Clayton Anderson and Will McNulty are members of the Illinois Wesleyan Men's Soccer Team. They had different recruiting experiences but have landed at the same spot: Illinois Wesleyan University. Everyone has different recruiting stories. Here are their stories and their advice to high school athletes.

2aDays: What was your recruiting experience like? 

Clay: Looking at my recruiting process, I really didn't know if I was gonna play college soccer until two games into my senior year of high school. So I was a little bit late in the recruiting process. I got NCSA [an app and website that connects coaches and players through messaging], got together a couple of clips from my home games (6 or 7 games), and just reached out to a lot of universities in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin. 

I knew I wanted to be close to home but also a little farther away. So I toured there and saw Wesleyan as an area to get a great education and still be able to play soccer and still have time for other activities at a D3 level. I fell in love with the school so I knew I had to meet the coach. I emailed Coach and told him to come out to a couple of games and he did. I went out to a couple of camps as well which really helped. I got recruited by the end of March, a lot of people were recruited before me so I was a little bit of a quicker turnaround. It was honestly a pretty good process, I'm glad I got in and here I am three years later going into my final year.

Related: Rate Illinois Wesleyan University

Will: My recruiting process started around mid-sophomore/early junior year when I kind of decided I wanted to pursue playing college soccer. Up until that point I wasn't too into playing showcases and wasn't really in the loop. I actually switched clubs around that time to pursue college soccer and started playing in more showcases. 

Towards the end of my junior year before Covid, I really started to reach out to coaches. I was emailing any coach and any school that I was interested in going to. Wesleyan came along through a recruiting platform app and they had reached out to me. I actually met up with Coach Gabe at an exact soccer camp in Olympic Park, Illinois, and introduced myself and talked to him. We previously had a couple of phone calls before that and he knew I was interested and the relationship was already there. He saw me play and it took off from there. I narrowed down my list once I knew I wanted to play soccer and then committed in March of my senior year. So that is a kind of timeline of the process.

2aDays: How did your recruiting experience affect your daily life at the time?

Clay: For my recruiting process I would say I had a balanced life. But once I decided I wanted to play college soccer, I was playing on two clubs teams so soccer was my entire life. I knew I didn't want that to be my entire future. I really like hanging out with my friends, having extracurriculars, and other clubs, and being able to focus on my grades. I would say [recruiting] took up the majority of my free time, but I was still able to hang out with friends and still do what I did but I had to cut out a lot of time periods where I was just watching tv and laying around.

Will: I think it's whatever you want to make of it and it's different for each individual. I was pursuing a lot of D3 schools and sending emails out whenever I could trying to get noticed. Some players have coaches reaching out to them and other guys are doing all the reaching out. You have to find the balance between playing soccer and really marketing yourself to these coaches and schools. I wouldn't say it took too much time, I loved doing it and I love the game, it's like our second nature to play and do that type of thing. It was to play at the next level so it really didn't feel like that much of a time constraint.

2aDays: Why did you end up choosing Wesleyan?

Clay: It was more for the university, going to the D3 level, you aren't getting the scholarships so education comes first. I'm 5'7 so I'm probably not making the pros so I really wanted somewhere to play soccer and keep my head on straight and have a balance. The first thing is education, I saw Wesleyan as a university, I toured the campus and really loved the campus so it led me here.

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Will: For me, Wesleyan was the perfect academic fit. Obviously, academics come before athletics, academics are more important for us. So having it be the perfect academic fit and wanting to pursue soccer at the next level, it was a no-brainer once I knew I was accepted, I was gonna be playing at Illinois Wesleyan.

2aDays: How did you prepare for your first year in college athletics?

Clay: Preparing for my first year, as far as a breakdown I probably over prepared a little bit. I had a friend of mine who was a coach who was an athletic trainer as well so it really helped to have someone who counted on me as he would have my workout at 6 and then soccer later after work in the afternoon. It helped to have him hold me dependable in a sense and to really push me but he made working out fun. 

College conditioning and fitness is significantly harder and something you have to adjust to so I would keep that in mind. A lot of colleges, if you get accepted into the program, will give you workout sheets that really help out when you are coming in. It really helps you prepare because they will not want you to come in behind. Also playing soccer and being able to play. You can practice all you want, but if it doesn't translate to the game, then it doesn't matter so getting into a good league is also very important.

Will: I prepared by continuing to play club and training on my own. I had a few teammates on my club team that had committed to teams in the CCIW, so trying to work with as many of them as possible as much time as possible while trying to balance a social life and work life. Obviously, soccer is a huge part of our lives but there is more to our lives than soccer so I think getting yourself ready mentally. Knowing you were the guy on the high school team and you come in and it's a completely different story you have to just play your role. So coming in with a different mindset as opposed to your senior year was big for me. 

Get into the mindset that getting wins is the most important thing. In terms of getting your body right, I think Coach Schauls does a great job of giving us our strength and conditioning program each summer. I spent a lot of time on the track when I could and time in the weight room, and obviously practiced playing with the ball as much as I could.

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2aDays: What is your advice to high-school athletes starting their recruiting process?

Clay: You can never start too early. I started later so a lot of my options were limited. Another thing is when going to be a collegiate athlete, to get your priorities because if you are playing at the D1/D2 level, you are getting scholarships so they are expecting to get what they are giving in. It will be your life. If that's what you want then cheers–I know I love soccer and some people want to play it every day, which sounds great to me as well. But if you are someone that wants to have other priorities, keep that in mind when you're looking at universities. It's really important to look at how intense you wanna go and then just go from there.

Will: I'd say to my younger self, you have to reach out and throw a big net out as if you were fishing. Email anyone you are genuinely interested in and focus on those schools that you are interested in playing at. Your academic fit is more important than your athletic fit so you have to make sure the academic fit is right, [and] they have the major you want. 

Also the school size (big or small school). Geographically I wanted to be closer to home so I feel like that is really important to not be homesick. I feel like the academic bit above all is the most important so look at schools that aren't too much of a reach or too easy. Be really professional with the way you reach out to coaches because it is partially a business–they want to win games and you want to play at a top-level university. So whenever emailing somebody or calling somebody, treat them as if they were your parents or in a business setting because that is kind of what it is.

The bottom line: even if you play the same sport at the same school, no two people are going to have the same two recruiting experiences. Some say it just matters where you end up. Clay and Will's experiences were unique to them and after landing at Illinois Wesleyan, it's safe to say they made the right choice.

Image Credit: IWU Athletics

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* Originally published on August 4, 2022, by Scott Abramson