When OSU announced the new recruiting classes for our men's and women's soccer programs the first thing I looked for was a strong Oregon presence. About this time last year I made a pleading case for making OSU soccer for Oregon. That post received a few comments supportive of that concept. Both teams reported two Oregon recruits apiece.
The women signed Amanda Griffin (Lake Oswego, Lakeridge High School) and Lindsay Meiggs (Happy Valley, Clackamas High School) while the men signed Alex Penny (Hillsboro, Glencoe High School) and Jake Parker (Milwaukie, Milwaukie High School) from the Beaver State.
2009 OSU Men's Soccer Recruiting Class
2009 OSU Women's Soccer Recruiting Class
I wasn't sure if I should be happy or not. Two is more than zero, but it feels like a small number. I thought a comparison of some of the other sports and their number of Oregon based players would be interesting to look at.
Men's Basketball (57% Oregonian)
Softball (47% Oregonian)
Men's Soccer (41% Oregonian)
Gymnastics (36% Oregonian)
Baseball (31% Oregonian)
Women's Soccer (27% Oregonian)
By comparison, the men's soccer team has a pretty good Oregon presence. But what is going on with the women who have only seven players total from Oregon. Is it that hard to get local recruits to stay in Oregon and play for the Beavers? Am I expecting too much? I don't think so.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Posted by Loyan |
20
comments
| Rate: |
View Similar and Related Posts:
Would you like new posts to be sent directly to your inbox?
Subscribe to Corvallis Soccer Blog by email.
SoccerPro.com 
Cudo Investment Services
Posts
20 comments
You need to differentiate between scholarship athletes and walkons. Most of the Oregonians on intercollegiate teams in the state are walkons because Oregon does not have especially good high school sports compared to California and Washington because the state is so much smaller.
NOT true at all! Are you ignorant? Let's think about what would have happened last year if OSU mens basketball could have recruited the best talent... they would have had kevin love and kyle singler? HMM sounds like top talent to me... What about soccer? Are you kidding me? Oregon has some of THE top soccer players on the west cost... whitey went to ucla, brian rowe to ucla, eric pohl stanford, nick leonard cornell, leland up/uw, eman up, eric hurtado/connor mitchel santa clara, casey mccool uw. I can go on and on. if osu would have gotten these players... the best in the state their program would improve tremendously. DONT EVER QUESTION OREGONS TALENT. get facts then come back and see me!
Good insights in both comments. Is scholarship information like that made public? It would be interesting to consider where the walk ons are coming from.
OSU coaches Pat Casey and Mike Riley have stated they put a high value on Oregon players. Our rejuvinated mens basketball team is nearly 60% local. Its working for them right? I expect soccer to take the same approach.
Good Oregon talent is slipping through the cracks. But win or lose I want to see more Oregon players on the soccer field. As a fan that will make me happy.
The University of Portland women's team, by far the finest program in the state and among the best in the nation, has exactly two Oregonians on it. If there was more top-quality in-state talent, wouldn't the Pilots recruit those players?
Kyle Singler and Kevin Love were the exception, not the rule. Very, very seldom do Oregon high schools produce two top-10 players in one year, much less one decade.
The best players on OSU's men's basketball team are Californian Calvin Haynes, Dutchman Roeland Schaftenaar, Floridian Rickey Claitt, and yes, Seth Tarver of Portland.
Most of the top players on the 2009 baseball team are from out-of-state. The 2005 in-state Oregon recruiting class was exceptionaly strong, and OSU did very well.
Oregon is the smallest state on the West Coast, by a large margin., It will not produce the same amount of quality talent as California, which has about 10 times as many people, or Washington, which has 1.5 times as many people.
I don't care where the players come from. But I would like to see the soccer programs win more often.
UP signed 3 Oregonians of 5 recruits for '09. Yes, I think Portland is focused at recruiting in Oregon.
Recruiting in state has benefits related to team pride, fan support and recruiting expenses. Its a no-brainer.
There are good examples of in-state and out-of-state players for every sport. For myself as a fan, I don't need the best recruits. I want to try using Oregon players. I believe that we can compete with Oregon players.
Comparing just state populations isn't enough. How many university soccer programs are in California compared to Oregon? California has more competition recruiting in-state players.
I admit, if we were winning the Pac-10 I would not be complaining.
When it comes to the OSU men's team, the players that are in state just are not physical enough. It shows when they step on the field. I'm all for getting the best players out of any state if it means we win.
As for the women, that's another story. It does not matter where they come from because Linus Rhode is a horrible coach. Take any high school team and place 8 of them in the goal box and you have the OSU women's strategy. Good forwards that sit the bench while the players on the field play defense all game. Just replace the coach and we will win.
coach taylor has had decreasing success with recruiting the top oregon talent. if you analyze the overall contribution of oregon players to the team you'll find that man of them are not able to make substantial contributions. you'll also see that many of the players from states such as idaho and utah are not competitively ready for the pac-10. obviously there are exceptions, but as a whole kids that come from competitive programs in larger states such as california are more battle tested and ready to play.
I don't think either the OSU men or women should be trying to recruit battle ready players. That is trying compete with the California schools head to head. A tough proposition.
We should be looking for uncut gems and developing our stars during their underclassmen years. By the junior and senior years they should be ready to compete. That seems like a way for a coach to really earn his/her pay doesn't it? Player development...novel idea.
Note that even golden boys Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney were brought along carefully by Alex at ManUnited.
