By Laura Smith
Laura Smith is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management. She can be reached at lsmith@MomentumMedia.com.
Athletic Management, 17.4, June/July 2005, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/am/am1704/recruits.htm
Straight-A students with perfect SAT scores, national championship athleticism, and portfolios full of community service projects. If every student-athlete fit that description, recruiting would be easy. But they don’t, and it’s not. In fact, many college coaches say recruiting is the toughest part of their jobs.
And it’s clearly not getting any easier. NCAA academic reforms are making readiness for college coursework a critical piece of the recruiting process, and heightened publicity over athletes that disgraces their school is making character assessment increasingly important. Evaluating athleticism is now the easy part. The challenge is determining whether a student-athlete will graduate on time and project a positive image for your school.
What is the athletic director’s role? At the college level, athletic directors are giving their coaches better tools to assess recruits. At the high school level, athletic directors are helping coaches and guidance counselors work together to explain recruiting to athletes as early as freshman year. In this article, we’ll talk to administrators and coaches at both levels who have found some paths to success.
ASSESSING ACADEMICS
When the NCAA released the first Academic Progress Report (APR) at the beginning of March, more than half of NCAA Division I schools earned failing marks for at least one of their teams. Teams that continue to falter will eventually lose scholarships. “With the APR in place, when we’re recruiting, we can’t make mistakes,” says Larry Coker, Head Football Coach at the University of Miami.
The main thrust behind the new NCAA academic rules is to increase the number of student-athletes who graduate from college. To accomplish this, most college athletic directors are asking their coaches to better assess recruits’ academic abilities. It’s no longer just about making initial eligibility cut-offs. It’s also about finding student-athletes who want to get a college degree.
Baylor University is one school that has revamped many of its recruiting procedures, particularly for its men’s basketball team, which earned a 647 APR (well below the 925 cut-off point) and endured an off-court scandal two years ago. With a new athletic director and head coach on board, Baylor plans to make sure academic support personnel and coaches are completely in tune with each other. A key piece of the puzzle has become Baylor’s new “academic quick screen” procedure.
“Our certification officer looks at each prospect’s standardized test scores and transcript, evaluating the difficulty and number of core courses taken,” explains Don Riley, Director of Student-Athlete Services at Baylor. “Then the Director of Access Learning and Accommodation [Baylor’s resource for students with learning disabilities] and I sit down together and look over the certification officer’s evaluation. We rate the student-athlete 1, 2, or 3. One is ‘acceptable,’ 2 is ‘questionable,’ and 3 is ‘not acceptable at this time.’”
Student-athletes who receive a 2 or a 3 have their quick screens forwarded to the faculty athletic rep and to Athletic Director Ian McCaw for review. Coaches get copies of all their prospects’ quick screens.
“It’s been great for us,” says Scott Drew, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Baylor. “Coaches now need to know exactly what it takes for a student-athlete to succeed academically at our institution, and the quick screen gives us a fast read on that. Then we can decide whether we want to go any further.”
Riley says coaches have embraced the quick screen because McCaw helps facilitate communication with his department. “The best thing our athletic director has done is to make sure our coaches don’t see us as the enemy,” Riley says. “He emphasizes that we’re not giving a kid a 2 or 3 because we want to keep them from getting a great recruit. He lets them know we’re all working toward the same goal.”
Coaches at Arizona State University are also digging deeper to assess their recruits. Although its football program was rocked by its own off-field scandal in March, former Athletic Director Gene Smith, who recently took the same position at Ohio State University, believes the school’s screening process is not to blame. In fact, he credits ASU Head Football Coach Dirk Koetter as being one of the most diligent coaches in the nation at evaluating recruits’ strengths and weaknesses off the playing field.
Koetter says the key in assessing an athlete’s academic future is determining the recruit’s motivations. “In more than 20 years of coaching, I’ve learned that if a kid is motivated to get a college degree, he will,” says Koetter. “On the flip side, if it’s not that important to him, you’re going to have problems.”
