Getting a Good Fit : Recruiting Is More Than Finding the Best Athlete

Building a successful college sports program is a little like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

Recruiting the right players is a big part of it.

“We’re all looking for the right fit between the athlete and the university,” Cal State Fullerton baseball Coach George Horton said.

And take it from several of Orange County’s college coaches: Finding the student-athletes who do fit, then getting them enrolled is the big challenge.

But talent isn’t everything.

“Sometimes one of the toughest parts of the job is deciding that you’re not going to recruit a player, no matter how good he is, if it looks like he’s not going to be able to fit in with what you want to do,” UC Irvine men’s basketball Coach Pat Douglass said.

And it’s as important that the player have the potential to be successful academically as well as be able to sink that 20-foot jump shot with the game on the line.

Most college recruiters also try to look into a player’s personality.

“What has worked out well for us is getting kids who seem to be really driven to be successful,” Cal State Fullerton women’s volleyball Coach Mary Ellen Murchison said. “That brings a lot of energy to your program.”

Horton agreed. “We look for players who are self-motivated and team-oriented,” he said. “It’s also good if they’ve come from a winning background, and have had success in things other than baseball. It shows you that desire and the will to win are usually there too.”

The players, meanwhile, are making the same sort of evaluations about the coaches and the colleges pursuing them.

And sometimes it’s the little things that make a difference. Cal State Fullerton basketball player Chris St. Clair remembers that one coach put too much pressure on him early in the recruiting process to make a quick decision.

“He kept telling me that he needed a commitment one way or the other, but I don’t think that kind of pressure works well,” St. Clair said. “Overall, though, my recruiting experience was enjoyable.”

St. Clair, who was one of the top high school players in Orange County as a senior at Sonora in 1993, chose Fullerton over UC Irvine, San Diego State and Boise State.

“Recruiting is really a complex decision-making process on both sides,” Cal State Fullerton men’s basketball Coach Bob Hawking said. “But unlike the coaches, the players are going through all this for the first time, and so are most of their parents.”

Hawking has seen the recruiting process from virtually every vantage point. He was the coach at Simi Valley High when Don MacLean was one of the nation’s most highly recruited players. Hawking’s son, Butch, who played at Air Force, was one of two other Simi Valley players recruited by Division I schools that year.

“I learned a lot about recruiting just from that, especially just how intense it is, and how much time and effort is involved,” Hawking said.

Douglass says the time spent in recruiting has been reduced somewhat since the NCAA put more restrictions on when coaches could have contact with athletes. “That may have saved some basketball coaches’ marriages,” Douglas said, only half-joking. “It used to be that some guys were on the road almost 10 months out of the year either scouting or recruiting.”

Assistant coaches usually carry a big share of that workload, especially in the sports where recruiting is particularly competitive. “Many of them do more of the scouting than the head coach,” Douglass said. “Some head coaches get more involved at the end. But some of it depends on a coach’s own style.”

When he was a high school coach, Hawking says he made it a point to take an active role when his players were being recruited.

“I wanted to be able to help in the process if I could,” Hawking said. “I wanted to sit in on the home visits. I think it’s good when coaches want to participate because they usually have a lot of perspective and can give good guidance.”

One thing Hawking says he learned is that good communication is a key.

“I’ve found that there are misconceptions sometimes, and it’s important that we clear those up with the player and his parents,” Hawking said. “There’s not always a complete understanding of the academic requirements involved, and there are some common misconceptions about scholarships.”

For example, some think that an athletic scholarship is for five years when actually it’s for one year and renewable each year after that.

“Recruiters make a mistake when they’re not totally honest with the kids and their families,” Hawking said. “Some colleges might tell players that they’re their No. 1 choice, for example, when that just isn’t the reality.”

Hawking says it’s also important for recruiters to deal with any potential negatives straightforwardly.

“The most difficult thing for athletes is realizing where their best opportunity is,” Hawking said. “That’s why you see kids transferring. They make the wrong decision. They might choose the more glamorous situation, but those kinds of schools recruit a lot of outstanding players.”

Douglass agrees, and says it’s important for players to make their college choice based on realistic expectations.

“A potential pro player might want to go to a school where he can get the most exposure, and for him that’s probably the right thing,” Douglass said. “But how many college players are going to be able to make it to the NBA? We look for student-athletes who are serious about getting a degree. If we don’t feel an athlete is going to be successful academically, we don’t recruit them.”

Some recruiters say that high school athletes frequently have an inflated idea about their ability.

“For every one high school player who gets a Division I scholarship, there are all kinds of others who think they should,” said Chapman football Coach Ken Visser, previously an assistant at Long Beach State. “Just because an athlete was all-league in high school, that doesn’t mean he’s a top college prospect. It’s hard for them to realize how selective it really is.”

Visser says it’s also easy for high school athletes to be misled about colleges’ interest in them.

“Just about anyone can get on someone’s recruiting list,” Visser said. “And getting a few letters in the mail means nothing. It’s really only if the recruiters want to come out and visit, and invite you to their campus for a trip that you’re a legitimate Division I prospect.”

