Why Coaches Hate Recruiting

[oldude]

Through the years, I’ve been fortunate to know a number of college coaches. To a man, or woman, they are passionate, hard-working and dedicated individuals. But if there is one aspect of their profession they would all change if they could, it is the undeniable fact that their compensation, job security and success depends on the decision of a number of teenagers, their parents, coaches, friends and sometimes mysterious uncles. Confining this post to WBB, which is the preeminent subject of this board, recruiting has always been a challenging endeavor to the say the least, but in the past several years it has become ever more demanding for head coaches and their staffs.

Most coaches would be content with beginning the evaluation process with a recruit’s junior year of HS, extending an offer some time in the spring of a recruit’s junior year and securing a signed LOI in the fall of their senior season. Once on campus, the underclassmen would settle in, work hard and ultimately develop into key contributors at some point in their college careers. Ideally, a team could secure at least 3 talented players per year including: 1 guard (pg or sg), 1 forward (C or PF) and a versatile wing. Unfortunately, this is not reality.

The highly competitive nature of recruiting top HS players has dramatically lengthened the process to the point where coaches are now evaluating freshmen and extending scholarship offers up to 3 years in advance of when a recruit can actually sign a LOI. While verbal commitments are nice, recruits can and frequently do renege on their commitments. So a coach is put in a position of babysitting a recruit for almost four years until they arrive on campus. Beyond the time and effort required to babysit a teenage recruit, there is the incredibly difficult challenge of projecting how a 15 to 16 year-old HS kid will develop and perform on the college level. BY’ers are excited about the prospect of Sam Brunelle becoming a Husky, but do you really believe that Geno was comfortable extending a scholarship offer to a 15 year-old kid, from a small rural HS in VA, prior to her sophomore season?

Coaches, for their part in all of this, have increased the use of a number of less desirable “defensive” recruiting measures. With 15 scholarships for WBB, coaches can stock up on talent, with no reasonable opportunity to get everyone adequate playing time. Kim Mulky at Baylor said that figuring out her rotation is what kept her up at night. With 4 post players on the roster it was going to be an impossible task. Geno is looking at 14 players next season, and he cannot possibly find enough playing time for all of them. Just looking at next year’s class of 4 incoming W/G’s. When Geno extended offers to AEH, Gordon, Coombs and Walker, he had to think he wasn’t going to get all of them.

A second, more insidious practice, involves pulling scholarship offers previously extended to HS recruits. One of the most notorious such occurrences was when Sylvia Hatchell pulled the scholarship offers from the Day sisters, out of nearby Raleigh, so she could sign DD and her posse at UNC. We all know how that worked out for Hatchell.

The ultimate consequence of this recruiting madness started out as a trickle, but has now turned into a deluge. Players are transferring from D1 programs in unprecedented numbers because of playing time, bad fit, immaturity, fill in the blank ____. Vowelguy’s latest running tab puts the number at 47 and counting for this year alone. So even if a coach gets through all of the HS recruiting nonsense, and believes the team is set for the next few years, as MD, OSU, ND, LOU, Baylor and others have learned, “It ain’t over til it’s over.” Is it any wonder that college coaches have become more cynical about recruiting in general as well as the kids themselves, to the point where they learn to hate the entire process?

 

[Sonny44]

"Most coaches would be content with beginning the evaluation process with a recruit’s junior year of HS, extending an offer some time in the spring of a recruit’s junior year and securing a signed LOI in the fall of their senior season. Once on campus, the underclassmen would settle in, work hard and ultimately develop into key contributors at some point in their college careers.

I have long thought much of what you say. I think this or something close to it should be the practice. Pressuring kids and families at too young an age isn't really fair.

 

[oldude]

Agree fully with the sentiment but would point out that sometimes the kids as well as their parents are complicit in the madness that is recruiting.

 

[bags27]

Great post, as usual, oldude. Thanks!

I wrote on another thread that this is a reflection of the general tenor of the world today, fueled by technology that was unimaginable even a quarter century ago. It is one of the greatest transition period in human history--and certainly its most rapid--where knowledge is universal and instantaneous, social bonds dramatically weakened, and the very concept of work now questioned.

