PuttingPutting the puzzle pieces together

     Behind the Xs and Os of coach’s clipboards, the many games played during the
season, and the hours spent practicing and conditioning, is the art of recruiting college athletes.               It is a well-known fact that without good recruiting, a team will suffer. GCSU Men’s Head Basketball Coach Terry Sellers believes it is the most important part in building a winning program.
     “(Recruiting) is the name of the game,” Sellers said. “It determines how successful a team is. It is crucial to find confident kids who make good grades and can compete in your conference.”         If recruiting plays a vital part in college athletics, how does one become good at finding the talent needed to help their team win?
Recruiting strategies differ from coach to coach, but there is no right way to forming a balanced roster.  The most common tactics coaches use are athlete recruiting agencies and witnessing athletes live.
Recruiting agencies help thousands of qualified student-athletes get the proper exposure and publicity. Agencies offer profile applications, video production service and placement programs. With agencies athletes can begin to contact and distribute their video to colleges instantly. One popular agency is the Global Sports Recruiting Agency.
These agencies are particularly convenient to GCSU Tennis Coach Steve Barsby who has more than half of his team (10 of 17) come from international countries.
“There are so many international athletes that they know somebody that attends GCSU,” Barsby said. “Many students in other countries use recruiting services and they find you instead of you having to find them. It is a very useful tool for coaches.”
Sellers also agrees that subscribing to recruiting services lightens the load for coaches.
“Recruiting agencies do the work for you,” Sellers said. “We tell the agencies our needs and they go out and evaluate prospects for us. We get hundreds of phone calls from coaches, parents and players and receive tapes from players wanting to come to our school. We become bombarded with potential prospects.” 
Another way to recruit effectively is the old fashioned way: watching prospective athletes play live. GCSU women’s soccer coach Robert Parr believes heavily in seeing the players play first-hand.
In the off-season, Parr attends 65-70 games a week processing over 400 players a year. He goes to national tournaments in Raleigh, N.C., and Atlanta, as well as smaller tournaments in the state.
“I invest a great deal in scouting,” Parr said. “You really need to see a player play live to determine if they can help you or not. Seeing players live gives you a chance to see if they can play at a consistent level. It helps me make sure I am getting the right person.”
Once the talented players are found, it is time to narrow the class down into those that will fit into your program.
“We usually get 50 to 100 names of players we need to fill in two to four spots,” Sellers said. “We are constantly taking names in and out of the list. In January, we access our needs and narrow it down to three or four guys per position and go from there.”
 After compiling a final list of potential prospects it is time to entice the players to make GCSU their home.
“Each student has a different decision point,” Parr said. “My job is to determine the most important factor in their decision and exploit it. Most students like the personal attention GCSU offers in the classroom and our location. We are in most athletes’ personal ring. We are far enough from home where students feel independent from their parents but close enough where they go home on the weekends to do laundry.”
Barsby also believes that GCSU makes it easy for coaches to recruit great players.
“Even though tennis is a team sport, it is mostly an individual sport. My big thing is getting the players to feel comfortable with me and feel as if they can work well with me,” Barsby said. “If we get them on campus then it is almost guaranteed they will come here. Two out three students who visit our campus end up coming here.”
Overall, a coach is someone who gives instruction and advice. They do not play the game. No matter how knowledgeable a coach maybe in his or her profession it will not matter unless they have the players who can make their vision a reality.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 13 2007. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry