Legends FC has ranked either #1 or #2 nationally in sending players to the NCAA for the last three years running.

Legends FC, in southern California, is prolific in the number of players who continue to play in the NCAA. Across 9 regions and multiple playing platforms, players who graduate from Legends go on to play at the highest level.

 “Our mission has remained consistent since the inception of Legends: make sure players who want to play in college have that opportunity. It doesn’t matter what region you play in. We send players to colleges all across the country and work tirelessly to help our kids achieve their dreams.” 

Josh Hodges, Legends FC Founder, and Executive Director

To unify player development, parent engagement, and recruiting under an integrated video solution, Legends FC turned to Trace. Compared to other solutions, which only provide one component of the process, Trace provides value without causing additional overhead to the club’s operations. 

“Video was a hassle for us before Trace. Figuring out who was going to travel with the Hi-Pod, figuring out when and where we were going to do a film session, getting kids to watch film, constantly bugging players to edit out clips so that we could send them to interested college coaches. It was a huge headache. Trace eliminated that headache and expanded what we were able to offer the club.” 

Josh Hodges, Legends FC Founder, and Executive Director

The Challenge

With more than 200 teams, Josh knew that he wanted to create a video culture within the club, but was struggling because it took a combination of other services that are all loaded with their own process.  

1. The elite teams were filming their games, but coaches were finding that players were not watching the video.
   
2. Finding the time and the location to have a film session proved difficult for teams throughout the club. Some were using homes of teammates, others had access to school classrooms, and others would go to the coach’s home.
   
3. More than 70 girls a year go on to play Division 1 from Legends. College recruiters would call team coaches for video, and players never spent the time editing out clips of themselves to share. 

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The Solution

Legends moved to Trace as their fully integrated solution because it radically streamlined and combined the entire experience, making it seamless for players, coaches, and parents. With a lot less effort needed to film the game, coaches can focus on coaching, and parents can sit back and watch their kids instead of taking turns filming. The magic, though, takes place after the game:

1. Trace sends a personalized playlist to every player and parent on the roster. Legend’s see a 90% watch rate on average across teams. The players are finally engaging with video.
   
2. Instead of doing video sessions at a specific location, Legends changed their approach:
   
   • At practice, during a drill or afterward, coaches would go through a player’s moments and hold a personal video session on a phone or iPad. Because Trace creates a playlist of moments for every player, this takes no additional work for the player or the coach. Over the course of a month, coaches were able to give personalized instruction to every player on the team.
     
   • Coaches assign homework. “Find three moments where we did not build-out of the back with short, quick passes.” Players would send links to auto-edited moments inside of Trace.
     
3. Sharing players moments from any game is now a one-click task—no work needed from the player or the coach. Richard, the college coordinator, can easily forward a game worth of moments along to a college coach. With Trace iD, the discovery of Legends athletes is now even easier with moments, stats, heat maps, and full games shared in one click and also easily shareable by the club.