Looking at it from that end, recruiting 14 year olds for a college team is a very small grain of sand in a vast ocean of change. But when recruiting and coaching is your livelihood and your life, it is the ocean.

 

[UcMiami]

Nice OP - but it seems to me that coaches have pretty much always hated the recruiting process, and in many ways all the NCAA rules about restricting contacts has reduce the actual days involved during the same time that the age at which contacts are made has been getting younger. And the babysitting of verbals has always been part of the process as has the 'poaching' of verbals. Specific to top programs, the increase in funding and the expansion of staffing has probably decreased the time commitment of the HC relative to the whole process.

And the kids are still signing in the same year though the 'early signing period' has become standard rather than the later one but they are still making their final choice in a similar period.

I think there are three other important aspects of the scene that create greater transfer numbers:
1. The HS scene with kids spending more time with AAU travel teams and less time being coached in HS (and on a local AAU team.) It creates a less structured and disciplined environment and makes the college transition to rigorous coaching and 'failure' a bigger transition.

2. The advent of social media connecting players in new ways to each other and devaluing actual in person friendships. Combined with the AAU scene expanding player contact with geographically diverse peers who become 'BFFs' on a very superficial level. You get classes like UNC had that explode when those 'besties' realized that the reality of 24/7 contact wasn't quite the same as on-line contact and they all went their separate ways. Add in the on-going contacts in college and the ability to compare experiences and find willing ears to listen and commiserate with and provide easy comfort and a grass is greener picture and you can get knock on or lemming behavior.

3. Significantly greater choice in serious programs down to solid mid-majors. With more viable choices their are a lot more chances to make mistakes in initial choice and a lot more options for transfers. It also creates a much greater competitive environment for the coaches. There is also a serious professional option available which creates more incentive to find the right showcase program/team.

I also think coaches struggle in transitioning as their programs move up in quality with how to adjust their recruiting - Geno went through that adjustment in a much more stable environment with less serious competition.

And coaches just don't know how recruiting will turn out in any year or year to year. Good coaches offer players they really want to work with, but as you say they never know how many will accept. I think there is less 'stockpiling' going on than you imply and more randomness involved. I always thought Pat for example was a stockpiler because in the nineties she could choose the players she wanted, and she always had 5 or 6 post/forwards on her teams because she could get them and let them fight it out for minutes - it is harder to do that now. What you get is coaches that are scattershot when they should be more selective based on the quality of players they already have.

 

[iamcbs]

Awesome post OD, but much of what you're discussing starts with how much sports are televised now and the proliferation of these so-called AAU Teams and their nefarious influence on Women's Basketball especially. It started with that con-artist Sonny Vaccaro and Nike and Addidas and their influence on athletes and their families. Some AAU coaches and teams are on the up-an-up, but most are just shills for the shoe companies and there is very little actual coaching. It's mostly failed former players and/or coaches trying to hang onto the game and exploiting the athlete and the athletes are at fault as well, they crave the attention and exposure. Why else would Breanna Stewart's dad drive her from their home in Syracuse, NY to Philly on weekends to play on an AAU team? There aren't any AAU teams in NY? European recruiting is starting to become more prevalent, as well. College Recruiting has always been an ugly business, it's now being exposed more....

 

[oldude]

One of the elements that I did not discuss was the end of season "annual review" where a coach and player sit down after the season to discuss the player's performance and the coaches expectations for the upcoming year. Someone on another thread suggested that coaches use these reviews to gently nudge players out the door who don't otherwise figure into their long-term plans, in order to open up more scholarships for a coach to restock the pantry. It would be interesting to know just how many of the 47 D1 transfers were encouraged to seek playing time somewhere else by their respective coaches.

 

[Checkmate]

the simple answer is to many snowflakes

 

[meyers7]

the simple answer is to many snowflakes

Not sure how this relates, but I completely agree. We need much more global warming.

 

[JordyG]

Not sure how this relates, but I completely agree. We need much more global warming.

Thankfully in the next 8 years you'll be getting precisely that.

