Recruiting For College Athletics

In collegiate sports, the road to success starts well before the season does.

"Great players make good coaches great," said Vincent Maloney, the Lyndon State women's basketball coach. And in order to find those great players, coaches need to look for them through recruiting.

"Recruiting is the life's blood of your program," said Bill Johnson, Lyndon's sports information director, who coached basketball for 28 years before coming to Lyndon.

Recruiting starts with networking, including forming relationships with high school, prep school, and junior colleges in the area. Because of Lyndon's small size, Johnson's network has a 100-mile radius, but larger schools often recruit nationwide.

One of the problems Lyndon has is that it is division three, and cannot offer scholarships to incoming athletes. It also lacks a large recruiting budget, so summer team camps are used instead of hiring recruiting coaches.

Joe Krupinski, the men's basketball coach at LSC, says he tries to sell the improvement of the team and the individual to a prospect. He tells his recruits, "You can be a building block in turning this around."

Ummer's approach includes speaking of the area's excellent mountains and plethora of outdoor activities.

Maloney uses the size of the school and classes as a selling point, telling potential students that they will be more than just a number to their professors.

Recruiting students typically involves actually watching the students play, and this can be a challenge because college and high school seasons often overlap. Semester breaks, especially between December and January, and the summer are popular times for recruiters to watch athletes. 

Once they have players' names coaches will start sending letters and e-mails, followed up with a phone call to try and entice a campus visit. Most will agree a campus visit is the most important part of recruiting.

 

“Bringing in solid athletes to make the program stronger, builds the team and helps the campus as well,” is how Maloney sums up recruiting.

            While Krupinski puts it into one sentence “it is about finding your niche and finding guys who are a good fit at your school and your level.”