Tag: Showcase:During

Halftime. Your phone buzzes in the team group chat.

“Miami was here.”

Which Miami? Florida or Ohio? Was it a coach or a fan with a clipboard? Was it the head coach or an assistant? Three more texts show up after the whistle. One says “UNC?” and another says “I think the guy in the blue jacket was from Carolina.” Carolina could be North or South.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not behind. Every team already does some version of this. Somebody keeps a notepad, or a note on their phone, or a thread that scrolls off the screen by Tuesday. It’s a kind thing for a parent to do, and for most families it’s the only record they get.

Why it breaks down

• A school name without a coach’s name doesn’t tell you who to email.
• A first name isn’t an email address.
• Handwritten notes live in one parent’s pocket.
• This weekend’s note can’t be compared with last month’s.

What the list needs to do

A useful coach list tells you the school, the coach, how to reach them, and how many times they’ve come. That’s a short list of facts, and it’s hard to get from a group chat.

What CoachWatch does

CoachWatch keeps what parents already do and fixes the parts that fail:

• Easier. Tap the coach’s card as they arrive, or the school if you don’t know who it was. No notepad, no typing in the cold.
• More accurate. You pick the school and the coach from a list, so “Miami” has to be one specific Miami, and one specific coach.
• Email addresses included. For every coach on our staff lists, the list shows who to write to, not only who showed up.
• Shared with one tap. After the game, the volunteer sends one list, and every family on the team gets the same one.
• Free for every team.

Over a season, those lists add up to something a group chat never can: a record of which colleges have actually come to watch your athlete, and how often. Set up the rotation with four parents, two per half, one list, then sort what comes back in the first 48 hours after a showcase.

Get the free CoachWatch Android beta.

CoachWatch tells you who showed up. I’mCommitted.ai, the recruiting app we’re building, keeps that record over time and helps your athlete decide what to do with it.

Nobody wants the job of watching the sideline for coaches, but if your team wants to track college coaches at games, someone has to do it, and the trick is to make it as easy as possible and to share the responsibility.

The parent who takes the job spends the match waiting for a coach to walk up, and misses their own kid’s best moment. That’s why teams either skip it or the same volunteers do each game and even fewer parents volunteer to type up the list and look up the emails. (Ask me how I know)

The fix is simple. Split the duty.

How to track college coaches at games: the rotation

Four volunteers per game. Two per half. Each pair watches for 45 minutes, then goes back to being a parent for the other half. Two per half has the advantage of allowing them to stand at opposing corners and have a view of coaches on two sides.

	First half	Second half
Pair A	Watch	Cheer
Pair B	Cheer	Watch

Tips for the two parents on duty

• Stand where coaches walk in. Pick a spot where you can see the path or gate they use, not the spot with the best view of the play.
• Don’t chase. A coach who wants the team flier will find you. Hand it over, note the school and the coach, and step back.
• Hand off at halftime. Tell the second pair who has already been logged. Everyone on the game code works from the same list, and a coach tapped twice is only logged once.

What if you only have two volunteers?

Each takes a full game. The app works the same way, and the list still arrives for everyone.

How CoachWatch works

A coach arrives. You tap the coach’s card, or pick the school and then the coach. That’s it. The goal is to look up, tap, and get back to the game. After the game you send the link to the rest of the team and download the list.

You know which coaches came immediately: first name, last name (spelled correctly) and, for every coach on our staff lists, their email address in one file. Nobody has to retype a school name or hunt down an email address afterward.

What to do with the list afterward

Without CoachWatch you may have to wait for the list to be shared, play the “Is that Miami of Ohio or Florida” or “Is OU Ohio, Oklahoma or Oregon” game and then look up each coach’s full name and email. With CoachWatch, you have a final list with far fewer mistakes.

A list is a start, not an answer. Some coaches came for your athlete, some came for the other team, and some may have arrived early to see warm-ups for the next game. Your athlete’s message to each coach after the game should depend on whether she wrote to them before the event, whether they had seen her before, or whether this is a first contact. To weigh a sighting against a reply, a call or a visit, read the five recruiting signals worth tracking.

Set it up in a minute

Pick the four names for this weekend’s game, share the rotation in the team chat, and send them the link. Next game, pass the job to four different parents.

