ROAR's Rich Ongaro on What College Soccer Recruiting Pages Leave Out
College soccer recruiting advice tends to arrive in a familiar package: email coaches, build a profile, attend ID camps, keep grinding. For many families, that script is useful. For others, it misses the player standing in front of them. Rich Ongaro, who runs the recruiting service ROAR, has worked the process from both the coaching and placement sides, and his answers to three questions suggest the gap between the standard advice and reality is wider than most recruiting pages admit.
When the Usual Advice Doesn't Fit
Ongaro opened with a case that shows how position-specific assumptions can quietly close doors. He described a goalkeeper who was "very technical but wasn't standing out to Division 1 coaches, who often look for height first at that position." The standard playbook of emailing and calling coaches wasn't producing results, and the player was also focused on academics at the schools he was considering.
The pivot was toward Division III, where the recruiting pitch was rebuilt around what the player actually did well: "We built his recruiting around his quickness, footwork, and distribution, which could let him compete for the starting job right away at that level."
Ongaro's broader point reframes what the process is for. He said the goal for any prospective student-athlete is "a well-rounded college experience, not just a strong career on the field." For that goalkeeper, it meant a strong academic situation and a good social fit alongside the chance to compete early.
What the Recruiting Pages Leave Out
Asked what keeps coming up with families, Ongaro listed several realities that rarely make it onto program recruiting pages.
The first is that coaches recruit for needs, not just talent. "A coach might pass on a very good player because they're already set at that position for that grad year," he said. "It usually isn't personal, but families take it that way."
Second, silence is not a rejection. Coaches receive hundreds of emails, and Ongaro noted that "a player who follows up with new film or an updated schedule often gets a response the second or third time."
Third, exposure comes from people and live viewing more than from profiles. "A profile page rarely gets a player recruited on its own," he said. "A coach seeing them play, or hearing about them from a club coach the staff trusts, usually does."
On money, Ongaro pushed back on the full-ride assumption. Most athletic aid is partial and combined with academic aid, and while D3 has no athletic scholarships, its academic aid can end up being the better offer. Grades, he added, decide which doors are open in the first place: "A player's academic profile sets which programs can realistically admit them, before soccer ability even comes into it."
He also flagged film editing as a practical detail families overlook. "Most coaches decide quickly whether to keep watching, so the strongest clips need to come first."
The Junior-Year Decisions Families Rush
For families whose junior has not heard from a coach, Ongaro sees a pattern of reacting to the wrong signals.
When a school finally shows interest, the instinct is to react to the attention. He recommends research first: look at the roster, see who plays the same position and in what year, and check whether the academics fit. He also sees families switch teams chasing exposure because friends are getting recruited, when "switching often isn't what's holding the player back."
Camps get chosen by school name rather than fit. "ID camps at dream schools are expensive and often aren't realistic fits," he said, adding that camps are most useful at schools already on the list, where a coach knows the player is coming.
Mass emails sent too early are another common misstep. Generic messages to 100 coaches before good film or a real list exist "don't get answered and can burn first impressions."
And the starting question is often the wrong one. Ongaro said the best starting point is what the player wants from college: major, school size, academics, cost, and a realistic chance to play right away. The money conversation, in particular, should not wait. "Cost should be part of the conversation from the start, not something families figure out once an offer shows up."
The Takeaway
Across all three answers, Ongaro returns to the same idea: recruiting works best when it starts from the specific player rather than the generic script. Position, academic profile, budget, and what a family actually wants from four years of college shape which programs make sense. The recruiting pages may describe the mechanics, but the fit is something families have to work out themselves, ideally before the first coach calls.