 

[UcMiami]

One of the elements that I did not discuss was the end of season "annual review" where a coach and player sit down after the season to discuss the player's performance and the coaches expectations for the upcoming year. Someone on another thread suggested that coaches use these reviews to gently nudge players out the door who don't otherwise figure into their long-term plans, in order to open up more scholarships for a coach to restock the pantry. It would be interesting to know just how many of the 47 D1 transfers were encouraged to seek playing time somewhere else by their respective coaches.

I think that might happen occasionally, and there have certainly been a few coaches who needed to shed a player or two to make room for incoming commits which I find really objectionable. (I don't have the same problem with an honest approach to a verbal commit, or even just rescinding a verbal offer of a LOI - but once you accept an LOI and the player wants to stay, in effect pulling their scholarship because you need it for someone else is 'nasty.')
I do think an honest appraisal of what a player can expect is a good thing - being given a rosy picture of their prospects for the following year would certainly be worse and would destroy any kind of trust in what the coaches are saying.

As for the numbers of transfers - it isn't raw numbers, but the number of starters/major contributors transferring that is so surprising. Uconn has had a transfer on average every year this century, but really none of them had established themselves with an obvious contributing career path at Uconn when they left and the ones that lasted through the first year might well have chosen to leave based on the honesty of those year end meetings Many of the ones leaving in the first year didn't need a year end meeting to understand that the demands of the program and their talents and desires were not a happy marriage.

 

[chrissaran]

Make it to where they can't verbal until their junior year. It's like campaigning: it goes on seemingly forever.

 

[Buzzyboy]

Through the years, I’ve been fortunate to know a number of college coaches. To a man, or woman, they are passionate, hard-working and dedicated individuals. But if there is one aspect of their profession they would all change if they could, it is the undeniable fact that their compensation, job security and success depends on the decision of a number of teenagers, their parents, coaches, friends and sometimes mysterious uncles. Confining this post to WBB, which is the preeminent subject of this board, recruiting has always been a challenging endeavor to the say the least, but in the past several years it has become ever more demanding for head coaches and their staffs.

Most coaches would be content with beginning the evaluation process with a recruit’s junior year of HS, extending an offer some time in the spring of a recruit’s junior year and securing a signed LOI in the fall of their senior season. Once on campus, the underclassmen would settle in, work hard and ultimately develop into key contributors at some point in their college careers. Ideally, a team could secure at least 3 talented players per year including: 1 guard (pg or sg), 1 forward (C or PF) and a versatile wing. Unfortunately, this is not reality.

The highly competitive nature of recruiting top HS players has dramatically lengthened the process to the point where coaches are now evaluating freshmen and extending scholarship offers up to 3 years in advance of when a recruit can actually sign a LOI. While verbal commitments are nice, recruits can and frequently do renege on their commitments. So a coach is put in a position of babysitting a recruit for almost four years until they arrive on campus. Beyond the time and effort required to babysit a teenage recruit, there is the incredibly difficult challenge of projecting how a 15 to 16 year-old HS kid will develop and perform on the college level. BY’ers are excited about the prospect of Sam Brunelle becoming a Husky, but do you really believe that Geno was comfortable extending a scholarship offer to a 15 year-old kid, from a small rural HS in VA, prior to her sophomore season?

Coaches, for their part in all of this, have increased the use of a number of less desirable “defensive” recruiting measures. With 15 scholarships for WBB, coaches can stock up on talent, with no reasonable opportunity to get everyone adequate playing time. Kim Mulky at Baylor said that figuring out her rotation is what kept her up at night. With 4 post players on the roster it was going to be an impossible task. Geno is looking at 14 players next season, and he cannot possibly find enough playing time for all of them. Just looking at next year’s class of 4 incoming W/G’s. When Geno extended offers to AEH, Gordon, Coombs and Walker, he had to think he wasn’t going to get all of them.

A second, more insidious practice, involves pulling scholarship offers previously extended to HS recruits. One of the most notorious such occurrences was when Sylvia Hatchell pulled the scholarship offers from the Day sisters, out of nearby Raleigh, so she could sign DD and her posse at UNC. We all know how that worked out for Hatchell.