The free CoachWatch Android beta is available now. Send it to the parents on your team.

When you are ready to act on the list, that’s what I’mCommitted.ai is for: a marketing plan for every coach and emails written in your athlete’s own voice.

Here’s the real sideline at a showcase.

Twenty-plus fields going at once. A parent holding a coffee, a folding chair and a phone. A whistle every thirty seconds. Somebody’s grandmother shouting. And maybe thirty seconds of attention to spare when a coach walks up.

That’s the design brief for a soccer sideline app. We didn’t build CoachWatch for a quiet desk. We built it for a cold, noisy sideline, where the parent holding the phone is also trying to watch their own kid play.

What we believe a soccer sideline app has to do

• One or two taps. You tap the coach’s card and you’re done. Anything that takes more than a few seconds loses.
• A big button. Fat fingers, gloves, bright sun.
• Almost nothing to type. The coaches expected at the showcase are already on cards. Typing on a sideline never works.
• Shared. Everyone on the game code works from the same list, and a coach tapped twice is logged once.
• No pressure. You can add details later or not at all.

Why we split the job between parents

Nobody wants to spend the whole match watching the sideline for coaches, and one person can’t cover all four sides anyway. Split the job and you have two lists to combine. CoachWatch was built so that split is fast, easy and accurate.

What we wanted parents to end up with

A group chat that says “Miami was here” is a kind thing for a parent to send, but it isn’t a list (why “Miami was here” isn’t a coach list). We wanted every family on the team to end up with the same record: the school, the coach and how to reach them, in one file, right after the game.

Why we built CoachWatch

Our founder’s daughter plays D1 soccer at her first-choice school. He helped market her team, ran its Instagram account, and spent countless hours taking photos on the touchline and watching games from a distance. He also traveled as a consultant and used the time to research college recruiting, which is where he learned how much being seen by college coaches matters.

On showcase weekends he spent hours editing photos, typing up the schools and coaches who attended, and looking up coaches’ email addresses so his daughter could follow up. It took hours each trip and caused more stress than it needed to for both of them. CoachWatch is the fix for the list, and the list is a key input for I’mCommitted.ai.

What we’re still learning

A sideline is different at every field. Some have a gate everyone walks through, and some have a parking lot and a hill. Some teams have enough volunteers for a full rotation, and some have two tired parents. We’re building for all of them, and the beta is how we find the cases we missed.

If you’ve tracked coaches at a showcase before, tell us what you wish you’d had. If you haven’t, try it at your next game and tell us where it got in the way. Either note helps.

What happens after the game

Once the final whistle blows, you send the link to the rest of the team and everyone gets the list. From there it’s about what you do with it: the first 48 hours after a showcase shows how to sort it, and what it means when a coach watches keeps a sighting in perspective.

Rules about what coaches can say to families differ by level and date. For those, check the NCAA’s official recruiting page.

Try the free beta and tell us what we missed.

CoachWatch tells you who showed up. I’mCommitted.ai, the recruiting app we’re building, helps your athlete do something about it.

“Do college coaches go to showcases?”

Many do. But what a coach is doing there isn’t what most parents picture. Here’s how it generally works.

Coaches arrive with a plan

A coach usually comes with a list of players and teams to see, built from earlier video, club contacts, prior events and athletes that have demonstrated their interest in the program. Showcases are efficient because many teams are in one place, so a coach can see a lot of players in a weekend without crossing the country twice.

They can’t see everything

A weekend showcase has many fields and many games. A coach may watch part of one game, then walk to the next. Don’t read much into a short stay. A coach who left at halftime may have been heading to another game on the list, and one who stayed the whole match may have been there for someone else.

What coaches are really looking for at a showcase

• Level. Can she play here?
• Fit. Position, style and how she works with teammates
• Character. How she treats a teammate who makes a mistake, a referee and a coach
• Consistency. Does she show it again in the next game?

Why the second and third look happen

The first look is usually a screening. It can also take most of a game for a player to catch a coach’s eye, and the flow of the game can flatter or hide her. So coaches go back to confirm what they saw, often with another member of the staff (see why a coach’s third look matters). That’s why one sighting is a glance and a repeat is a pattern.

