I noticed that Haverford lists an interim head coach, Kevin Brenner, on their website.  It’s not unusual to have an interim, but usually they are an assistant coach finishing up their contract.  Brenner is coming from a stint as an assistant at D1 LaSalle.

https://www.haverfordathletics.com/sports/msoc/coaches/index

100% makes sense.  I appreciate you all sharing on the facility front!  Definitely something to be mindful of...and coming from SoCal, an important thing for sure.

Changing gears a bit here...I'm curious what are some of the top questions my son should be asking coaches during the recruiting process?  Of course, there are the obvious things about school, campus, academic/athletic balance, etc.  But anything not so obvious (e.g. does practice time ever conflict with class time, etc.)?

Would love any thoughts that will help to better prepare him for these discussions.  Thanks!

You can find a lot of sites that give a bunch of generic questions you can use with your son to help develop your own.  Here's one that's pretty extensive (although not geared to DIII specifically, so you wouldn't ask about athletic scholarships or red shirts, for instance)

https://www.arizonasoccerclub.com/page/show/2478643-questions-to-ask-a-college-coach

My advice would be to really research a program and then ask questions that you can't find answers to on their website.  For example, if they have 40 players on their roster and there is no indication of a reserve or JV team schedule, then ask about it and how the coach manages that size squad.  If they do, however, then you can ask (after they have seen you) whether you are being recruited for the varsity or reserve team, if there is movement between the two teams, and if so, at what point in a player's career.  I wouldn't ask about a team's playing style, however, without first watching some game recordings from last season (and if they don't have them easily accessible on the website; ask if they have a link).  Then, if something is unclear, ask about it.  For example, if they play differently from game-to-game, use different formations, or different players play differently (e.g., one GK always punts and another throws or distributes with his feet - is that directed from the bench or just personal style/decision-making).  That shows you can watch and understand the game and you are interested in the details.   It's also not bad to ask real questions that also put yourself in a good light (e.g., will I have access to balls and field space to do extra work), but you don't want to lay it on too thick.

By the way, on the practice time issue, that is something that some coaches will proudly tell you when they start really recruiting your player (usually the higher academics want parents to know that practices don't conflict with classes) and others you have to ask.  One clue, though, is to see if their practice field has lights.  It gets dark awfully early in other parts of the country compared to Socal, especially later in the season and after the time change. 

It looks like Naz Kabbani from Univ of Chicago's 2022 Championship team has re-joined Chicago House AC, who he played with last summer, in its US Open Cup run.  Nice to see him be able to extend his playing career a little (although I think this is a non-professional gig and he is probably working somewhere).

https://twitter.com/ChicagoHouse_AC/status/1636415167914479617?s=20

Another coach and program that truly impressed me.  Another one in Texas.

SimpeCoach to Coach Interview with Nick Mims, Head Men's Coach at Concordia University

Thanks for making an effort to introduce your viewers/listeners to some coaches and programs in Region X.  I don't think people back east really understand the travel challenges they face.

It looks like the massive geographic conference shifts aren’t limited to the D1 conferences.  The SAA announces that Trinity TX and Southwestern will be joining them in all sports.

https://saa-sports.com/news/2023/3/9/general-saa-welcomes-southwestern-university-and-trinity-university-texas-as-full-time-members.aspx

Don't mean to stick my nose in, because I haven't had a kid go through this process and my "recruitment" took place in the dinosaur age, but...

Check your kid's weather tolerance. Like... Coming from SoCal, you need to make sure that if you get things narrowed down that you visit some of these midwestern and northeastern schools during February. When it's 12 degrees out and it gets dark at 4pm. Not even kidding a little. Lots and lots of folks are going to nope right out of that situation.

A lot of people go on campus visits in the spring and summer and have no idea what an east coast winter can look and feel like.

This is a good point.  I know a lot of D1 recruits from SoCal who are doing official visits in February.  Part of that is because a junior can't do an official visit (one paid for by the D1 school) until after January 1 of their junior year and waiting until the fall when the team is back in-season is often too late to get the best players.  Still, they could do it April during spring games, but they often accelerate those official visits to the heart of winter (after the students return to campus, which is often the third week in January or later in many cold-weather places) because coaches want the SoCal or AZ players to know what they are getting themselves into.  In a era of free transfers, it doesn't do the coach any good to recruit players who are going to be unhappy because of something like the weather.  D3s probably should do the same, but they can't pay for recruits to visit at any time and so it's up to the player and his parents to push for this. 

