How to email college soccer coaches

It should let a coach decide in under a minute whether to watch your video. That takes five facts and one sentence that could only be about their school. Everything else can wait for the reply.

Subject: [Graduation year] [position], [club and league] - [your name]

Coach [last name],

My name is [first and last name]. I am a [graduation year] [position] for [club team], which plays in [league], and I attend [high school] in [city, state].

I am writing because [one true, specific reason for this school: the major you want, the way the team plays, a game you watched].

Highlight video ([length] minutes): [link]
Grades: [GPA] GPA [and a test score if you have one]
Height: [height]. Stronger foot: [right, left or both].
Club coach: [name and how to reach them]

My next games: [event, dates, city]. [Schedule link if you have one.]

Thank you for your time.

[Your name]
[Your phone] | [Your email]

Put the graduation year and the position first in the subject line. They are the two things a coach needs before deciding whether to read on.

To the staff of each program on your list: address it to the head coach and copy the assistant coaches, or the reverse if the program’s site names an assistant as recruiting coordinator. Coaches’ addresses are on each school’s athletics staff page. We hold an address for 5,517 of the 7,548 college soccer staff in our data.

Send one email per school, written to that school. A message sent to a long list of coaches at once reads like one, and the one sentence about “why this school” is how a coach tells the difference. Start from a list that fits: get a free target list.

• When you have video worth watching. An email without video gives a coach nothing to act on.
• Two or three weeks before an event the coach might attend, with your game times.
• After something changes: a new video, a new team, a result, better grades.
• Before the Division I date, not after. A Division I coach may not call or message before June 15 after sophomore year, but can read what you send and build a list for that day.

• No graduation year or position in the subject line.
• No video link, or a link that needs a login.
• The wrong school or coach’s name left in from the last email.
• A parent writing as the player. Coaches recruit the player and want to hear from them.
• A life story. Save it for the phone call.
• A level that does not fit. An email to a program far above or below your level is unlikely to be answered, however well it is written.

Fill in the recruiting questionnaire on the program’s website the same day: it puts you in the staff’s own database (how the questionnaire works). Then keep a simple record of who you wrote to and when. If there is no answer, write again with something new: how to follow up.