Koetter starts by asking a prospect’s guidance counselor and teachers to rate that prospect’s academic motivation. “It’s important to go beyond the high school coach with this question,” he says. “Next, I look at key people in the athlete’s life to see what attitudes they have about the importance of a college education. I look for someone—his parents, an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent—who is motivating him academically.”
Koetter also watches recruits very carefully during their campus visits. “We have several academic presentations during the official visit,” he says. “The recruit doesn’t realize it, but I’m sitting quietly off to the side and observing him during those presentations. If he doesn’t show the same level of enthusiasm and attentiveness during the academic presentation as he does in his meeting with the position coach, you can be sure I’ll address it with him in our individual meeting before he leaves.”
Smith encourages all his coaches to talk to high school athletes’ teachers, especially when prospects have blemishes on their transcripts. “After determining what subject area the student-athlete’s deficit is in, our coaches contact that specific teacher and ask him or her, ‘What do you think this student’s weakness is? How serious is the problem?’” says Smith. “Once we know specifically what the weakness is, we can determine whether it’s something that can be remedied with the support we can offer."
At Meridian High School in Mississippi, where student-athletes are regularly recruited to play at the college level, Guidance Counselor Eris Jordan says she and the teachers at her school are more than happy to answer in-depth questions. “We can talk knowledgeably about a player’s strong and weak subject areas, specific learning problems, interactions with the school’s educational specialist, degree of focus and discipline in the classroom, time management skills, and drive to succeed,” says Jordan. “We can help coaches see each student-athlete as an individual, since numbers can’t tell the whole story.”
START EARLY
With college coaches placing a premium on academic achievement, high school coaches and administrators have a role to play in making sure that their student-athletes’ classroom preparation measures up. College coaches say the biggest problem they run into is high school coaches and guidance counselors who are still unaware of the NCAA’s initial eligibility rules: A high school athlete must pass a sliding-scale evaluation of his or her GPA and standardized test scores, along with passing 14 NCAA-approved core courses. In 2008, the number of core courses required will increase to 16.
The key to meeting these standards is for high school coaches and athletic directors to talk to student-athletes as early as freshman year about focusing on their schoolwork. “When we encounter a player who has not qualified during his senior year, the problem is almost always that he started paying attention too late,” says Jeremy Foley, Athletic Director at the University of Florida. “Athletic directors need to impart the message that the minute student-athletes get to high school, their grades are just as important as they will be their senior year.”
Some high schools are communicating the message at the junior high school level. At Meridian, for example, Jordan connects with the junior high schools that feed into her high school, meeting once a year with those schools’ student-athletes and their parents. Ed Stanley, Head Football Coach at Meridian, gets involved, too. “I make sure our high school and junior high coaching staffs work closely together, so that we can start getting to know kids’ abilities and aspirations early,” he says. “We try to identify the kids we think can go on to play at the next level, and we relay that information to our academic counselors.”
Ongoing monitoring of student-athletes’ progress is another piece of the puzzle. If grades or motivation start to slip, the end of the academic year can be too late to get back on track. “We do credit checks with our athletes at the end of each marking period,” Jordan says. “Every nine weeks, we let them know where they stand. If they are struggling in a class, we bring in their parents for a conference so we can fix the problem quickly.”
To make sure his coaches connect with their players’ teachers, Thomas Land, Athletic Director and Head Football Coach at Natick (Mass.) High School, requires student-athletes to take an evaluation sheet to each of their teachers early in the season. Teachers report the approximate grade and provide an assessment of behavior and effort. “We target athletes who are struggling and do a second evaluation sheet soon after,” Land says. “If problems continue, we add study halls, extra help, or take the athlete out of practice or games for tutoring.”