I have heard of virtual visits in February where D3 coaches can at least show the recruits the snow on the ground, but it's not quite the same.  One thing they can do, however, is show you where the kids play when it's cold.  I think kids under-rate the value of a fieldhouse when they come from a place like Los Angeles where they are basically non-existent.  Playing futsal is great (kids do it year-round here outside and inside), but sharing an indoor basketball court area isn't the same as a true fieldhouse with turf.

One other consideration for a kid from SoCal is that travel can be an issue going to a small liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere  There are a ton of beautiful schools in the northeast where there are no direct flights and the nearest airport is pretty far away.  Travel delays and cancellations for a kid flying alone can be a real pain and many small schools aren't near major airports.  For some schools (e.g., Hamilton), flying a red eye from LA to Syracuse with a stop in Chicago might be the best option to get to campus and not miss another full day of classes given the three hour time difference.  And if you've never flown a red eye that is not non-stop, it basically means getting 3-4 hours of sleep under the best of circumstances.  In this case, you would still have a decent drive to get to campus even when you arrive.

Quote from: Kuiper on March 01, 2023, 12:40:41 am

Quote from: SimpleCoach on February 28, 2023, 10:18:34 am

My first conversation on the West Coast!  Enjoyed this one and even got to speak Californian for a little.

A SimpleCoach to Coach Interview with Duncan Gillis, Head Men's Coach at CalTech

Nice to hear an interview from a coach in the SCIAC!  Unfortunately, Coach Gillis is too new, too polite, and Cal Tech is too sui generis for him to throw shade at other schools the way Dr. Jay Martin ignores Kenyon to @PaulNewman's utter annoyance.    Gillis could have at least agreed with you that CMS is currently a hot mess, right?

Seriously, though, it would be great for SCIAC and DIII soccer in Socal if Cal Tech found its footing and became more of a competitor.  From 2012-2016, Cal Tech didn't win a single game.  To beat LaVerne 2-1 on the last game of the 2022 season to end at 3-8-2 is a major accomplishment.  Three wins is the second most they have had in any season since 2006, which is as far back as I could find on their website, and this is the first year they have ever had more than 1 conference win going back to 2006.

I'm always stunned when reminded that Cal Tech has a program at all, which seems as improbable or more so than Reed having a program or almost as improbable as Deep Springs (OK, that's a stretch and yes I know Deep Springs is a 2 year deal involving a unique combo of Plato, Aristotle, livestock, and agriculture).

I'm gonna let the Dr. Jay Martin reference go as I lose every time and/or pick up more negative karma from the nostalgia elites.  I'll just note that I'm very comfortable with Kenyon's soccer history in the Great Lakes region and nationally, especially over the past decade dovetailing with the period of my greatest interest, and with the Owls #1 spot among US colleges and universities in terms of Fulbright awards, Ph.D.s, world class human beings, and #1 oldest US and college bookstores....No need for any fact-checks...just take my word for it.

I think we're long past overdue to learn a little more about our Kuiper friend who has masterfully and elegantly poked fun at a number of us or our schools and as far as I can tell has yet to feel the sting of wounded backlash.  For all of his excellent participation, all we know (unless I missed it somewhere) is that he resides in California (the warmer part) and is well versed about the college landscape in general and especially the upper tiers of undergraduate education.  He's shown some interest in GK topics but also has had keen insights across a range of topics.  He never dropped out of my top 5 of posters in 2022 and no one would have blinked had he won Newcomer of the Year (and perhaps he did from some publications).  At any rate, was he a GK?  Does he have a kid who is a GK?  A kid on the East Coast?  In the NESCAC or UAA?  Part of the burgeoning W&L industrial complex?  A branch of the Brandon Bianco social media blitz?  Or maybe in the Pac NW at Willamette or Whitman? No pressure at all, but would be interesting to hear whatever you're willing or able to share.

Sorry to take the jab at you on the Jay Martin/Kenyon thing.  I couldn't resist (perhaps I should have!), but the contrast between the earnest, fresh-faced Gillis complimenting CMS and its program when Simple Coach tee'd him up by raising it, with the OWU/Kenyon thing was stark.  To be fair, Cal Tech doesn't have a rivalry with anyone as far as I can tell, although they beat LaVerne twice this season (my guess is they have never beaten a league opponent twice in one season in their history), so I expect the Leopards will have Cal Tech circled on their calendar for next season.

For reasons that are personal to me, I would like to maintain my anonymity, but I'm surprised you don't remember that my older brother played soccer at Kenyon.  I watched several of their games (both home and away) when I was a kid, including one game at Ohio Wesleyan.

