Janine Beckie on college recruitment, equal pay, and keeping a balanced life

Recruiting can be stressful and overwhelming for any prospective college athlete. The sheer number of colleges and the number of other athletes looking to play the same position as you make the recruiting process seem daunting.

Janine Beckie, Portland Thorns player, Olympic gold medalist and Canadian national women’s soccer team thought the same thing over and over. Because of her experience with recruiting and her view of equal options for athletes, she is joining Signing Day Sports. Signing Day Sports is a platform that seeks to create an accessible and equitable platform to help athletes get recruited to play in college.

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Beckie was a three-sport athlete in high school and didn’t really know what she wanted to do next. Playing soccer, track and basketball, Beckie kept an open mind throughout her time in high school and eventually decided to stick with the sport she was most successful in; football. She was recruited what she called the “old-fashioned way” to play football at Texas Tech.

The “old fashioned way” involved playing at the club level and hoping that exposure at the tournaments you went to and helping your club coach would lead to a connection with a college coach.

“We had just won our state bowl tournament and were headed to regionals, which would have been the summer before my sophomore year of high school, Beckie said, looking back on her experience. “After that tournament, because of NCAA rules, the coaches couldn’t contact me directly. They went through my club coach and said: ‘We’re interested in Janine, can you get her to call us if she’s interested?

She ended up committing to Texas Tech University about a week after visiting their campus. While there she made 67 appearances for the Red Raiders and scored 43 goals.

Recruitment is a crucial moment in any athlete’s career. For Beckie, that meant she was called up to the Canadian women’s national team in 2015, and has now been playing professionally for six years.

Photo by Azael Rodriguez/Getty Images

Signing Day Sports is an athlete recruiting service that aims to create an equal space for men’s and women’s soccer players to be discovered and find opportunities nationwide. Beckie recalled that the recruiting process was very stressful and overwhelming and she was very intrigued by the options Signing Day Sports offered. “There are definitely many, many benefits to a platform like Signing Day … especially from the perspective of starting the process initially, I know it was really kind of stressful for me and I was like, ‘where do I start?’ ”

The platform helps athletes simply get their information out there and gives them a place to start. For Beckie, impact is important. “Being able to upload clips that a coach can see without having to ask takes the pressure off the athlete to be in that conversation and have that conversation first with a college coach when they’re just started in the process.”

Beckie also emphasized the idea that there is equality in the process. Athletes are able to put their information out there and don’t have to rely solely on clubs, which are quite expensive and out of reach for any player looking to continue playing in college. Sports, in general, have recently been synonymous with the idea that men and women who play sports are on equal footing—and therefore should be paid as such.

The Canadian Women’s Team has been in discussions with Canada Soccer since January 2022 about equal pay, and Beckie believes it’s long overdue. “It’s amazing to see the kind of domino effect that the equal pay deal with the US has created and I think, you know, as a women’s soccer player, it’s long overdue for someone who’s been in the sport for that long. a lot of time. .”

Along with the US, England, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Brazil and others have made moves towards equal pay in recent years. In addition to equal pay, many teams that have not historically had much support are now showing how much progress has been made.

“You look at teams like Trinidad and Tobago and Panama and if we had played these teams five years ago, we would have absolutely blown them out of the water,” shares Beckie. “Now even though the scorelines are still pretty significant, the game is a lot better, and you see a team like Jamaica making big waves and playing football they’ve never played before and now they’ve qualified for it the second. World Cup,” Beckie said upon returning to the recent CONCACAF W tournament in Mexico. Beckie also made sure to discuss the success of the Canadian men’s team, which just qualified for the men’s World Cup for the first time in 36 years , and how supportive they have been in negotiations for equal pay.

Of the negotiations, Beckie said: “We’ve been successful for a long time and this is just the next logical step. And with so much time, so we’re in the middle of those negotiations. There’s been an agreement on the table that outlines what equal pay might look like for us, but it’s definitely not where we want it to be, but it’s definitely the floor and we can negotiate from there.”

Mental health has also been at the forefront of sports news with players such as Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles making public statements reflecting that their mental health is a priority. Beckie discussed how a full schedule and being transferred to different teams can make one’s life very hectic. However, her view of the amount of work she does is positive. “The fact that our schedules are busier is a great sign because it means there’s more competition, there’s more interest.”

However, she admits that she wasn’t always good at managing her crazy schedule, “I would have said here a few years ago, I wouldn’t have been that good at managing it all, but as far as your career you get a sense of how it’s going to go.” Beckie also looked at the opportunities football gives you on a much more personal level. She discussed the move to England and how it challenged not only the areas of her game, but: “Living in a different culture is hugely beneficial as a human being, but obviously being in a different football environment as well was really great for me.”

Janine Beckie and the Portland Thorns are currently in first place in the league. She played in nine games and started seven of them and scored two assists. Beckie will next play the Thorns on August 10 away at the Washington Spirit.