Earlier this evening, BOTN Industries received a call from one of our sponsors, Premier Soccer. Director Dave Phaff indicated that he has a summer U/16 showcase team that is attending several of the events that we mentioned. Please contact him directly for more information - click on the Premier Soccer banner at the top of this display. Good luck!

It could be worse, you could be on the Quickstrike team.

Videotaping Games - If anyone would like advice on how best to shoot video of their child for recruiting purposes, ask away. The advice is free here at BOTN!

As we are heading into the Easter holiday week, remember that visiting college campuses this week is a high priority to get a flavor of what your target campus environment will have in store for your young student-athlete.

Also, we are only six weeks away from the Memorial Day weekend showcase tournaments. Be sure that your invitations to your target college coaches are being sent at this point along with any scheduling information, field locations, and additional details.

let me know your current team. My daughter is looking for a new Fall U-17 D-1/2 team.

Reminder to our readers : Remember that the end-May Memorial Day showcases are quickly coming into focus. Be sure to get those college coach invitations and team/player profiles updated, printed, and distributed for your next showcase events.

Be sure to review our Communications Thread and in particular, review the "do's and don'ts" of constructing your college contacts.

I have a question. How important are the showcase tournaments now if my daughter is entering 11th grade in Sept? I just got an e-mail from New Hampshire Univ. They recruited 6 new girls this year. They gave us their backgrounds and all they mentioned were their high school accomplishments. Not once did they mention club ball.Does it matter if you play for a region 1 team or Nerp team? Does Div. 2 give out scholarships?I know it is quite a few questions but I hope you can help me. Thanks.

First, thank you for joining the conversation here on the College Forum. Most students will begin their showcasing in the U/16 season with some preliminary groundwork done at the U/15 season on a team level to lay a solid foundation of league and tournament records. If your daughter is an older (August to November) child on her club team, she will be entering the start of the true recruiting cycle with the whole team at U/16.

In soccer, showcase tournaments are where invited coaches come to see players in game situations. The BOTC College Forum's Communications : Profiles, Letters, Contacts would be a great starting point to answer some basic questions regarding showcase preparation.

Most universities will discuss their players' academic backgrounds (high school details including sports) and only some will discuss premier or club team activities. Some will add a line about the premier team if that team achieved some specific level of play (Region One Premier, Northeast Regional, or State Cup Champion, Finalist or SemiFinalist).

It "matters" potentially based on the level of showcase events to which your team will be accepted. Clearly, Region One Premier League teams will be more desirable for a showcase organizer to accept than Northeast or Colonial League teams although all teams at this level will generally find some successful entries at the top showcase levels.

Once you reach to the President's League and levels below, top showcases are generally filled before teams in these leagues are chosen for admission. That said, there are midtier showcases throughout the region that cater for exactly this type of player/team.

Remember the key question is not so much the level of the showcase, but rather the coaches attending relative to the university interests of all the players on that team.

A fully funded Division I program will have more scholarship spots to allocate than a fully funded Division II program.

NCAA D1 Sport ...... Men's Women's
Soccer ............. 9.9 / 12.0

NCAA D2 Sport ...... Men's Women's
Soccer ............. 9.0 / 9.9

For more details, please consult the NCAA Rules and Regulations thread.

BOTN Industries hopes that this was a useful set of answers to get your college showcasing activities started.

how do you know what programs are fully funded?

You ask