Here's a thread about recruiting, coaching, and developing college goalkeepers, because there are a lot of people out there who have never done any of these things but have opinions about it. This is Sydney Wootten. She was our starting goalkeeper from 2015-18.

The picture above is from our 1-0 win at UNC Chapel Hill in 2016. Syd wasn't recruited by UNC, or anyone else in the ACC or P5, most likely beause she's 5'5" (if we're being generous). She was never a youth national team player. She was on almost nobody's radar but ours.

In her career, she beat or shut out the likes of UNC, Notre Dame, Santa Clara, Virginia, Pepperdine, Clemson, South Carolina, Arkansas, Princeton, and many others. That didn't just happen. She did not come to us the finished product. It took work, mostly on her part.

It wasn't just me btw. I was at State for her freshman and senior years. In between, I was at UNCW with World Cup star Syd Schneider, but that's another story (also another keeper who the experts in the P5s all missed). But back to Syd Wootten....

Syd was short, quick, good with her feet, so her game had to be adapted to play to those strengths. Play closer to her line when ball was in shooting positions, aggressive sweeping up behind when we're pressing high. Strong communication and distribution. This all took work.

Some of the stuff we do doesn't make for good video clips on twitter. Not a lot of mannequins, hurdles, hoops. I stopped caring how my sessions 'look' a long time ago and started caring about this: is our gk performing for the team? That's really the only standard that matters.

All of which is to say: it takes a lot of work, and your GK's performances are what matters. Not getting invited to speak at conferences, or having a glove deal, or lots of likes or RTs or a blue check here on twitter. Your goalkeepers' performances. The end.