts a little later. Try to narrow her target programs to a handful, and go hard on those schools. Go to their camps, email incessantly, try to get your club coaches to reach out on her behalf.
The big thing I have learned is this: If you don’t need athletic scholarship money, let them know right up front and the doors will fly open. If (like us) you need financial assistance, it’s amazing how quiet it can get no matter what you or she does. If she’s a starter on a decent DA or ECNL team, there’s plenty of D1 schools, even top programs, that could give her a roster spot but getting money is the hard part. So the first question is what is your family’s target for college tuition costs? If money isn’t an issue, aim high and be persistent. If you need money, she’s going to have to not just be great, she’s going to need to be special. If she’s that special (think top 1%) then she’s liable to get recruited by those top schools no matter what you do.
The problem with this is that a “special” 15 year old keeper doesn’t always end up being a “special” 22 year old keeper... so college recruiting is a real crap shoot at the younger ages. The changes to the recruiting rules making them wait till Junior year to have these conversations is a good thing, at least for your daughter. A lot of the 2020 and 2021 money at those top schools was spoken for long before my kid and her teammates were juniors.
Keepers (girls and boys) are recruited later as a general rule. Know the competition. Every D1 program is looking for keepers that are tall (5'10"+ for girls) and (6'2"+ for boys) and skilled and have the grades to be accepted. They don't need to settle if scholarship money is in play. Its also not uncommon that a college will let shorter keepers walk-on because they need the canon fodder for practices. A school carrying 3 to 4 keepers is likely only focused on 2 of those.
D1 schools also have strict contact rules. Fundamentally, you need to be realistic. She needs to have the grades and intangibles the school is looking for.
D1 schools also have strict contact rules. Fundamentally, you need to be realistic. She needs to have the grades and intangibles the school is looking for.
The first roster that came out in my son's Freshman year at Davis had 4 goalkeepers on it, one in each grade. The Senior was getting the bulk of the playing time early on. Then the Sophomore dropped off, the Senior got injured, the Junior backup got injured also (one was a shoulder, the other a concussion - I don't remember which was which). The Freshman ended up as a pretty good starter - for 4 years.