Choosing the optimal college ID camps

The following is an excerpt from Win the College Soccer Recruiting Game: The Guide for Parents and Players, By Steve Gans. It follows up on a previously published excerpt, “Are college ID camps a necessary evil?”

ID camps have become an entrenched part of the college soccer process, and accordingly, the number and type of them have expanded. Here is a summary of the types of these camps as I see them, plus some commentary about the pluses and minuses of focusing on/attending them:

• College Specific: These ID Camps are run by a college program alone, and there are no other schools/coaches from other colleges at these camps. Obviously, your child should only attend such a narrowly focused ID Camp if they have a clear focus on the college at issue. The upside of attending a one-school ID Camp is that your child will be assured of being seen by each of the coaches in that particular program. The potential downside of attending a one college-only ID Camp is that it is an all eggs-in-one-basket approach, and if the coaches at that school are not interested in your child, some important energy will have been wasted. (As explained later, ID Camps are particularly demanding and grueling, and thus they must be kept to a reasonable number, lest your child suffer injury and/or burnout).

• Specific College Plus a Few: A variant of the College Specific ID Camp described above is an ID Camp nominally run by one college program but with recruiting coaches from a few other complementary schools attending. In most cases the main school will not want a college with which it competes in the recruiting of players to be present; so the other schools invited to attend may be from a different division (e.g., the ID Camp is held by and at a Division 1 school, and a Division 3 college is invited), or based on their respective athletic and/or academic profiles, may generally focus on different student-athletes. Given those parameters and the likely contrast in program/school profiles, at most you might find one other school at such camp (other than the host college) in which your child has interest. Thus, in effect this type of ID Camp has the same upsides and downsides as the College Specific ID Camp: namely, the assurance that you will be seen by all coaches from your dream school, vs. the all-eggs-in-one-basket risk that if you do not inspire interest from those coaches, no other schools/coaches of interest will put you on their radar.

• The Amalgam: These are ID Camps that bring together coaches from multiple colleges in one setting. On the low end, the Amalgam ID Camp may have coaches from 6 or so colleges attending, and on the higher end there could be as many as 12-15 schools in attendance. The upside on paper of an Amalgam ID Camp is that your child will not be putting all eggs in one basket, and in theory there will be a chance for multiple schools in which they have interest to observe their play in such setting. Of course, you must parse this, and confirm that amongst the attending schools at the particular ID camp there are a critical mass of those schools of interest to your child – and that of course is a case-by-case analysis, depending upon the structure and make-up of that camp. The potential downside of an Amalgam ID Camp is the risk that coaches from the school in which you have interest either won’t see your child play enough during the camp, period, or won’t see them at the right moments (a desired recruiting coach not seeing one’s child’s best plays is one of the Murphy’s Laws of the college soccer recruiting process). In this regard, in contrast to the College Specific ID camp, even if the soccer program of a highly desired college attends the camp, because it will only be one coach from that program, you cannot be assured of receiving a thorough look from your dream school even at an Amalgam ID Camp of appropriate size.

• The Bloated Amalgam: The growth and business of college soccer ID Camps has increased so much in recent years such that some entrepreneurs have expanded the concept of these camps to a size which is marketed as the “ideal” opportunity for your child, but in my opinion is a trap for the unwary. I call these camps the Bloated Amalgam ID Camps, and there are several of them that bring coaches from 30 different colleges together to observe 300 aspiring college soccer players in one setting. There is even one Bloated Amalgam ID Camp that brings coaches from 50 different colleges to observe 500 players! The marketed upside of these types of camps is that your child will have the chance to be seen in one camp by many schools they may have on their list. – (“Be seen by 50 colleges!”). This is the opposite of the all-eggs-in-one basket dilemma, and on paper it sounds enticing. But not so fast. The reality is far more complicated.

Think about it for a moment: if 50 coaches from 50 schools are collectively watching 500 players (or 30 coaches from 30 schools are watching 300 players for that matter), what are the odds that the coach from your child’s dream school (even if present at the camp) will get a thorough look at them? They are of course not particularly high. And, given the size and number of players present, it’s almost a guarantee that your child’s best and most memorable plays of that ID Camp will not be seen in the moment by the coach from the school of their dreams. Given that backdrop, I strongly recommend staying away from these extremely large ID Camps, as I believe the likely downsides outweigh any theoretical upside (which, for the reasons discussed, is unlikely to occur).

(“Important tips and traps,” the book’s next section, addresses “Scheduling/Don’t Overdo It,” “Which Coaches Matter,” “Keeping it Real/Keeping it Honest,” and “The Recommended Mix.”)

• Win the College Soccer Recruiting Game: The Guide for Parents and Players By Steve Gans (Alinea Learning), 146 pages, 2023 (available in paperback, Kindle & Nook)