The Rob Harrison test.

Most recruiting profiles I see fail in the first thirty seconds because they oversell. The player is described as a "dynamic, two-way midfielder with elite vision and a relentless engine." She has "an unwavering commitment to excellence." She "is a leader on and off the field."

The problem is not that these words are wrong. The problem is that they describe almost every 16-year-old club soccer player in the country, and college coaches know it.

Coaches see hundreds of these profiles a month. The hype language is invisible to them. What they actually scan for is short: jersey number, position role, club, GPA, NCAA ID, and whether the playing-style description sounds like something a player would actually say about herself.

What I run every deliverable through

Rob Harrison is the head coach of one of the strongest girls ECNL clubs in Southern California. When I am editing a player one-pager or an outreach email, I imagine him reading it. Then I ask: would he roll his eyes?

If yes, rewrite.

"Dynamic" rolls eyes. "Two-footed, right dominant" does not. "Unwavering commitment to excellence" rolls eyes. "Plays 90 minutes, communicates with the back line" does not. "Elite vision and a relentless engine" rolls eyes. "Reads the game ahead of the play and gets forward on the overlap" does not.

The difference is not effort or word count. It is specificity. The first version of each sentence is a placeholder you could swap into any profile. The second version describes a real player making real decisions on a real field.

Why this matters more than it sounds

Most families do not realize how heavily college coaches discount the first kind of writing. By the time a coach has scanned three hyped-up sentences with no specifics, they have already moved on. The rest of the email or one-pager could be excellent and they would not see it.

The opposite is also true. A profile that opens with a single specific, accurate sentence buys you three more sentences of attention. Compound this across thirty schools and the difference between "they kept reading" and "they closed the email" is huge.

Honest descriptions that hold up

Here are a few we have actually used in client one-pagers this year:

• "Two-footed outside back, right-foot dominant. Defends right, attacks left."
• "Goalkeeper who works on shot stopping, distribution, and command of her box every week. Vocal communicator. Right-foot dominant, developing her left."
• "Outside Back / Wing Back. Reads the game, recovers quickly, contributes to the attack as a wide outlet. Plays full 90s on SoCal Blues ECNL."

None of these sentences would make a marketing copywriter happy. None of them say "elite." None of them say "relentless." Each of them is true, specific, and would survive an honest conversation with the player's club coach.

That is the test.