The ultimate consequence of this recruiting madness started out as a trickle, but has now turned into a deluge. Players are transferring from D1 programs in unprecedented numbers because of playing time, bad fit, immaturity, fill in the blank ____. Vowelguy’s latest running tab puts the number at 47 and counting for this year alone. So even if a coach gets through all of the HS recruiting nonsense, and believes the team is set for the next few years, as MD, OSU, ND, LOU, Baylor and others have learned, “It ain’t over til it’s over.” Is it any wonder that college coaches have become more cynical about recruiting in general as well as the kids themselves, to the point where they learn to hate the entire process?

Geno's process may be even worse than that because he's looking beyond the skill level when recruiting. He wants players with the right mindset and attitude and work ethic so his choices are more limited. There's been times where he's had to settle for only a couple of recruits to focus on and hope that they decide to "buy into the UConn way" type of thing. When we've occasionally missed on a recruit or two, we've had one recruit recruiting classes that have somewhat stymied the staff and that's led to roster depth issues that have occasionally "doomed us" as some would agree lost the Huskies a possible national championship this year.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

Coach Geno has said that there are two types of coach: the type that recruits good players and the type that gets fired.

 

[huskeynut]

Recruiting is an inexact science. There are no hard and fast metrics with which to measure talent. Does the potential recruit have the mental attitude to go with the skill set needed to play D1 ball? How do you measure that? Is the potential recruit coachable? What is the metric?

I believe those coaches who are deemed successful at recruiting have a variety of items the use to judge the quality of the recruit. Most of this revolves around discussions with the player and her parents. We know Geno "interviews" the parents as well as the recruit. And we know that Geno will talk to the team after an official recruit visit and get their input. We know that Geno has become highly selective as to who and the staff recruit. Success allows that.

Look at the successful coaches - Muffet, Tara, Dawn (yes she's successful), Geno, Kim, Brenda and a few others have proven they can recruit top talent and keep them. And none are untouched by the transfer situations. But their program are stable and yearly contenders.

I think most coaches who have been doing this for a long time do get tired of the recruiting trail. From what I hear its a grind. I think most would rather deal with the x's and o's nd eave the rest to someone else. But its part of the job.

The landscape is changing as many have said. Instant gratification, social media and other things have add to the complexity of recruiting. Even coaches like Geno are now looking at transfers. Its new world out there and it ain't easy.

 

[oldude]

I think that might happen occasionally, and there have certainly been a few coaches who needed to shed a player or two to make room for incoming commits which I find really objectionable. (I don't have the same problem with an honest approach to a verbal commit, or even just rescinding a verbal offer of a LOI - but once you accept an LOI and the player wants to stay, in effect pulling their scholarship because you need it for someone else is 'nasty.')
I do think an honest appraisal of what a player can expect is a good thing - being given a rosy picture of their prospects for the following year would certainly be worse and would destroy any kind of trust in what the coaches are saying.

As for the numbers of transfers - it isn't raw numbers, but the number of starters/major contributors transferring that is so surprising. UConn has had a transfer on average every year this century, but really none of them had established themselves with an obvious contributing career path at UConn when they left and the ones that lasted through the first year might well have chosen to leave based on the honesty of those year end meetings Many of the ones leaving in the first year didn't need a year end meeting to understand that the demands of the program and their talents and desires were not a happy marriage.

While I have no way of knowing, I do suspect that Geno may have provided an "honest appraisal" to Courtney Ekmark after her sophomore season, ultimately resulting in her decision to transfer to ASU.

 

[Dillon77]

Make it to where they can't verbal until their junior year. It's like campaigning: it goes on seemingly forever.

Well, we will be seeing how a rule like that -- actually it's even more stringent -- works in the sport of lacrosse, where the NCAA approved a rule brought to them by Men's and Women's Lacrosse coaches that prohibits contact with a student until Sept. 1st of their junior year. And, yes, they are checking on HS and club coaches. This just (a week or so ago) got passed and we'll see how the ramifications play out, from "grandfather" clauses (kids who were offered as sophomores or even frosh) to the effects of the rule on the need to attend "essential" travel tournaments in 7th, 8th or 9th grade. Perhaps kids can play another sport or engage in another activity at younger ages and go into the recruiting stages a bit later and a bit more prepared for it. We'll see.

