Recruiting Online Event

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jcgatennismom

Professional
LoxBage said:
Have anyone seen this event online? https://virtual.universitysports.com/

Looks legit with a good amount of coaches, but I wanted to check if anyone has experience before signing up for it. Thank you
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I think that event is run by Oscar Miranda who has a good reputation. Full disclosure-I dont know anyone personally who has gone to the live or virtual showcase. However I know that D1 coaches (but there are more coaches from other divisions), even at least one Ivy League Coach had attended past live showcases. Join this free FB recruiting site: https://www.facebook.com/groups/808424032556193 or search for College Tennis Recruitment Video Group on fB. You can look for posts by Oscar Miranda there and college coaches replies to him. Also his Sept 30 post showed part of a spreadsheet of players he had placed including players at D1 (mostly MM for guys).

Are you looking for a son or daughter? When do they graduate? On the CTRV free site, recruits can post video, UTR, desired major, and available budget, and receive some replies from coaches. Most are d3, NAIA, or D2; there are D1 coaches that are members of the website but if they reply, I assume they do it via private message. However, it is a tough time to be a recruit. Lot of players in the transfer portal-players looking for 5th year, players whose teams were cut. Some teams have no openings except walk ons for 21/22 as their seniors are returning or the spots are filled by graduate transfers.
 
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A

andfor

Legend
jcgatennismom said:
I think that event is run by Oscar Miranda who has a good reputation. Full disclosure-I dont know anyone personally who has gone to the live or virtual showcase. However I know that D1 coaches (but there are more coaches from other divisions), even at least one Ivy League Coach had attended past live showcases. Join this free FB recruiting site: https://www.facebook.com/groups/808424032556193 or search for College Tennis Recruitment Video Group on fB. You can look for posts by Oscar Miranda there and college coaches replies to him. Also his Sept 30 post showed part of a spreadsheet of players he had placed including players at D1 (mostly MM for guys).

Are you looking for a son or daughter? When do they graduate? On the CTRV free site, recruits can post video, UTR, desired major, and available budget, and receive some replies from coaches. Most are d3, NAIA, or D2; there are D1 coaches that are members of the website but if they reply, I assume they do it via private message. However, it is a tough time to be a recruit. Lot of players in the transfer portal-players looking for 5th year, players whose teams were cut. Some teams have no openings except walk ons for 21/22 as their seniors are returning or the spots are filled by graduate transfers.
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This one does look legit. My guess is that internationals who need the exposure may benefit most. For those who are under DI level I still contend that those domestic athletes motivated to play can save these costs and find the right school and program with a little work.
 
J

jcgatennismom

Professional
andfor said:
This one does look legit. My guess is that internationals who need the exposure may benefit most. For those who are under DI level I still contend that those domestic athletes motivated to play can save these costs and find the right school and program with a little work.
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I agree. When these showcases were live, they were usually held in Florida in Dec between Eddie Herr in Nov and Orange Bowl in Dec. There are internationals training in Florida including those who are not high enough level to play the higher jr ITFs but there were usually some grade 4s in Florida during that time period too. I think all were cancelled for this year.

@LoxBage what @andfor says is true-if you are American, it may be better to spend your $ traveling to and playing tournaments vs a virtual showcase where you can only talk to coaches. In the past, the live showcase might have been a good idea for an American who could not afford to play many jr USTA/ITF tourneys, maybe just played high school, and was under-ranked. If that player played well at a showcase and showed his true level of ability, it was a great investment-cheaper than playing a ton of sectional tourneys to get in the top national tourneys to be seen by college coaches. However, in the years since my son was recruited, there has been a dramatic increase in UTR events-even during this pandemic, so there is no excuse for an American junior not to have results and video. Players dont have to play a ton of expensive USTA tourneys to get in a tourney to play 4star + juniors. They can just sign up for a UTR or ITA circuit event with a tough draw. If your recruit is open to all divisions, he/she may get the results he/she needs just playing locally-may an open that has adults, collegians, and juniors with a wide mix of levels. There are some tourneys with a range of UTR 6 to UTR 14, but the best tourney would be one where if your recruit played well, he/she would have the opportunity to play opponents UTR 1.0-1.5 higher.

If you can afford doing a virtual showcase in addition to live tourneys, it may help your child to be comfortable talking to college coaches. However, if you choose the right fit, an Email with your son or daughter's UTR, grad year, GPA, and SAT/ACT if available will get a coach's attention-add desired major and why he/she want to play for that college in the body text-fairly simple but it works. The other big factor that recruits may not realize is the influence of the junior academy coach. College coaches know high performance jr coaches who have successfully sent players to D1 colleges, and if that academy coach asks the college coach to watch his/her player at a tourney, the college coach probably will. These include local HPCs with a good reputation-certainly players dont have to attend a boarding academy to be recruiting for D1. Recruits with lesser known academy coaches will have to earn attention with results and/or video. There are more open roster spots for US females so there are probably more D1 coaches looking for women at these showcases rather than men.
 
T

texrunner

New User
LoxBage said:
Thank you very much to everyone. This was very helpful. @jcgatennismom I am now looking at the Facebook group. Thank you very much.
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I can vouch for Oscar- he and his group run good events and he’s got a good reputation among college coaches.
Also, this probably goes without saying, but for goodness sakes don’t write to coaches on behalf of your child, either through emails or through the Facebook group that has been recommended in this thread. The coach wants to hear from the recruit, not from the parent!
My daughter recently committed to a D 3 program and all her communications with the various coaches were written by her - yes I helped her at first and read them before she pressed send, but she took the initiative. It got to where when she had narrowed the list of schools down to 2, she was writing the coaches without even consulting me and got very comfortable with the communications.
Good luck and as someone who has just finished this journey let me know if you have any questions!
 
O

OZ88

New User
First of all, I am Oscar Miranda as mentioned by @jcgatennismom and @texrunner and I am the lead advisor for USP, and as mentioned we run these events. I want to start by thanking both for the great feedback regarding USP reputation among coaches. Now regarding the event itself, @LoxBage is an event that will guarantee communication with college coaches, 171 have signed up at this moment, and where you can chat with them virtually and have video calls. Why this could be beneficial compared to other alternatives is mainly because every coach in the event is there to recruit (they are confirmed with an opening for one of the next two classes).

Let me know if you will have questions, I know I am limited here by rules of the forum, that I agree completely.
 
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