This is the first installment of Van Zee’s Vault. I was able to nix the Central’s Corner title and go with a more personal message. As promised, the first handful of articles will be on my own thoughts as to “How to build a winning program” and there isn’t a better topic to start off with other than what I believe is the most important thing when it comes to winning. RECRUITING! I know coaches could talk until they are blue in the face about how important player development is and they aren’t wrong, but having the talent to start with sure does make life a whole lot easier. My experience with recruiting comes from two schools that will forever have barriers that make things difficult. Wabash College is an All-male school (one of three left in the country) which isn’t exactly the easiest thing to sell. Earlham College is a very liberal institution with a tradition of losing and a view on athletics as being a drain on the academic program instead of an enhancement to the overall student experience (likely not uncommon at a lot of other schools). These are both great places to attend, but do not have the national academic reputation that schools like Chicago and Amherst have. I have this vision of Coach Tee and Doebler just sitting in their office waiting for five star recruits to walk through the door and shunning away three stars like they are nothing. That is a completely unfair assessment and likely false, but it would be nice if all programs had the benefit of being a top academic school in the nation/world. There is a reason that D3 tennis has thrived even against D1 schools and that is because of the wealth of top academic schools combined with the idea that tennis typically breeds more top students than say football. I feel comfortable saying this without any real statistic to show you, but it is true. So here I have provided my FIVE keys to success in recruiting even at a school that historically has been rough. I remind you that while at Earlham, I took over a team that was winless in the previous year and was 19-3 in my fifth and final year with two recruiting classes ranked by TR.net.
Find your school’s niche market
While we would all love to believe that you can get any kid from any state with any background to come play for your program, that simply is not the case. It is important from day one for a coach to understand this and figure out what kind of student is most likely to attend the school you represent and then develop your prospect pool from that. By no means is this a rigid rule, but it will help you be most effective in your recruitment. For example, at Earlham I learned very quickly that they value diversity much higher than a lot of schools and had a very successful international admissions program. Needless to say I jumped on that opportunity right away and became good friends with the guy in charge of that program. I also realized that Earlham’s overall student body was comprised of less than 15% of students from the state they reside (Indiana) so working that particular state would have been less than fruitful. While it was difficult to develop a tournament visit schedule outside of the Midwest, knowing that the bulk of the student body came from the coasts saves a lot of effort. Let’s look at a school that has shown some success in recruiting recently that isn’t in a power conference (both academically and tennis). Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) had the #6 recruiting class in the country last year in D3 and is well on their way to a potential top 10 this season with two early 3 star commits. I am not going to sit here and pretend that I know anything about what RPI has to offer, but what I can probably guess is that they are not going after students looking for a liberal arts degree (most NESCAC schools are Liberal Arts based). What that means is that they can narrow their focus down to student-athletes that want to be challenged by one of the top research technical schools in the country. I am sounding like a coach for RPI already. Another example I would use would be a school like Rose Hulman University. This one is close to home as it is in Indiana and a former foe, but it has been ranked the #1 Undergraduate Engineering school in the country by U.S. News and World Report. So find out what students are interested in engineering, a large and even growing number, and let them know what kind of education they can receive. So the moral of the story on this. Know your school’s strength, know your school’s population demographics, and put that information in front of the right student athletes. One final caveat (thanks to D3West), you must cast your initial attempts wide and far because you never know who might be interested. Just don’t waste your time chasing a dream of multiple 4-star athletes who are also looking at the UAA or NESCAC. You will never win that battle.
Sell what “YOU” can do
The one thing that a coach can offer that no other program will have is what YOU bring to the table. There are so many different styles of coaches and you very likely will become similar to what you know or have been taught, but in the end, you are a unique entity. Use that to your advantage and drive the message home. If you are a coach who will push your players to become physically better through intensity in practice, make it clear of your expectations. If you are a players coach who values the relationship built and the experiences together, be clear in communicating that as well. There is no wrong way to be a coach (ok maybe a few ways), but there are contrasting styles and expectations for the incoming student athlete. I believe the coach and player relationship can be one of the most impactful bonds across all of academia. A professor spends a few classes with each student and has hundreds of students throughout a 4 year span. A coach has 10-15 student athletes and spends an enormous time with each of them. It is important that you know your style and let the recruit know how you are going to enhance their college experience. It is just as important that the parents know they have an ally in the educational process.
