This weekend I am heading on a recruiting trip to Edmonton. Spruce Grove hosts a large international tournament and Grant MacEwan University host a large ACAC tournament as well the same weekend. This gives me a chance to see most of our potential recruits on one weekend. It was this weekend last year I feel helped solidify my relationship with Shanlee and Niki. Both were competing at the Spruce Grove tourney and I travelled there to watch and support them. Niki and Shanlee are very important recruits for our ability to remain a top ten program.
At the MacEwan tourney I had a chance to see Lexi play again. I originally tried to recruit Lexi out of high school from Winkler. She chose to go to a College for her start of school. So 1 year later I was able to meet her at MacEwan and being the discussion of attending BU in one year.
Recruiting is an ongoing thing. It never stops. We have to identify athletes in grade nine and ten and then follow their progress throughout their high school. CIS has very different rules from the United States. Mostly this is because the head coach of most CIS programs does most of the recruiting for the program. Compared to the NCAA where a lot of program has a national and international recruiting coach on staff. The Head coach only gets involved at the end of the process.
In Canada and the US we rely an awful lot on friends and acquaintances to help us with recruiting. We will receive emails from athletes that are interested in playing in the CIS, but often we won’t be able to watch the athlete until club season. I will often ask a friend or a coach I have met to go and watch a match and give me an opinion. As a coaching staff we borrowed an idea from junior hockey. WE created a rubric that we can send out to coaches to help with their evaluations of a player. It shows the level of athleticism that is necessary.
Quiet often I will get asked about what a coach wants in a video. Most coaches will watch a video only for a short time. Introduce yourself on the video and then grab a basketball rim. If a girl can touch the rim the coach will then continue to watch. I would personally rather watch a set of a player playing rather than a highlight video. A set allows us to see the athlete make some errors, and then watch their reaction to the errors. It lets us see how the athlete handles the match after 20. Do they play safe, or do they find away to score (make something out of nothing)?
The next point on recruiting is athletes be honest with us. WE have very limited time to actually get out and watch athletes play, and even more limited budget to bring athletes in to visit the campus. We like to only bring an athlete in if we know it is down to us and one other school. Then meeting the team is the final factor for them. Coaches talk to each other. Most of the University and college coaches get along incredibly well. WE know who each person has as their top recruits. We all end up going after the same athletes most of the time. Ryan Hofer from TWU and I seem to like the same style of athlete, because it always seems to come down to Trinity or Brandon for the athletes we recruit. So if an athlete tells us one thing and them another we tend to find out. Ultimately most coaches have plan A, B,C. So if an athlete chooses to go elsewhere it stings but we have another option.
Explaining recruiting to my friends outside of coaching I often equate it to a high school guy trying to date a girl. We called last week, should I call again? Too soon, don’t want to hound her? Wonder if Ryan has called her today? I sent her an email update on our weekend, wonder if she read it? I talked with one recruit and her team won a tournament, so I called her on Monday to congratulate her. I asked her did anyone else call? She told me I was the 7th University to call that day. She is that talented. So imagine she talked with each of us for at least 15 minutes. 90 minutes with coaches in that one day. As a coach you need to find something that will make you stick out or above the other Colleges and Universities. So we meet them and try to build a bit of a relationship with them. We want them to feel extremely welcome and wanted on the team.
This year is different; I am trying to meet some different athletes that we are looking at. We haven’t had the chance to formally meet them and throw our hat into the ring. This will be an interesting weekend.
At the MacEwan tourney I had a chance to see Lexi play again. I originally tried to recruit Lexi out of high school from Winkler. She chose to go to a College for her start of school. So 1 year later I was able to meet her at MacEwan and being the discussion of attending BU in one year.
Recruiting is an ongoing thing. It never stops. We have to identify athletes in grade nine and ten and then follow their progress throughout their high school. CIS has very different rules from the United States. Mostly this is because the head coach of most CIS programs does most of the recruiting for the program. Compared to the NCAA where a lot of program has a national and international recruiting coach on staff. The Head coach only gets involved at the end of the process.
In Canada and the US we rely an awful lot on friends and acquaintances to help us with recruiting. We will receive emails from athletes that are interested in playing in the CIS, but often we won’t be able to watch the athlete until club season. I will often ask a friend or a coach I have met to go and watch a match and give me an opinion. As a coaching staff we borrowed an idea from junior hockey. WE created a rubric that we can send out to coaches to help with their evaluations of a player. It shows the level of athleticism that is necessary.
Quiet often I will get asked about what a coach wants in a video. Most coaches will watch a video only for a short time. Introduce yourself on the video and then grab a basketball rim. If a girl can touch the rim the coach will then continue to watch. I would personally rather watch a set of a player playing rather than a highlight video. A set allows us to see the athlete make some errors, and then watch their reaction to the errors. It lets us see how the athlete handles the match after 20. Do they play safe, or do they find away to score (make something out of nothing)?
The next point on recruiting is athletes be honest with us. WE have very limited time to actually get out and watch athletes play, and even more limited budget to bring athletes in to visit the campus. We like to only bring an athlete in if we know it is down to us and one other school. Then meeting the team is the final factor for them. Coaches talk to each other. Most of the University and college coaches get along incredibly well. WE know who each person has as their top recruits. We all end up going after the same athletes most of the time. Ryan Hofer from TWU and I seem to like the same style of athlete, because it always seems to come down to Trinity or Brandon for the athletes we recruit. So if an athlete tells us one thing and them another we tend to find out. Ultimately most coaches have plan A, B,C. So if an athlete chooses to go elsewhere it stings but we have another option.
Explaining recruiting to my friends outside of coaching I often equate it to a high school guy trying to date a girl. We called last week, should I call again? Too soon, don’t want to hound her? Wonder if Ryan has called her today? I sent her an email update on our weekend, wonder if she read it? I talked with one recruit and her team won a tournament, so I called her on Monday to congratulate her. I asked her did anyone else call? She told me I was the 7th University to call that day. She is that talented. So imagine she talked with each of us for at least 15 minutes. 90 minutes with coaches in that one day. As a coach you need to find something that will make you stick out or above the other Colleges and Universities. So we meet them and try to build a bit of a relationship with them. We want them to feel extremely welcome and wanted on the team.
This year is different; I am trying to meet some different athletes that we are looking at. We haven’t had the chance to formally meet them and throw our hat into the ring. This will be an interesting weekend.
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