 

[Dillon77]

"What you get is coaches that are scattershot when they should be more selective based on the quality of players they already have."

UCMiami -- I remember this (kind of) conversation in relation to coaches like Jeff Walz, who many felt -- now that he's built an established program -- could/should switch from a "shotgun" approach to a more focused one, based on factors ranging from needs of the roster in the near- and the long-term, to the attitude of the prospects toward Coach Jeff's coaching strategy and what it means to them. Walz tends to run plays and the offense for a few and that can be a bucket of cold water to a prospect who thought they'd shine.

Still, even a selective, focused approach does not guarantee success. Coach McGraw has said she's trying to get to know her recruits and players on a more thorough basis so both player and coach can enjoy each other for four years. Sometimes things happen that can change the situation and sometime coaches miss things. Plus, there's the other factors that have been pointed out.

 

[nwhoopfan]

I seem to remember some kind of rule was passed a number of years ago after some basketball coaches were getting verbals from HS Fr. and even 8th graders! Can't remember the specifics, but maybe it was something along the lines of no verbals before Jr. year. Maybe the rule has been rescinded though. I've never understood trying to get either the player or the school/coach to make a commitment that long before the college career will start. So much can change in 3 or 4 years, it's just silly to even bother pretending it's going to be a binding commitment.

 

[Florida Fan]

Through the years, I’ve been fortunate to know a number of college coaches. To a man, or woman, they are passionate, hard-working and dedicated individuals. But if there is one aspect of their profession they would all change if they could, it is the undeniable fact that their compensation, job security and success depends on the decision of a number of teenagers, their parents, coaches, friends and sometimes mysterious uncles. Confining this post to WBB, which is the preeminent subject of this board, recruiting has always been a challenging endeavor to the say the least, but in the past several years it has become ever more demanding for head coaches and their staffs.

Most coaches would be content with beginning the evaluation process with a recruit’s junior year of HS, extending an offer some time in the spring of a recruit’s junior year and securing a signed LOI in the fall of their senior season. Once on campus, the underclassmen would settle in, work hard and ultimately develop into key contributors at some point in their college careers. Ideally, a team could secure at least 3 talented players per year including: 1 guard (pg or sg), 1 forward (C or PF) and a versatile wing. Unfortunately, this is not reality.

The highly competitive nature of recruiting top HS players has dramatically lengthened the process to the point where coaches are now evaluating freshmen and extending scholarship offers up to 3 years in advance of when a recruit can actually sign a LOI. While verbal commitments are nice, recruits can and frequently do renege on their commitments. So a coach is put in a position of babysitting a recruit for almost four years until they arrive on campus. Beyond the time and effort required to babysit a teenage recruit, there is the incredibly difficult challenge of projecting how a 15 to 16 year-old HS kid will develop and perform on the college level. BY’ers are excited about the prospect of Sam Brunelle becoming a Husky, but do you really believe that Geno was comfortable extending a scholarship offer to a 15 year-old kid, from a small rural HS in VA, prior to her sophomore season?

Coaches, for their part in all of this, have increased the use of a number of less desirable “defensive” recruiting measures. With 15 scholarships for WBB, coaches can stock up on talent, with no reasonable opportunity to get everyone adequate playing time. Kim Mulky at Baylor said that figuring out her rotation is what kept her up at night. With 4 post players on the roster it was going to be an impossible task. Geno is looking at 14 players next season, and he cannot possibly find enough playing time for all of them. Just looking at next year’s class of 4 incoming W/G’s. When Geno extended offers to AEH, Gordon, Coombs and Walker, he had to think he wasn’t going to get all of them.

A second, more insidious practice, involves pulling scholarship offers previously extended to HS recruits. One of the most notorious such occurrences was when Sylvia Hatchell pulled the scholarship offers from the Day sisters, out of nearby Raleigh, so she could sign DD and her posse at UNC. We all know how that worked out for Hatchell.

