Soccer Recruiting and Soccer Scholarships - Soccer Injuries
Recently, I wrote an article about overuse injuries and how to prevent those injuries. Today I would like to tell you a real life situation so that you can understand the importance of preventing these injuries from happening in the first place. I want to do everything I can to increase your son or daughter's chances with the recruiting process as well as increasing their chances at a soccer scholarship.
I have coached a lot of soccer players and I am fortunate that I have not had as many significant knee injuries as a lot of coaches I talk to in the soccer community. I have had some players experience knee injuries, just like any other coach that has been coaching a while. Compared to most coaches I know, the injuries my teams have incurred have been much fewer and less severe. I believe that my focus on fitness and injury prevention has helped my players to avoid many of those injuries.
One example I do have is a young lady that I had been coaching soccer for a really long time. She was a solid soccer player and definitely should have been playing at the Division 2 level, probably with a partial scholarship. We had just finished up our club season and she was going into her high school soccer season. This was her senior year and she started the season having been recruited a bit but no final offers, however, shortly into that season she blew out her knee.
This was a player who was probably one of my best center midfielders, from an intellectual standpoint. Could have been a great player, a college player, likely a scholarship player… but she blew out her knee.
This is a really tough injury at any age; add to it, this is her senior year. She is going into the season with soccer coaches that are going to be scouting her and sizing her up against other players they are recruiting. Instead, she is looking at six months hard recovery to get back on the soccer field again.
Once she gets back, she needs to get the confidence in her knee back to even play at a competitive level. That's a lot to overcome for any soccer player; I am not saying it's not possible it's just very difficult. Someone in that situation definitely will lose their chances at a soccer scholarship and will likely have to try and walk-on the college team (a much harder prospect).
There are things that you as a parent can do to prepare your soccer player for a healthy experience and to really limit or minimize those risks to injuries that are cropping up all over the place these days. There are many great fitness coaches out there who have created great programs for preventing overuse injuries.
I encourage you to do a web search for Plyometrics, overuse injuries, or repetitive motion injuries. Tack on 'prevention' to the end of each of those while searching and you will find a lot of information that people are sharing to try to prevent these injuries.
http://www.HowToGetASoccerScholarship.com - Mike Homer is a USSF nationally licensed soccer coach. He has spent the last 18 years coaching players at all levels. He now focuses his time on helping students navigate the college soccer recruiting process so they get the opportunity to play soccer in college and earn soccer scholarships. He recently completed a FREE Video entitled: "3 Myths About Soccer Recruiting That STOP Students From Earning a Soccer Scholarship" which is available for no charge at his website: http://www.HowToGetASoccerScholarship.com