Steve Pardue, Head Football Coach at LaGrange (Ga.) High School, who last year coached nationally recruited outside linebacker Tray Blackmon, encourages his players to take responsibility for monitoring their own progress. “I meet with our freshmen and go over the basics,” Pardue says. “‘What is a GPA? How is it calculated?’ Then I give them a sheet explaining the core course requirements and listing all the courses that count. I expect them to take the sheet home and chart their grades as they go along, and I’ll have that sheet in my office and do the same thing.”
Just like at the college level, creating a top-down philosophy of academic excellence will pay dividends. “One of the main reasons we have been successful is that our coaches have been adamant about academics,” Jordan says. “If I have one piece of advice for athletic directors, it’s to make sure your coaches are backing up your academic counselors.”
CHARACTER QUESTIONS
Another area college coaches are focusing on is evaluating a recruit’s character. Many schools realize that negative publicity from a student-athlete’s off-field actions can easily outweigh the positive publicity from a winning team.
“It’s really important to us that a recruit has character traits that are going to allow her to succeed in our program in the long run,” says Becky Burleigh, Head Women’s Soccer Coach at the University of Florida. “That includes integrity, drive, fortitude, and the ability to treat others with respect.”
As with academics, thoroughly evaluating character means talking to teachers and counselors about the student-athlete. “We’ve intensified our discussions with people who have relationships with our recruits,” Smith says. “Before, we would spend time with the coach, the parents, and maybe one other person. Now, we also talk to a couple of teachers, the academic counselor, and anyone else we can find who knows the prospect well. It’s time-consuming, but it’s important to be as diligent as possible.”
With high school counselors, Smith recommends asking a specific set of questions: Are you aware of any criminal behavior the athlete has been involved in, including misdemeanors and felonies? Have they been involved in any incidents of negative behavior? Are they instigators of negative behavior in class? Have they been in any fights? Do they display any anger problems?
“I advise our coaches that they will get better information by keeping it conversational than by firing off questions,” Smith says. “But they need to have a list and make sure they cover all of these points. At the end of every conversation, we ask a blanket question: ‘Is there anything this athlete has been involved in that would embarrass you, their family, or ASU?’ If a problem exists, we often learn about it when we ask that question.”
Burleigh likes to expand her circle of inquiry to include coaches of opposing teams. “The kid’s own coach obviously wants her to be successful and has an agenda,” she says. “Opposing coaches have no stake in the outcome and will often give you a more honest assessment of what the player is like.”
Burleigh generally asks: Is this person a consistent player against you, or do you see a lot of ups and downs? How does she respond when she’s winning? When she’s losing? When she’s playing well, but her team is losing, does she get frustrated with her teammates or is she encouraging?
“Since our recruits are often the stand-out players on their high school teams, I also ask, ‘If you use a specific strategy to shut this player down, how does she handle it?’” Burleigh adds. “‘Does she handle it with character, or does she get frustrated and quit?’”
If the athlete plays more than one sport, her other sport coaches can provide another perspective. “If soccer is her main focus, but she also plays another sport, I want to know how hard she works when she isn’t doing the thing she cares most about,” Burleigh says.
How the athlete behaves with his or her family offers another window into character. “I get a real feel for what type of person a recruit is when I see him interact with his family,” Drew says. “Interactions with family are automatic and hard to fake. Is he respectful and involved, or does he act distant and rude? Are there expectations placed on his behavior at home, or is he spoiled?”
Coker adds another person to his list: the high school secretary. “I want to know how the kid treats her,” he says. “If he has been decent and respectful enough to get high praise from the secretary, that tells us something. If we get an answer that is a little bit reserved, that tells us something else.”
After recruits visit your campus, your own players can provide another character evaluation. “I’ll ask, ‘Does this player fit with what we believe in?’” Burleigh says. “If they tell me that as soon as she hit campus, she was looking for a party, she probably doesn’t have the commitment we need here.”
In addition to talking to more sources, both Baylor and Florida instituted new policies this year requiring recruits to submit letters of reference from people who know them well. Florida requires one letter, while Baylor asks for three. “We need a written endorsement of the student-athlete’s character,” McCaw says. “We piloted the idea in a few of our sports and coaches found that it really helps.”
Baylor and the University of Oklahoma have added criminal background checks to help evaluate character, and Florida is considering doing the same. Baylor restricts background checks to transfer student-athletes, since criminal records on minors are generally sealed, while Oklahoma conducts screenings on all prospects. “We see this as adding another layer of information,” says Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione. “There are limitations to it, but it allows us to make sure we know about anything big and obvious in the athlete’s past.”
At the high school level, it is important for athletes to understand that their integrity is being evaluated as closely as their athleticism is. “Remind them that every time a recruiter interacts with them, he or she is thinking, ‘Regardless of how good this player is, is he or she someone I would want to coach?’” says Jim Haney, Executive Director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. “‘Does he or she share the values of our team?’ Kids need to be reminded that recruiters are really trying to figure out who they are, and that’s going to play a big part in their decision to offer a scholarship.”
CAMPUS VISITS
Official visits grabbed the headlines two years ago, when news reports revealed that many were basically episodes of unsupervised partying. In response, emergency NCAA legislation has required every Division I institution to have a plan in place for prospects’ recruiting trips. To ensure those plans are followed, both high school and college athletic directors play a role.
At Natick High School, Land discusses expectations with his athletes before they make their first official visit. “We give them a lecture going out the door,” Land says. “We explain to them that they are going to be evaluated on every single thing they do. We say, ‘The evaluation doesn’t stop when the coaches aren’t around. Assume that your recruiting host will be asked exactly what you did. And just because you’re on a college campus, don’t allow yourself to be pressured to do things you know aren’t right.’”
On the college side, athletic directors are asking their coaches to get more involved with knowing exactly what recruits are doing during the entire 48 hours. “We want our coaches to know where the recruit is going, who they’re going with, and what they’re doing,” Foley says.
Smith also expects his coaches to educate student-athlete hosts and recruits on the parameters of acceptable behavior. “The coach sits down with the recruit and the host and goes over our written rules,” he says. “Then the recruit is asked to sign a statement agreeing to abide by the rules. We tell our coaches, ‘Make sure you go through every point, and make sure they know what they are signing.’”
Arizona State and Oklahoma policies prohibit recruits from drinking alcohol at any time during their visit, regardless of their age. At Florida, Burleigh also asks her players not to drink when they are hosting. “I think that puts pressure on the recruit to drink,” she says. “Having the host not drink avoids a lot of problems.”
At Miami, Coker provides hosts with a list of locations where they can take recruits, and makes everywhere else off-limits. “There is nothing wrong with entertainment, and we have a great city,” he says. “But there are places you do not want your players or your recruits going. Having a list makes it very simple.”
SETTING THE BAR
Of course, much of the legwork of recruiting falls to coaches. So what specifically can an athletic director do to help coaches better navigate the process?
At the high school level, Land feels that athletic directors often are left out of the recruiting loop, so he’s put extra effort into staying involved. One strategy he uses is distributing what he calls a “recruiting sheet” to all student-athletes interested in playing in college. The sheet asks for a rundown of pertinent information (name, address, SAT scores, GPA) and then provides space for athletes to list five schools they are interested in attending.
“They hand that sheet to me, and I call the programs they list and say, ‘We have a great athlete who is interested in your program and we’d like you to take a look,’” Land says. “We like to think our coaches have time to do this, but they are so busy that it often doesn’t get done. As an administrator, it’s easier for me to collect the information and slip those calls into my day.”
At the college level, administrators can make sure there are clear, written recruiting policies in place, developed in conjunction with the coaches. “We have some new policies this year, and the best thing our athletic director did was allow us input as they were being created,” Burleigh says. “They weren’t just handed down to us. We were given drafts of the policies and Jeremy listened to our feedback about what we thought would and wouldn’t work.”