Sometimes athletes will walk on at a Division I school hoping to eventually earn a scholarship. Occasionally they do, but often they don’t.

One of Visser’s current players, defensive back Ty Pursley, went to Colorado State as a recruited walk-on, but then found that the school didn’t offer the opportunity he wanted on the field or in the classroom.

Pursley, who was an all-county player at Boulder (Colo.) High, was a redshirt as a freshman, but ended up transferring to Saddleback College the next year, and is now happily playing Division III football at Chapman.

“I wouldn’t have been happy not being on the field playing football, and I saw the road being a long one for that happening at Colorado State,” Pursley said. “A lot of people are happy just being a part of a successful Division I program even if they’re not playing, but that wouldn’t have worked for me. I also went there planning to study engineering, but then I decided I wanted to change my major to architecture, and they had nothing for me there.”

Vince O’Boyle, who coaches track and cross-country at UC Irvine, says athletes sometimes have unrealistic expectations about the amount of financial aid they’ll be offered.

“Some of them consider it a slap in the face if they’re not offered a full ride,” O’Boyle said.

But full rides aren’t always available. Often, particularly in non-revenue producing sports, schools offer only partial scholarships, splitting up the full grants they have available to give financial aid to more athletes.

“If a player is choosing our program based on the amount of scholarship money he’s going to receive, he’s choosing it for the wrong reason,” Horton said. “We want them to choose our program because they feel like we can help them become a better baseball player. Not everyone we have gets a full ride, and our players’ families are often called upon to fill the gap. We want to be competitive with our scholarship offer, but we don’t want to get into bidding situations either.”

Community colleges offer an alternative to some players who don’t get the kind of scholarship offers they want coming out of high school.

“The best thing about a community college situation is that everyone has an opportunity,” Fullerton College football Coach Gene Murphy said. “It’s a chance for someone who needs to mature more physically and develop as a player.”

Saddleback College basketball Coach Bill Brummel points to Micah Kroeger, a former Edison High player, who chose to spend a season at Saddleback when he was dissatisfied with his opportunities at four-year schools.

“He had qualified, and he had been offered a few scholarships, but they weren’t on the level he wanted,” Brummel said. “He had the guts to take a gamble because he thought he could do better.”

After one year at Saddleback, Kroeger got a scholarship offer he liked and enrolled at Hawaii.

But Horton says it’s as important for recruits to be honest in the recruiting process as it is for coaches, and to be open about their level of interest in schools recruiting them.

“Sometimes recruits can waste coaches’ time by not letting them know that they’re really not that interested,” Horton said. “I know there have been times when players will go on recruiting trips after they’re already decided where they’re going to school.”

College baseball coaches also face additional competition from major league baseball for the top high school seniors, who are eligible for the amateur draft.

Horton says he and his assistants have to make some recruiting decisions based on whether they think a player is going to sign a pro contract or play in college. “Sometimes you’re right and sometimes you’re wrong,” Horton said.

Horton believes it’s particularly important to have potential recruits talk with some of the team’s current players before making their college decision. “And we tell our players to be totally honest with recruits,” Horton said. “We want them to base their decision on exactly what our program is, not what they might think it is.”

Some college athletes said that the interaction between the recruit and athletes already in the program during a campus visit became a big factor in their decision.

“How I felt around the other guys meant a lot,” St. Clair said. “Many of those guys are the ones you’re going to be around a lot during your career, and you want to feel like you’re going to be comfortable around them and the coaching staff.”

Another Fullerton basketball player, DeVaughn Wright, who played at Mater Dei, says his campus visit also was an important factor.

“The coaches can tell you how everything is, but once you have a chance to visit you can see for yourself,” he said. “Hanging around the other players helped me a lot.”

UC Irvine freshman soccer player Stephanie Rigamat from La Crescenta Crescenta Valley High, says her impression of the university and its campus was a major factor in her decision.

“It’s important that the coaches make a good impression, but the quality of the school was very important to me,” she said. “When I visited [Irvine], I was able to meet some of the faculty, and see how the program worked and things like that. And the campus seemed safe and comfortable to me.”

Sometimes, no matter what kind of selling job coaches do, it comes down to where a player really wants to be. “I wanted to be close to home, and close to my friends and family,” St. Clair said.

But the important thing, Horton says, is for both the player and the coach to feel good about the decision they’ve made.

“It’s really important for everyone that it be a good fit,” Horton said. “We feel a player is choosing a second family for himself, and we feel like we’re choosing a son to join our family.”

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1997-98 College Signing Dates

* Basketball (early): Nov. 12-Nov. 19

* Basketball (late): April 8-May 15

* Football: Feb. 4-April 1

* Women’s volleyball, Field hockey, Soccer, Men’s water polo: Feb. 4-Aug. 1

* All other sports (early): Nov. 11-Nov. 19

* All other sports (late): April 8-Aug. 1