Speaking for women's soccer, the 2008 and 2009 recruiting classes were easily some of the strongest on the West Coast as evidenced by the success of their ODP teams. In reality, UO and OSU don't spend a lot of time recruiting Oregon players because they know their programs can't compete with the top notch programs (Stanford, Santa Clara, UCLA) that our top players are being courted by. So they end up settling for second tier from larger state pools but that does not mean they are attracting better players. Whether someone calls Seattle, San Diego or Salem home is inmaterial; second tier is second tier regardless of where they call home. If UO and OSU were more competitive, our top players would start staying home more often.
I wonder which comes first, the competitive program or the players? Chicken or the egg?
Is it possible to compete with second tier players? Soccer is a complex tactical game in which the team with the best players does not always win.
Freshman are just eighteen. There is a lot of time for development in the next four years. A second tier player at eighteen doesn't have to be a "second tier" player as a junior or senior.
Perhaps superior tactics and player development would help with recruiting.
In my view....it all comes back to coaching and Dana Taylor is doing Oregon State or the state or Oregon no favors.
Club coaches from around the region are steering their best players away from OSU! Dana can't get the best players from the State of Oregon...let alone KEEP the best players from other states that he does land. Case in point, the recruiting class of 2007 was ranked 34th and featured two Gatorade Players of the Year. Both players have since left the program and subsequent recruiting classes are not even ranked.
Oregon has the talent; the current coaching regime at OSU can't land these players or keep the ones they do get. The future does not look good. Just take a look at College Soccer News' review of the 2009 OSU recruiting class.
I don't think you'll hear Mike Riley saying things like..."we can't land the best battle ready players" .... or ..."we can’t compete with the California schools." Somehow I don't think the OSU Athletic Director would settle for any of that! I wonder why the OSU Athletic Director has settled for Dana Taylor for all these years.
I sense apathy from the OSU athletic department towards the soccer program. My evidence: lack of marketing, press releases, promotions, decent seating at the field, community involvment and continued acceptance of an expired coaching regime.
Dear Bob De Carolis,
Please help me love Oregon State University Soccer.
It has been said more than a few times before, but OSU mens's soccer has the worst coaching staff on the west coast and by far the worst in the pac-10. When they were successful it was because they had quality assistants who could coach and recruit good players. You cannot be successful without quality in both these areas. The game has passed Dana Taylor by. It is long past due for new coaches. Unfortunately it will take another three years to correct the current situation. In 2009 they will return to a really bad style of soccer which will likely be completely unsuccessful and hard to watch. It is a very sad state of affairs. While the rest of the pac-10 is getting better OSU will be getting worse. Until Dana Taylor is replaced there will be no hope of turning this thing around. As the previous commentor stated, since 2005 every class of recruits has been ranked continuously lower until now they are not ranked at all. Bad coaching and bad recruiting equals bad soccer. OsU is a great school and there is no reason that top level recruiting classes cannot be attracted here. It is simply a matter of building a program that players want to be a part of. A good example of a similar situation would be Cal Poly of California. The program languished for years under a bad coaching regime until three years ago. Now it is an excellent, competitive program, which attracts top level recruits. This can be fixed, Bob De Carolis just needs to get off his behind and get new coaches that can get the job done. It is not rocket science.
True statement from up above with Cal-poly. They even signed a Oregon boy this year. Someone that osu probably was trying to get but because of the current situation that is Dana taylor being a bad coach. OSU could not get.
Not to pile it on, but I read today in the Daily Barometer that the men's team just ended their spring season. Checking osubeavers.com, such a season might never have happened. Certainly I never managed to hear about it, despite trying to read the Barometer and the GT daily as well as check the OSU athletics website regularly.
Fans can't go to games if Beaver Athletics won't lift a finger to make it known the team is playing. Good grief - it's like sabotage.
can someone post the results of the spring 2009 season for OSU mens soccer?
No one can post the results when no one knows the scores....
Did OSU win a single mens soccer game this spring? Is there someone we can contact to find out OSU's mens 2009 spring game record?
For the OSU men's program there was some spring coverage by the Barometer:
http://media.barometer.orst.edu/media/storage/paper854/news/2009/04/21/Sports/Three.Matches.One.Weekend-3719100.shtml
http://barometer.orst.edu/news/2009/04/28/Sports/Oregon.State.Ends.Spring.Season.With.Strong.41.Victory-3728810.shtml
The OSU women got some spring coverage of the match with the US women's national team.
http://media.barometer.orst.edu/media/storage/paper854/news/2009/04/15/Sports/United.States.Defeats.Osu-3710697.shtml
Phone Numbers:
OSU Athletics Marketing: (541) 737 9895
OSU Men's Soccer: (541) 231 1480
OSU Women's Soccer: (541) 737 2854
One thing I will say about OSU Athletic Director is that he is accessible. I have recieved personal replies every time I have emailed him at at bob.decarolis@oregonstate.edu.
Your all effing retarded to call Dana Taylor a bad coach and especially a bad recruiter. None of you know sh*t about how he runs his programs. Take a look at how many of his players are in the professional ranks right now. Take a look at the talent he brings into his programs. The reason they are having a good season now is because of the talent he acquired there. SOOOO many stupid comments were just wrote and none of you even know anything except how to read college soccer articles on the internet. congrats.
Post a Comment
Please share your comments with us. No login or account is required to post a comment.