We Make History
Welcome to postcoach.ca the communication tool for the post-secondary soccer coach here in Canada.
Misson:
To connect all Post-Secondary soccer coaches in Canada, Male and Female with each other.
Why?
With the landscape of soccer in Canada ever evolving, the changes for the University and College soccer coach and their role in the landscape is now more than ever gaining of greater importance here in Canada. Rising tuition costs, the want and desire of the middle tier athlete looking for an athletic scholarship as:
- A means to get their education funded
- A badge of honor to say “I got a scholarship”
- A way to get recognized to get to the next level in this game
- Recognition of their talents and abilities
- Pressure by parents to gain some sort of satisfaction for the time and money that they have spent on their son or daughter
Players in Canada are more technical now than ever before and with the challenges that our Senior Women’s and Men’s National teams face with the development of players to play at the international level, the CPL on the professional Men’s side and various elite leagues for both genders the likes of PLSQ, League 1 Ontario, and the BCSPL, U-Sport and to a lesser extent the CCAA are the beneficiaries of these talented athletes and looking to do their part to continue the development of the new elite player.
There is and will always be a number of the top tier athletes will still want and be able to go away to the US in the NCAA Division l ll and lll, NAIA and are willing to go and play at a Junior College so that they can say that they “went somewhere”. But more and more of these athletes, return home because the experience wasn’t what they thought it would be, or in all honesty, players are reminded that you are a number as a Canadian and you are truly only as good as your last game, and they can move you on at any time if they want to and send you packing.
In the US in the coming years, the market is figured to be bigger with more and more opportunities especially on the female side. More schools, a wider variety of education and greater opportunities financially with schools having to live up to Title lX, (or as it has been known since 2002 the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act) obligations[i]. The draw for the soccer athlete in the future will be that the NCAA has for a few years begun experimenting with the idea of a full year season (or in the men’s case opt out to try and develop professionally outside of school), but as a greater number of Canadian athletes are finding out, if you are a mid-level athlete, attending a “mid major” division 1 school, Division 2, Division 3, NAIA or NJCAA school is not as advantageous as it appears to be. The Americans would rather take an athlete that will cost them less out of their scholarship budget that is slightly less talented where their family is willing to pay more than the average Canadian athlete that has to deal with having to pay more and get less.
The costs often are not worth the price that you are paying for an education that you are getting down south that you could be getting here, especially if you didn’t have the marks to get a better education. Student athletes have to look at the exchange rate, the disadvantages of being away from home and not being able to get home, and as stated before, there is also the stark reality that if your school is not interested in keeping you around based on performance for whatever reason, you are home at the end of the semester. The playing opportunities are not nearly as abundant unless you are a “top tier Canadian player” as they originally appear to be.
This is not to discount the experience of many student athletes that go state side for their education and opportunity to play, but many of these young people go into situations only focused on the soccer after not being counselled that they have to do “school work” as well.
This is where this website and organization comes into play.
As University and College coaches in Canada, we are expected to operate at a higher standard because we are attached to institutions of learning and higher education. We are expected to be educators, mentors, (often times surrogate parents), leaders in the community, fundraisers, coaches, and above reproach, and often all on a shoe string budget. The question is: Who is supposed to mentor us in the unique realm that we are in? The answer varies depending on whom you speak with.
Mentorship:
Everyone needs a mentor. It is what helps drive us, it is someone to bounce ideas off of, it is someone to help us grow, learn and sometimes show us the way. Another voice, another angle to look at things objectively when we are all so focused on the goal. This is what this website is about. Competition is a big part of what we do, but after the 90 plus minutes it is about preparation and growth. No coach knows it all, but how do we grow? Through the sharing of ideas and thoughts with each other.
This is where postcoach.ca comes into play. Postcoach.ca will eventually be a bilingual content website to serve all university and college coaches independent of U-Sport and the CCAA. Initially, it will start out in English, but the plan is and always has been to publish in French as well.
A number of the things that work in the US do not work here, and we often have the same issues across the country to different degrees, while at the same time being unique to each and every situation, with every school in every region. Postcoach.ca can act as a forum for all of us to understand and share ideas and thoughts off each other and while we are competing with each other. We in Canada do not get the opportunity to get together as coaches at this level often enough, and with the ever changing landscape of the students that we are recruiting, this is where we can all connect. Strong competition creates stronger teams and stronger leagues. This in turn creates better players and a better overall experience for the student athlete, keeping them here in the country and a lot of times to further their education.
Postcoach.ca will also eventually be a connection point for some schools for potential student athletes.
While there are many recruiting services out there on the landscape, very few focus on Canadian Universities and recruiting services for Canadian College is almost non-existent. Although there are some recruiting services that are now starting to focus on the Canadian Post-Secondary landscape, it is just assumed that the focus will always be down south where the perceived opportunities are more abundant.
If you have any ideas at all that you would like to see on the website, regarding stories or features, please forward your ideas to postcoach.ca@gmail.com
[i] https://www.knowyourix.org/college-resources/title-ix/
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/tix_dis.html
http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/inclusion/title-ix-frequently-asked-questions
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Update
This site disclaimer was last updated on: Monday October 19, 2020
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