You’re a star high school athlete and college coaches are drooling over you.
A college coach can come and see you and talk to you after the game, they can call you, and they can e-mail you.
But don’t let them poke you. NCAA rules prevent coaches and recruiters from using social networks or text messages to contact a recruit.
The NCAA has rules and regulations for all levels to follow, some vary from Division I athletics all the way up to Division III.
Perhaps the biggest difference in the levels is scholarships. Division I schools are allowed to give full rides to student-athletes and make it so student loans are non-existent. DIII schools are not allowed to offer scholarships, which means athletes pile up student loans while playing for their school.
Lyndon State College has 12 Division III NCAA athletic teams and all of them are expected to be competitive. In order for the teams to be competitive they must have good players, but how do coaches get those players here?
Recruitment.
Recruiting is a vital aspect to collegiate sports. Without recruiting, teams would never appear in conference championships.
Joe Krupinski, the head coach of the men’s basketball team, says that recruiting is a year round job. Krupinski recently led his team to the North Atlantic Conference Championship game and thinks that will help in his recruiting ventures.
The first step to recruiting an athlete is finding them.
The LSC athletic website offers a place where high school students can submit a form saying they are interested in being recruited, but coaches also have to do some work to find players.
Athletic Director Chris Ummer says going to watch meets and races is the biggest tool for him in finding a student he would like to recruit.
Coaches can go to as many games as they have time to go to. They can watch who ever they would like and take down names, but a coach can’t approach an athlete until their senior year.
However, the athlete can approach them by coming to see the campus. A junior can come and tour the campus as well as talk to the coach and members of the team on campus, but once that athlete leaves the campus contact must stop.
In the NCAA DIII rulebook bylaw 13.02.2 reads:
There are not restrictions on the number of off-campus contacts. Off-campus contacts are not permitted until the conclusion of the prospect’s junior year of high school.
Once the athlete is a senior, talks can be ongoing.
“Although there’s only so much you can talk about on the phone,” said Krupinski. Coaches can e-mail and call as much as they would like. Krupinski says he makes sure the recruit knows he can e-mail him as much as he would like, with game updates, stat updates or just to check in on the team.
Prospective athletes can visit the school as much as they would like as long as the visit is paid for by the student and their family. Anything the school does for a non-athlete it can also do for an athlete on a non-official visit.
“If I really want somebody, I would say here’s an official visit,” said Ummer who also coaches the men’s and women’s cross country teams. “But I’m not going to do that for every recruit.”
An official visit is one that must be reported to the NCAA. D III schools are allowed one official visit per athlete. It allows a prospective athlete to visit the school on the schools budget. An official visit is one in which the athletes transportation to get to the school is paid for (airfare, bus ticket, etc.) the athletes parents are put in a hotel for a night, or off campus meals are paid for.
Often prospective athletes will stay with a current athlete on an official visit. During these trips the current athlete can be given a few dollars from the athletic department each day to take the prospect off campus to eat, or go to other appropriate entertainment.
Natalia Shams is a senior on the softball team; in her four years at LSC she has been part of the recruiting process.
“We try to get them up here for a basketball game or during a big campus activity,” said Shams, who says having the athlete on campus during a game or large event shows the student that the campus is alive and there is more to do than just play softball and go to class.
When a prospective athlete is on campus the team will often get together for a meal to try and make the student feel like she is part of the team before even arriving for classes, said Shams. She also said the team will often get together and hit in the gym if the batting cage is up. This way it gives the athlete an idea of what kind of equipment the campus and the team has available to them.
Coaches do everything they can to try and get a player to commit to their school. In the end though it is the player’s decision.
For basketball star Phil Warrick it was Lyndon’s size that sealed the deal.
“I chose it because of the atmosphere,” said Warrick who was named NAC Rookie of the year this past season. “It isn’t too big and it isn’t too small either.”
He attended a small High School and had a hard time picturing himself playing at a big school.
“I got stuff done there (New Leadership Charter School, Springfield, Mass.) and I know that I can get stuff done here too,” he said. Get stuff done is what Warrick did this season. He led his team in points and assists on the way to finishing second in the NAC.
For freshman Ariel McConkey finding the right school was about choosing the wrong one first. For her first semester she went to Central Maine Community College and played basketball there. She soon figured out the school wasn’t for her.
She had been recruited by LSC head coach Vinnie Maloney before her freshman year and decided to give it another look.
“I transferred to LSC because I didn’t enjoy basketball there,” she said. It’s not just about basketball for McConkey though. She said she received several academic scholarships and lots of help in financial aid. “I got a better offer to come here,” said the stand out freshman, who says after academic scholarships and aid it was cheaper for her to come to LSC then stay in her home state of Maine.
Even at the DIII level college sports are competitive, but at the DIII level athletes are expected to be students before they are athletes. At LSC you must have a 2.0 GPA in order to play a sport.
“The first thing we do is make sure that everyone is academically eligible,” said Krupinski.
Ummer believes the DIII level is tailored to the typical student-athlete. Student comes first because the individual is at Lyndon to first get an education, playing a sport is just a large plus they get out of it.
Athletics at Lyndon are up and coming, but academics will always be first. Ummer says that when recruiting an athlete, he has to focus harder on the school and the surrounding areas than he does the sport.
“I find a unique program,” said Ummer, who admits to getting excited when a runner tells him of their interest in atmospheric sciences, television studies, exercise science, or any of Lyndon’s professional programs.