The Revolving Door

Every year is a rebuilding year for the Lyndon State College men's basketball team.

Between the 2008-09 and 2010-11 seasons, the team has had 25 freshmen, according to the North Atlantic Conference website. Six of them came back to play their sophomore year.

This year was particularly bad as the school had ten freshmen on the team the previous season and none of them returned, including NAC rookie of the year Phil Warrick. In fact, the team had only two players come back from last year's entire roster.

There are currently eight freshmen on the team now, but it is anyone's guess how many of them will be suiting up for the 2012-2013 season.

 "The reason I left LSC was because it was a little expensive and I was living off campus and I didn't think it was going to be good for me," said former LSC basketball player Antonio Mena in a phone interview. "I just couldn't afford it and it was a little far from home."

There are many reasons, besides money, why players leave. Sometimes they do not like the area or the weather or they transfer to a different school closer to home. Even if Mena, from Central Falls, RI, could have afforded it, staying at LSC for four years was not in his plans.

"When I went to LSC I was thinking about going for two years and then transferring to a better school for basketball, but my plans didn't work out," said Mena, who now attends the Community College of Rhode Island and is taking general courses without playing basketball. He sees how students who are not from around the area may find it difficult to stick around the Northeast Kingdom.

"It's mainly because it is far from home for the other players that come from different states," said Mena. "They are city kids and in Vermont all you see is trees and stuff like that. There is nothing around."

Asa Smith is a current freshman LSC basketball player from Cheltenham, Md. who does not mind the rural atmosphere of Lyndonville. He likes the calm, peaceful environment of Vermont.

"People who might think it's boring don't make the most out of it," said Smith, who went on to talk about those who come to LSC and think it is boring. "I feel that those guys just aren't taking advantage of the opportunity of making Lyndonville as much fun as it could be."

While he enjoys the atmosphere and plans on staying all four years, he has not ruled out playing somewhere else.

"Don't get me wrong, if I get an opportunity to play somewhere for a cheaper price or for a full ride I'm definitely taking it," said Smith. "If it comes to where I can go to school for a cheaper price I would strongly consider it."

NCAA Division III schools, like LSC, cannot offer scholarships to athletes. This makes it difficult for out-of-state players to stay at LSC.

The two players who did come back this year, Jason Gray from Thetford, Vt. and Ben Sackett from Lyndonville, are familiar with the trees and location.  But the solution of keeping players is not as simple as going after more in-state students.

"In Vermont, just with the population, the amount of players is not as great as they are in other areas so if we can get a great local player we'd love to do that," said head coach Joe Krupinski. "It's just finding them."

The problem is more than just the scarcity of local players.

"A lot of kids from Vermont want to leave Vermont for the same reason kids from Maryland come up here," he said. "They want to try something different."

Krupinski focuses on certain areas searching for those players who want something different.

"When I first got here we really focused on the Springfield (Mass.)/Boston area and a couple urban areas in the northeast," he said. "We're still focusing on those areas, but it's changed.  The D.C. area is our new spot that we've been focusing on."

There are currently eight freshmen on the team.

To try to keep the players he recruits, Krupinski checks with their professors, holds study halls, and has exit interviews at the end of the season to see what the player's plans are. He says, for the most part, he knows when a guy is not coming back, but there have been surprises. Like this year.

"It seemed like every time you turned around something else was going on," said Krupinski about losing players for various reasons. "This has been the most challenging I've ever seen in my years coaching (at LSC). I don't intend to be in this situation again where we have 10 or 11 guys, period."

Even though this year highlighted the team's struggles with preserving its players, Krupinski does not see anything wrong with his recruitment system.

"We're going to recruit the same amount of players we've been recruiting and try to get the best guys we can get wherever they're from," he said. "We just might need to get a few more of them."