The ultimate consequence of this recruiting madness started out as a trickle, but has now turned into a deluge. Players are transferring from D1 programs in unprecedented numbers because of playing time, bad fit, immaturity, fill in the blank ____. Vowelguy’s latest running tab puts the number at 47 and counting for this year alone. So even if a coach gets through all of the HS recruiting nonsense, and believes the team is set for the next few years, as MD, OSU, ND, LOU, Baylor and others have learned, “It ain’t over til it’s over.” Is it any wonder that college coaches have become more cynical about recruiting in general as well as the kids themselves, to the point where they learn to hate the entire process?[/QUOTE}


Old Dude, You nailed it. No way am I going into the college coaching profession. It has been noted that Geno doesn't have to grovel or make some of the outrageous promises other coaches are reported to have given valued recruits, perhaps the discrepancy between the promise and delivery the reason behind some of the recent transfers. Not knowing the lengths some coaches go to secure future greatness, I am only vaguely aware of the rumors that Niele Ivey virtually lived with Skylar Diggins, from 8th-grade to her signing day. This is not to say that Skylar was going anywhere else, but her home town school, but an assistant coach, who was the point guard on ND's last ncaa championship, had the credentials to get in the recruit's head and stay there. Certainly, UCONN never went to such recruiting extremes and still held the ND guard to her worst shooting percentage in her last college game. In that instance, coaching defense negated recruiting excess. Can't stop snarkin' but Skylar was and still is a great basketball talent.

 

[Papa33]

Great post, as usual, oldude. Thanks!

I wrote on another thread that this is a reflection of the general tenor of the world today, fueled by technology that was unimaginable even a quarter century ago. It is one of the greatest transition period in human history--and certainly its most rapid--where knowledge is universal and instantaneous, social bonds dramatically weakened, and the very concept of work now questioned.

Remember Toffler's Future Shock? Given the truth of his thesis, it's no wonder that it has become scary difficult to come to grips with recruiting (and other, minor issues-- like obsessive online living, technological disturbances to employment and income distribution, proliferation of dubious "facts," loss of control over personal information and privacy, threats to national security, etc)

 

[UcMiami]

While I have no way of knowing, I do suspect that Geno may have provided an "honest appraisal" to Courtney Ekmark after her sophomore season, ultimately resulting in her decision to transfer to ASU.

I wasn't going to be specific about players but I suspect you might be right, and I can think of a few others who might have had the same reaction. What I find interesting is the ones who probably had very honest appraisals each of their three returning years, but chose to stay and find ways to contribute. Not unlike the walk-ons, but unlike walk-ons they clearly would have had other options had they decided to leave. Some real crowd favorites fall into that category over the years.

 

[Bestiarius]

Not sure how this relates, but I completely agree. We need much more global warming.

That should help recruiting. No more opposing coach talk about about Connecticut's cold winters.

 

[DefenseBB]

Well, we will be seeing how a rule like that -- actually it's even more stringent -- works in the sport of lacrosse, where the NCAA approved a rule brought to them by Men's and Women's Lacrosse coaches that prohibits contact with a student until Sept. 1st of their junior year. And, yes, they are checking on HS and club coaches. This just (a week or so ago) got passed and we'll see how the ramifications play out, from "grandfather" clauses (kids who were offered as sophomores or even frosh) to the effects of the rule on the need to attend "essential" travel tournaments in 7th, 8th or 9th grade. Perhaps kids can play another sport or engage in another activity at younger ages and go into the recruiting stages a bit later and a bit more prepared for it. We'll see.

Man, you stole my reply! I wanted to finish all of the comments to post this and BAM! Dillon comes in and scores the layup...

 

[MilfordHusky]

Any profession that relies on the decisions of 17 and 18 year-olds is a challenge. Any profession that relies on the performance of 18 to 22 year-olds isn't exactly easy either.

I think that honesty really is the best policy, and Geno's approach is the right one to achieve his goals. Whether he's recruiting kids or meeting with them at season's end, he's very candid. Many of the players appreciate that, even if the truth can be harsh.