Believe in your message
This one may seem to be the easiest, but depending on the situation, can be extremely tough. There is no doubt that all coaches should be confident in their abilities and if you aren’t, it’s time to find a new profession. Recruits and their parents want to know that you believe in your own words. For example, I am sure that Coach Todd from Case sells recruits on the idea that he can make them a national champion. He can do so (and effectively) because he has the recent results proving it. He doesn’t have an individual singles title yet or even a final four for the team, but he has shown that his team has grown to one of the best in the country. He can lean on former players like CJ Krimbill and Eric Klawitter who do have a doubles national championship. One of which was a 4-star recruit and the other a 1-star recruit. If any coach were to say they can turn a 1-star into a national champion, I would laugh in their face. But Coach Todd has the proof and that message is powerful. Belief in your school is also important. This is something that may not come right away. If you are a new coach at a school you weren’t previously connected with (as I was with Earlham), it can take some time to believe in your message. When this is the case, you must believe in what D3 tennis offers and use that as your message. If you are reading this blog, my guess is you have that belief already.
Go hard or go home
This is something that has to be a mentality for recruitment to have success. Recruiting is an absolute grind and you have to live it to start a successful program. It means you are going to spend long hours on the phone after practice calling recruits. That includes even later hours if you are talking with recruits on the west coast who are three hours different than the east coast. It means getting in the car and driving 13 hours down to Shreveport, Louisiana on your own budget because that recruit will change your program (I did this, and sadly didn’t get him). It also means showing a recruit how important they are by attending 11 of his high school matches over the course of 3 months just so he can see you are there supporting him (He committed after match #8, but I still kept coming). If you want to be lazy in recruiting, then expect poor results. If you hate recruiting, then you probably hate winning just as much. Recruiting sucks because your success rate is worse than a baseball batting average, but when you hit those home runs, you will reap the rewards for 4 long years. As a tennis coach, be thankful that your lineup only needs 6 players. That means you truly only need to bring in 2 impact players per year to make a difference. Obviously depth is a bonus and I would never say cap your recruitment to 2-3 players a year, but it doesn’t take much to completely change a program. Parents and recruits would ask me all the time, “How many players are you looking to bring in?” My answer was blunt and might have shocked them a bit, but I think it proved how much I wanted to win. I would tell them, “It’s my job to out recruit you. If I happen to bring in 6 new recruits better than the ones I have now, then that’s what I will do. It is on you to out work them and prove you deserve to be in the lineup.”
Revel in you success and forget the failure
I don’t know how many times in my coaching career I put together the dream lineup in my head of who we had a chance to get and how good of a team we would be if it actually happened. I urge you not to do this. You will be heart broken time and time again because as I mentioned above, the yielding rate of a recruit choosing to play at your school is low. There are many factors that you cannot control including admission, financial aid, location, where their girlfriend decides to go, whether or not your school has the right major, greek life, etc. I could go on and on. You have to live with the fact that you did everything you could to promote your program and let the results not affect your effort. If you get the call from a recruit letting you know that they decided on a different school, wish them the best of luck and move on. If you get the call from a recruit committing to your program, enjoy it. One of my best recruiting years, I received three commitments (two 3-stars and a high 2-star) in a span of four days. I was flying high that week! The key is recruiting doesn’t stop until the athlete steps on campus in August. There are no firm commitments. Even kids who apply Early Decision can decide to go elsewhere (Admissions Offices would try to convince you otherwise). There is no signed letter of intent binding them to your school. So be excited, watch your tennisrecruiting.net page light up with new views, but don’t forget to share the excitement with your commits.
There you have it. My five keys to recruiting and building a successful program. Next week’s article will be about SCHEDULING!