Back to the Cal Tech point, I think it's useful to note that Coach Gillis references his AD several times.  Of course, that's his boss so he's not exactly neutral, but I don't think it would be surprising to find out that schools that chronically under-perform more or less across the board have ADs (and Boards of Trustees) that simply don't care much about success or failure on the field and the funding and support reflects that.  Cal Tech has attempted to change that to some extent.  For example, going to the Pacific Northwest to play Linfield College and Lewis & Clark is definitely not going to put Cal Tech in contention for an NCAA bid, but it might give them a chance to compete against teams closer to their level (especially Lewis & Clark, which will be in its second season) and it's not a cheap trip since you have to fly there.

Notwithstanding its increased support, I think Gillis is being too modest about his own role.  He has been actively recruiting at many of events in Southern California.  It's a really tough job because most of your time is wasted given the admissions standards, but he's right that his freshman class demonstrates that it only takes a couple of pretty good kids a year to make a difference.  If they do nothing else but keep kids in CA who might otherwise get into MIT, Hopkins, Chicago, Carnegie Mellon, etc and get a kid every so often who could qualify at Cal Tech, but prefers Harvey Mudd because of the superiority of the soccer team at CMS, he will have done a ton.

ToddFather - nice to have someone else from the Best Coast on the Board!

On timing, I think sophomore year is actually a great time to start reaching out to DIII coaches.  DI coaches can't talk to you or respond to your emails (other than to invite you to an ID camp) until June 15 before your junior year.  So, DIII coaches have you all to themselves in sophomore year.  Don't be discouraged if not all of them take advantage of that.  The best recruiters are very aggressive with sophomores, arranging Zoom calls and making connections, while others will basically ignore you until you get closer to actually being ready to get a pre-read in the summer before your senior year.  Even the latter group, however, can sometimes look back at a recruit they like at a showcase or ID camp and be encouraged to see that you have contacted them multiple times already with updates.  By then, your son may even have experience speaking with coaches because of those initial connections he started in 10th grade.  Moreover, by starting early, your son will learn how to craft the emails to make them personalized and how to cut the video to emphasize his best qualities up-front.  He also will be compiling a set of highlights he can select from later on when the videos become more important.

I also think East Coast DIII private schools like to hear from kids on the West Coast.  Virtually all the top liberal arts colleges cloistered in the upper Northeaast quadrant of the country have to recruit from the other three quadrants and their admissions departments want their coaches to serve as ambassadors for the schools for those areas.  Since it's often too expensive for them to attend events widely on the west coast, they need kids to contact them to help them make their recruiting more cost-efficient.  Some will even recruit just on the highlight videos because of the costs for both parties in making the cross-country trips.

Having said that, the ID camp can be an important tool, but I wouldn't go national until summer before junior year.  Try to go to ones in your area this spring if you just want to give your kid a chance to see what an ID camp is like and to get a sense if your kid is targeting the right level of schools.  I'm not personally a big fan of the multi-school outside provider ID camps (e.g., Exact etc), especially as a sophomore and especially if it is not on the campus of a school.  One of the reasons to go to a DIII school's individual ID camp as a younger player is just to get a sense for whether your kid really knows what that means in terms of being on a smaller school and what the facilities might look like for soccer.  As a practical matter, at many schools, they will divide up the camp between seniors and juniors (who go with the head coach) and sophomores and younger (who will go with an assistant coach).  It's not worthless, but it's not really about ID for the younger kids.  If you're looking for options on the West Coast, Whitman has one scheduled for April 15 that might be worth checking out if you're in the Pacific Northwest.  Willamette in Salem, Oregon also runs ID camps every six weeks in the spring and summer.  I think those are a bit more about making money than anything else (4 camps between April and August is a lot), but it's a good soccer program and you'll learn something about the program, the school, and the level.  In SoCal, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pomona-Pitzer usually have camps at some point that are pretty small, while Occidental has a multi-school camp that has the virtue of attracting D1 and D3 kids if your son wants to see where he stacks up and sometimes brings in coaches from east coast schools (Swarthmore and Bowdoin were at the winter ID camp in Los Angeles).  UC Santa Cruz is having a camp April 2 if you are in NorCal.

As for the number of schools, I agree with others that you should cast a really wide net.  Unless your son is focused on a DIII school that offers engineering or something very specialized like that, there are tons of schools that might fit the bill and you don't have enough info to distinguish among them yet.  Once you have the highlight video, might as well spread it far and wide.  The one caveat is if your son, as a sophomore, is not organized and willing to check his email regularly and respond to coaches promptly, then limit it to what he can manage.  Bad first impressions are lasting in the recruiting world.

Best of luck to your son!