Foley also makes recruiting practices a regular part of his coaches’ meetings, and provides forums for coaches to share ideas with their peers. “Our administration has encouraged us to have coaches-only meetings where we discuss strategies so that we’re not reinventing the wheel,” Burleigh says. “We’ve used ideas from football, and basketball has used ideas from us.”
Making time to meet personally with almost every recruit who comes to campus is another way Foley stays involved. “For us, it’s pretty easy to keep Jeremy in the loop, because he’s meeting our prospects,” Burleigh says.
At both the high school and college levels, the athletic director must also establish the department’s philosophy on recruiting, and this may be his or her most important contribution to the process. “We look to our administrator to set a climate where our athletes are expected to stay on track academically and where developing character comes ahead of winning games,” Stanley says. “With that philosophy, when it comes to recruiting, things fall into place.”
“The best thing our athletic director does for us in recruiting is to support us in selecting student-athletes we feel best represent our program,” Drew says. “Sometimes athletic directors have a win-at-all-costs mentality, and that puts their coaches in a very tough position when they’re recruiting. Here, we know that our athletic director wants successful programs, but he wants us to recruit athletes who reflect our values—academically, athletically, and ethically.”
SIDEBAR
Street Agents
What do athletic directors need to know about “street agents?” Adults with no school or family affiliation who attach themselves to top high school student-athletes, street agents attempt to influence athletes’ decisions and are a new and troubling trend, according to Larry Coker, Head Football Coach at the University of Miami. “The street agent is someone who has no official role in the process, no allegiance to a particular university,” he says. “They are not alumni or boosters. They basically get to know an athlete and his family, by attending practices, games, or tournaments, and then give them recruiting advice.
“Since there are no rules governing the contact a person off the street can have with an athlete, they can go to any contest,” he adds. “For example, there was an Florida-California All-Star game here in Miami, and college coaches couldn’t go to any of the practices. But these street agents could be there the entire time.”
What does the street agent get out of the arrangement? “I don’t think anybody really knows, and that is the question that needs to be answered,” Coker says. “My concern is that these individuals do not have the athlete’s best interests in mind.”
He advises high school coaches and administrators to be aware of street agents and to warn their college-bound athletes to be wary of anyone attempting to insert themselves into the recruiting process. “Let your athletes know that they can ask any questions they have of their guidance counselors, and athletic directors,” Coker says. “There really shouldn’t be anybody else that they need to deal with.”
SIDEBAR
Initially Ineligible
To be eligible to compete at the NCAA Division I level as a freshman, high school student-athletes need to pass 14 core courses, soon to be 16, during their high school career and meet minimum GPA/test score standards. For those who don’t get started soon enough, NCAA academic reform presents a real struggle.
“I have guys right now who have signed major college letters of intent and are still waiting to see if they can bring their test scores or their GPAs high enough to actually play,” says Steve Pardue, Head Football Coach at LaGrange (Ga.) High School. “They’ve become a lot better students very suddenly—they’re realizing what’s at stake right now.”
For some, becoming better students at the last minute won’t be enough. They will graduate without being qualified to play in Division I. And there is a very real risk of losing them at that point, says Ed Stanley, Head Football Coach at Meridian (Miss.) High School. “When they can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, some will give up on the idea of college altogether,” he says.
Avoiding that outcome is a top priority for Eris Jordan, an academic counselor at Meridian. “We do whatever we can to encourage them to go to a junior college,” she says. “I tell them, ‘This is an excellent option. You will be able to improve your academic skills while still playing your sport.’ I present it as a challenge: ‘This is not cutting you short or saying you’re second-rate material. This is a chance for you to show everyone that you do not give up. Then you can go on and play your last two years at a Division I school.’”
Stanley hopes seeing a few seniors sweating out the qualification process will serve as a wake-up call for their teammates. “When the younger kids see the older kids at risk of not being able to play, it makes them step back and look at how hard they are working academically themselves,” he says. “They don’t want to be one of the guys who has the talent athletically but isn’t able to do what he wants with it.”