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Home | Back Issues
| April 2005 |Recruiting
MASTERING THE RECRUITING PROCESS AT
THE SMALL COLLEGE LEVEL
By Tony Johnson
Head Football Coach
Bethany College
At the NAIA
level, recruiting student athletes takes on so much more than just
a high school visit and a few recruiting weekends. We are not blessed
in so many cases to just show up with our school names on our shirts
and have recruits begging to come to our schools. We have to be more
creative through phone calls and mail flow.
For us at Bethany College, we are very fortunate to have a lot of
tradition based on what the previous Head Coach, Ted Kessinger, did
here in his twenty-eight years. We are blessed to have a summer full-contact
camp that allows many of the top players in the state to come to Bethany
and show their skills. We have seen a lot of Division I-A, I-AA, and
II talent, as well as NAIA/D-III athletes. The camp gets over 300
young men on our campus every summer. For Bethany, this is how the
recruiting process starts.
Having some 300 names in a database is a great start; then, of course,
every high school in our state, plus the states we feel are important
to recruit, will get a prospect letter from our recruiting coordinator,
Steve Tapley. Once Steve gets that information back, he enters the
names in the database. We then start an intense mail flow system through
the next four months of the student athlete’s season. Let me
say here that the head coach should send at least 50 letters per week
that are hand written. This adds a personal touch to your letter.
Email is also important to these young men and we put all their emails
in our database and send them notes once a week.
Our recruiting coordinator creates a master calendar in early June
for mail flow. By June 20th, just before our camp, we will look back
at the "juniors to be" listing, which most high school coaches
will send back from the year before. We send a letter to the top junior
prospects (fall seniors) and let them know we are going to be watching
them. We start our ‘Friday Night Lights Program’ in which
all of my coaches attend a different high school game each Friday
night for at least a half.
In August we also send a letter to the top 30 who did not chose Bethany
from the year before. One side note here is that it is important to
keep those relationships with the one’s that got away, because
you never know when they may want to come back. We keep a database
on them for two years.
In August we also start the mail flow system to our Junior College
prospects. Most JUCO kids will wait for the NCAA schools to make decisions
first but if you stay on top of them you will have a chance later
on. We will be aggressive with them as well. We also have two home
games that we invite players to come take part in campus activities
and learn about our program. Homecoming seems to be the best time
for one of these events. We make sure they are met by a panel of alumni
and current players, as well as admissions and academic counselors.
In late November, I will send out around 300 Christmas cards to all
the top recruits from JUCO to high school athletes and wish them the
best for the New Year. In January, I send out a “Why select Bethany
letter”, which lists all the successes of our conference and
our school. In early January we stop with the mail flow system and
concentrate solely on the phone calls and visits. Occasionally we
will still use the electronic letter flow.
PHONE CALLING
When calling recruits I instruct my coaches to introduce themselves
as a coach from Bethany. We tell them that we are calling because
we are definitely interested in them as a student-athlete and they
are a priority in the recruiting process. Remember, most of them have
been receiving mail from you and your competitors. You should congratulate
them on being a great player that was recommended for a college scholarship.
We have our student coaches call at first because they have a strong
feel of what the young man is going through and they just finished
playing the game. We have the student coaches humbly share our success
on and off the field, as well as tell them what makes the program
successful. We ask them to be enthusiastic, sincere and honest. Make
sure they know they are a priority and we feel they can make a difference.
Make sure they convey the message that we are looking for a National
Championship! If the young man is not home ask to speak to a parent,
but make it brief unless the parent pushes the conversation. Remind
the parents about specific testing dates and visits and tell them
how excited you are to be recruiting their son.
HOME AND SCHOOL VISITS
When recruiting the student athlete at the school we make sure we
organize our daily schedule, date and time of visit. Make sure you
have contacted the coach so you are not just a drop in. We have to
remain flexible, as school administration may not let students out
of class. Plan no more than 90 minutes at a school. If you have the
whole day, plan for no more than five schools. Make sure you have
mapped out your travel between schools so you do not waste time driving.
When you call the coach, ask him if he has a couple of minutes and
be sure to ask permission to visit with his players. I have been a
high school head coach and know how frustrating it is to find out
later that a college recruiter was in our building without my knowing
about it. You may already know who you are going to visit, but ask
the coach if there is anyone else who might be a sleeper or just a
bit undersized that wants to play. Sometimes you can get lucky with
one. Sometimes coaches think they know what you need.
Call the coach the evening before you visit for confirmation and a
reminder that you are coming. Get proper directions to his office
if this is your first time in the building. You may need to sign in
at the main office. If a problem arises at another school or you are
running late, make sure you call the coach first and let him know.
Then, when you return to your office, write him an apology letter.
When you meet with the player, either at his home or school, have
lots of information about your school. If you don’t know the
facts and figures of your school, don’t go! You must be able
to answer all questions. A great salesman knows his client and their
needs and he certainly knows his profession and product. Sometimes
you may need to have extra questionnaires to have the players fill
out.
Keep the meeting brief, no more than 30 minutes. Have a question and
answer period afterward. We also hand out a paper with a graph that
parents and students can fill out with Bethany and four other schools
they are considering. It gives a point total for things like school,
academics, goals of coaches, opportunity to play, cost, etc. This
chart allows them to put the good and bad about lots of schools down
on paper and lets them know that we are not trying to pressure them.
They can add up the points and see where Bethany stands with their
other choices.
We also stress winning in the classroom and on the field. We explain
the advantages of a private, small school education. We talk about
football expectations, community and support of our administration
and town. We end by talking about applying and receiving scholarships
and financial aid, which is very important at our level. We give out
our business card should there be any other questions and our school
web address. Kids today do more on email than anything else, so we
try to write to their email as well.
We try to also have at least two more weekends in January and February
for athletes and their parents to come and look at the school and
visit with teachers and admissions, etc. We will have some of our
current players host them for the night and take them to dinner and
maybe a basketball game or campus event.
During this whole process, our football coaching staff will be watching
and evaluating recruiting tape as a staff. I believe it is important
to have everyone’s input. We watch recruiting tape on Wednesday
and Sundays starting in early November. We use a grading system and
then tally the numbers up and rank each recruit on a board. We tell
each coach to always be honest and let the young man know where he
stands in the recruiting process.
Last, but not least, we want to be professional – look sharp
(all our coaches wear slacks and a button-down shirt), have class
and be yourself. I have coached at every level of this game and understand
that the process is long and many stones have to be overturned at
the small college level. Keep your precious relationships with the
high school coaches and keep in mind that they are the lifeblood of
your program.
In closing, what we do is not a science but it is the best way I have
found to stay active with a small budget and not a lot of resources.
Tony Johnson just completed his first season as head coach at Bethany
College. He previously was a graduate assistant coach at TCU, head
coach at Sacred Heart High School in Salina, Kansas, offensive coordinator
at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, and a coach at Texas A &
M- Kingsville. Johnson played football for MidAmerica Nazarene University
and was named all-conference in the Heart of America Conference while
receiving a Bachelor of Science. He also has a Masters Degree from
TCU. He can be reached at JohnsonTO@bethanylb.edu |
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