“Your Bridge from Club to College Soccer” 

 

(San Ramon, California) – iSoccerPath, the premier education company for families of prospective college soccer student athletes, submitted a request to the NCAA to allow college coaches in all Divisions to be able to use video responses to recruit emails submitted by 14, 15, and 16 year olds.  

After going through NCAA assessment protocol, the NCAA approved the assessment that this type of video communication with recruits in grades 8-11 is acceptable.

They returned the assessment with a little known and practiced by-law that was enacted in 2005 (see below) NCAA 13.4.1.7 Electronic Correspondence.

Through the video format, college coaches are able to communicate clearly with potential recruits, replacing the outdated and confusing form email method with minimal information that is currently in place. Doing so will allow coaches nationwide to make sure high school players and families are on the same page regarding potential camp invites, future recruiting contact, and best practices. 

Over the last three years, iSoccerPath has held almost 100 college panels at clubs, ID camps, and tournaments, with 275 college coaches across the country participating. From those panels, the form email method continued to cause confusion and frustration from both families and college coaches from coast to coast.   

iSoccerPath Founder Jeff Jaye looked for a solution to the problem. “I wanted to find a way that worked for the coaches as well as the parents and players, because I went through it myself three times with my kids. When you hear about a problem that continues to be talked about in our College Soccer Panels for over two years, I was challenged to find a solution that works to help all kids of need and ability, while helping all the college coaches who support the iSoccerPath program as the best way to get a college roster spot in 2021 and beyond.”

“With coaches being able to verbalize things in a video for families, the ones who take advantage of it by getting their face and voice in the living room as compared to the standard form letter are going to have much more success forming relationships,” Jaye said. 

“I was surprised to find that this rule that was enacted over 15 years ago however, most coaches haven’t known about or taken advantage of. Our mission is to change the way recruiting is done in the U.S. through educational and teaching method vs. pay-per services that don’t produce results. We’ve done something that will impact all college coaches and help parents and kids in the youth soccer community by updating them all that they can proceed with video email replies.”

NCAA 13.4.1.7 Electronic Correspondence — General Rule. Electronic correspondence (e.g., electronic mail, Instant Messenger, facsimiles, text messages) may be sent to a prospective student-athlete (or the prospective student-athlete’s family members). Before a prospective student-athlete has signed a National Letter of Intent or the institution’s written offer of admission and/or financial aid, or the institution has received his or her financial deposit in response to its offer of admission, the correspondence must be sent directly to the prospective student-athlete (or his or her family members) and must be private between only the sender and recipient (e.g., no use of chat rooms, message boards or posts to “walls”). (See Bylaw 13.10.2.) There are no content restrictions on attachments to electronic correspondence, except that video and audio materials must conform to the requirements of Bylaw 13.4.1.10. [D] (Adopted: 4/28/05)