NCAA TOURNAMENT 2024

[Ejay]

Forgot one
3. without their sport. Would they be happy on that campus?

This needs to be #1 and #1A.

I've seen plenty of kids who don't have the experience they hoped for and immediately look to transfer. Some for "soccer reasons", others for "school reasons". And while there's nothing wrong with transferring, I think kids need to be a lot more introspective and realistic during the recruiting process. I know that's tough to ask of an 18 year old, so that's when the parent should help the student through the thought processes.

My son attended a school where he wasn't recruited because it was one of the few that offered his desired major. He had offers from better soccer programs but ultimately soccer was not his priority. And while he wished the soccer piece played out differently than it did (injured 2 years, minimal time the other two), he doesn't regret his decision. I have a ton of respect for that and was impressed with his maturation.

[Hopkins92]

Hopkins, I loved the BigSoccer boards.  I started lurking about there when my daughter started playing club ball.  When her career ended my lurking did as well.  I found the boards for professional clubs on BigSoccer to be little more than troll caves.

By the time I decided to move on with my life, I was 99 percent of the time hanging around with my online friends on one thread on the Off-Topic forum*. You are correct, the USMNT and MLS team fora were garbage, for the most part.

You did have journalists, like The Wash. Post's Steve Goff that would occasionally pop in with a nugget of information, but it was few and far between.

* - A core group of us just started our own message board and paid the pittance of a fee to keep it running because even our little thread had become overrun by unsavory and obnoxious newcomers who didn't understand humor and/or sarcasm and ruined that little corner of the site, eventually.

[slt1369]

I'm a parent of a rising senior in the NEWMAC. I've enjoyed this board quite a bit over the past four years. As others have commented, I'd prefer not to post while my son is still playing. That seems like a bad idea, for a number of reasons. Having said that,because of this board, I recently enjoyed a couple of great weekends in Williamstown and Middlebury. I got the opportunity to see Messiah and Trinity (TX) for the first time. The level of D3 soccer around the country is phenomenal.

For all that post on a regular basis, please continue to do so. The information and opinions are greatly appreciated.

[Another Mom]

My view about posting while my son was playing:

- I never post about him

- I assume his teammates and/or coach are reading

- I never post info that might help their opponents. (Eg last year in the NCAA tournament my son's knee was lacerated to the bone, and he continued to play, even after ripping out the stitches -- the other teams didn't need to know that!)

[Hopkins92]

Another Mom... Totally random... Are you familiar with the saying "Brother from Another Mother?"

Your username elicits a chuckle from me about once a week.

I can't decide if it's funnier if you are aware of the phrase or not.

[jknezek]

My view about posting while my son was playing:

- I never post about him

- I assume his teammates and/or coach are reading

- I never post info that might help their opponents. (Eg last year in the NCAA tournament my son's knee was lacerated to the bone, and he continued to play, even after ripping out the stitches -- the other teams didn't need to know that!)

All very good points. As nothing more than an alum, I can afford to be a little more vocal about what I see. Though I do try and remember that these are student athletes, in the actual sense of the phrase, and it is not the entertainment business of D1 revenue sports or other professional outlets. So I try not to criticize players. Sometimes I'm critical of what I see of the team, and I do try and praise players, but I see no upside to picking on true student athletes. If they didn't love the game, and weren't trying their best, there is no reason for them to be putting in the massive time and effort D3 athletics requires while, at the same time, taking away from other aspects of the college experience.

[Another Mom]

Another Mom... Totally random... Are you familiar with the saying "Brother from Another Mother?"

Your username elicits a chuckle from me about once a week.

I can't decide if it's funnier if you are aware of the phrase or not.

I *am* familiar with the phrase :-)

Though, to be honest, that's not why I picked that username.

[Kuiper]

My view about posting while my son was playing:

- I never post about him

- I assume his teammates and/or coach are reading

- I never post info that might help their opponents. (Eg last year in the NCAA tournament my son's knee was lacerated to the bone, and he continued to play, even after ripping out the stitches -- the other teams didn't need to know that!)

I think it's always a good practice to assume someone you care about is reading what you posted on social media and knows you wrote it (if you did so anonymously), but I wondered if players do actually read the boards these days.  I know some longer-time coaches still do, but are active players aware of it?  I know they used to be, but I'm just not sure if they are anymore and you (and other parents of current players) probably have some insight on that.

[Another Mom]

Some W&L players definitely were reading the board.

[Hopkins92]

I will say this about posting. I'm with jknezek and most of the alums in following the teams from a distance. Both in terms of being very far removed from attending the schools and, quite literally not being in-person for the vast majority of the games I'm posting about.

I know that early on, I was WAY too flippant and cavalier with my posts. I bought into the Am-hate and got wrapped up in trying to look at pretty gnarly camera angles to break down "dirty plays" and commented on actions and words spoken when my knowledge of those incidents was often hearsay.

I backslid and got into that once this year following the Kenyon PK kerfuffle and felt bad about it later. But for the most part, I try to stick to what I can see with my peepers and join in on big-picture discussions where I think I can add something.

[Camelparent]

Conn players also read the board

[EnmoreCat]

The Amherst players that can read, do also.

[camosfan]

I found out some time back that my son told the team who I was on the board, so I had to be really careful, try to make general points and talk about technical issues.

[Hopkins92]

The Amherst players that can read, do also.

This needs more love. Hilarious.

[rdanie03]

The Amherst players that can read, do also.

So Does most of the Tufts team