The problem for families

You can’t know who came unless someone writes it down. Coaches don’t always announce themselves, and the notepad-and-group-text system misses a lot (why “Miami was here” isn’t a coach list). Most families leave a showcase knowing less than they could.

How to find out which coaches came to your showcase

Build a team-wide list. Four volunteers, two per half, tap each coach as they arrive, and every family gets one shared list afterward (four parents, two per half, one list). Then sort it while the weekend is fresh: the first 48 hours after a showcase shows how.

What to do before you go

• Pick the showcase for the coaches who attend, not just the name (which showcases are worth the money).
• Have your athlete send her schedule to the coaches on her list (the showcase schedule email).
• Line up your volunteers so nobody misses a half of their own kid’s game.

Check the rules, not the rumors

What a coach is allowed to say to a family at a game depends on the level and the date. Use the NCAA’s official recruiting page and the governing body for your athlete’s level, not a sideline rumor.

What a parent can do on the day

Your athlete’s job at a showcase is to play her game, not to scan the sideline for coaches. A parent’s job is to keep the weekend calm: get to the field early, know where the next game is, and leave the fence to the coaches. If you volunteer for your team’s rotation, you’ll see who came without missing the games that matter.

Find out who came. Get the free CoachWatch Android beta.

Once you know who came, the next step is what to do about it. That’s the work I’mCommitted.ai, the recruiting app we’re building, takes on.

A coach is standing ten feet away. You have a hundred things to say. Should you talk to a college coach at a game?

The honest answer is usually: not the way you’re picturing.

What parents can usually do

• A short, friendly hello is fine. Introduce yourself, say your athlete’s name and the team, and let the coach lead.
• Be easy to walk away from. A coach is working, and a game is not a meeting.

What to expect back

A coach may be brief, or may say very little. That isn’t rudeness. Rules limit what coaches can say to families at certain times, and those limits depend on the level and the date. The NCAA’s official recruiting page is the place to check, not a rumor from another parent.

What to avoid

• A sales pitch for your athlete
• Interrupting a coach who is watching a game
• Asking where your athlete stands
• Following a coach to the parking lot, or to the next field
• Anything that puts your athlete in an awkward spot

What helps more than talking to a coach at the game

• Your athlete reaching out to them. The athlete’s own email is stronger than a parent’s chat at the fence.
• Tracking which coaches watched the game. Having the list means her email can be specific (what to do with the coach list).
• Be a good family. Coaches notice how families behave (showcase weekend etiquette).

The fact of the matter is that there is very little a parent can do at the fence to help, and a lot you can do to hurt. Nearly every coach can tell a story about walking away from a player because of her parents, or at least one they wish they had.

What if the coach talks to you first?

Be friendly and short. Say thank you for coming, say your athlete’s name and number if asked, and let your athlete handle the follow-up. If the coach asks a question you aren’t sure about, it’s fine to say “I don’t know. I’ll ask her to send you an email.” That’s a good answer, and it keeps the conversation where it belongs.

What if you’re tempted to say more?

That’s normal. Every parent has a speech ready. Write it down, give it to your athlete, and let her turn it into a short email in her own words. She’ll say it better, and the coach will believe it more.

Why this matters for you

The sideline feels like your best chance. It usually isn’t. Your best chance is a good email afterward, written by your athlete, about one real moment from the game. Coaches can tell when a parent wrote it, and they can tell when a parent worked the fence.

What to say if you do talk

Keep it to two sentences. Something like: “Hi Coach, I’m [Name], [athlete’s name]’s parent. Thanks for coming out. She’s number [#] in the [color] jerseys, and she’ll follow up with you herself.” Then smile, step back and go back to watching the game.

What not to read into the conversation

A friendly coach isn’t a promise, and a brief coach isn’t a no. Treat any conversation as one data point, and give it the same weight you’d give a sighting: real, but small. What you do afterward matters more than what happened at the fence.

After the game

• Write down the coach’s name, school and which game it was.
• Tell your athlete, and let her decide what to write.
• Don’t send a parent email on top of hers.

Skip the awkward sideline moment, and know who came. Get the free CoachWatch Android beta.

The next step is hers. I’mCommitted.ai, the recruiting app we’re building, helps your athlete write it.