INTEGRITY IN
RECRUITING
A number of issues can be spun out of this heading, issues which SPY raised formally and informally at the recent NFCA convention.
Both off and on the convention floor, I asked several college coaches two questions: why are there seemingly so many freshmen wanting to leave their colleges, and, what factors underlie what seems to be an under-current of alleged violations of recruiting ethics?
Other relevant questions: What are we as coaches and parents teaching these young ladies – about teamwork, selflessness, and standards of behavior? Are the examples we set by our own actions, and by our instruction to them, conditioning the behavior which we hope to see them exemplify in life?
Out of all these discussions, some quite detailed, I offer the following observations.
I know of some players who are unhappy with respect to their college teams. Beyond cultural clashes and simply being far away from home (and boy friend), these problems almost always involve position and playing time – and usually unrealistic expectations.
Even some players who had very objective assessments of softball situations failed to make an equally probing assessment of the difficulties they would have competing academically. – and they’re struggling in the classroom.
The unrealistic expectations are directly linked to the way we recruit players.
I personally know players who made verbal commitments, formally and informally, and reneged when they got what they perceived as a better offer. I know players who were smoozed so heavily on visits that they overlooked certain basics and are now unhappy with their choices. I know college coaches who had apparently promised the same position and starting role to several recruits. I know college coaches who put pressure on recruits who are sought by a number of schools, telling them their offer is off the table when the girl leaves the campus. I know parents who have no shame about jockeying coaches, and some who were equally shameless in choosing their daughter’s school, regardless of her views and competitive ability.
To be sure, I know college coaches (and travel ball counterparts) who are very frank about where a player stands – when she is being recruited. You will be my #2 catcher this coming year and then step up, or, I see your role, barring injury, as always being my backup catcher. I know college coaches who will tell a recruit she is one of four girls being considered, and, where they think she stands in the process. Those positions put the school and team at risk to losing that player, but, all parties are better off if they begin the relationship on firm ground.
Personally, I think the number of unethical coaches, college or travel ball, to be in a definite but unacceptable minority. Indeed, I think the hobgoblin in the recruiting process – and the nexus of unrealistic expectations – is the parent. Quickly, let me assert that the problems I perceive with parents are transcendental and apply to many sports.
Let me be just as quick to say I not only tip the Spyglass to parents, given the contributions noted above, but, also because I know so many of them personally and can say they do indeed try to set high standards for their children. Moreover, I am very much indebted to so many parents whose contributions make SPY Softball possible.
But, while I think a minority of coaches, players and parents are creating the kinds of problems enumerated here, I also think that, during this holiday season, we should all take stock – and ask ourselves what each of us can do to improve the process.
One root factor is the lack of team loyalty. Expressed at many levels, including the ranks of professional football, basketball and baseball – where the phenomenon is fueled by free agency and the gluttony of owners who will spend rash sums for marquee players -- this lack of loyalty also infests amateur softball, at a very early level, and manifests itself ultimately at the collegiate level. Far too many of our professional athletes set a very poor example for young amateurs.
Girls usually encounter the first deadly sin of amateur team sports at the 10-16-Under age levels. Favoritism is not limited to teams coached by parents. My hat is off to all the men and women who put in countless unpaid hours trying to teach this sport, and I must say that I know a large number of these parent-coaches who are in fact the parent of a star player whom all of us would have in the line-up as an every-day player. I also know many coaches who play favorites but who are not parents of a player, just as I know a great many non-parent coaches who approximate what you could call the professional class of coaches – men and women who have coached the same HS and travel ball teams for years – just like their college counterparts.
You can’t regulate favoritism out of amateur or even professional sports, but, before a coach is accused of favoritism, be sure you have correctly identified the problem. Coaches have to put less-skilled players on the field to help them develop – and no star player or her parents should get bent out of joint when the game has been decided and those other players are given developmental opportunities. Coaches who put players on the field who don’t belong out of sheer favoritism are usually called losers.
What you as a parent can do is become smarter about team selection and your daughter’s ability.
Be honest with yourself and your daughter. I have always valued my father’s appraisal; he owned a minor league club among other things; after one of my best games, he advised me I had two problems: I had lost most of the sight in my left eye, and, I had no real talent. Do you have a recruiting plan tailored to your daughter’s real ability?
Look realistically at the team your daughter is on, or proposes to join. How many girls play her position? How many are returning players? How does she compare with her competition? Does she need a year as a substitute to refine her skills? Will the coaches give her the opportunity to compete evenly, or, to grow into the position? Talk to other parents; have you daughter talk to other players. Know more about your situation!
Watch games at the D-1 level – and the lower classifications as well. How does your daughter compare to the players at her position – at each level? When you are at a travel ball tournament, watch teams with highly recruited players; can your daughter make those same plays, hit that level of pitching, or get those outs?
Before joining a travel ball team, find out how many players from that team are recruited each year – and by which schools at specific levels. Does the travel ball schedule give your daughter exposure to the kinds of colleges she’s interested in attending?
Ask a hard question: are her travel ball coaches capable of raising her skill level at her position? Ask your daughter a hard question: do you want to be on this team because you are capable of contributing to a team effort, or, do you just want to play with your friends? If those friends lack talent, or the coaches have nothing to offer, this is one point at which you as a parent should lower your expectations, or guide your daughter to another team. But, when you’ve made the commitment, be prepared to live with it – for objective reasons.
Apply those same yardsticks in helping her select a college. If your daughter is generally acknowledged to be a Top 25-caliber player, she will probably be contacted by them. If you’re not hearing from that caliber of a team, either your travel ball team is not getting good exposure, or, your recruiting plan is deficient, or your daughter should play at another level. Ask the same question: can the coaches instruct; can they help your daughter elevate her game? Do the current players think they are learning from the coach? How good are the assistant coaches? What is the turnover rate? How good were the coaches as players? How consistent is their track record?
Give equal weight to academic considerations. She may blow out her knee in fall ball and be at that school for four years – as a non-athletic student. Is this the school where she wants to get her education? What is the faculty rating in her core subjects? Find a current player who can talk knowledgably about academic discipline. How demanding is the combined schedule for an athlete; can your daughter handle it?
She may have a great glove, or powerful bat, and can thread a needle with her curve. But, can she compete academically at this particular school? Pro football linemen can be as dumb as a creosote post, but not young ladies playing college softball.
Ask yourself another hard question. Is your daughter coachable? If she’s a know it all, and you encourage her in that assessment, you’re both in for disappointment. Honestly, is she a team player? Equally important, how strong are her softball learning skills?
The coach is not there to be her friend, confidant or counselor – yet all of the college coaches I talked to at the NFCA said that being a counselor is more and more a part of their responsibility. Girls bring family and personal problems with them, most particularly the problem of adjusting to college life, and the rigorous academic demands, which can be compounded by loneliness. Is she sufficiently independent to make it away from home, particularly at a long distance? If the softball component is also negative, the result is one very unhappy child.
Parents need to be realistic – about the coach and their daughter. When a girl signs a letter of intent, and accepts a scholarship, she has become an employee of that school, just like the guy who trims the hedges. Her job is to play softball and to learn. The coaches and teachers are in effect her bosses. Like a ship’s captain, their word is law.
I can remember a Sunday morning when some of the nation’s brightest young men and women assembled for an opening ceremony. A Jesuit priest walked upon the stage, glared at us momentarily (seemed to be looking right at me and Doug Fox), and informed us that his only reason to live was to teach; the only way we would survive was to learn. End of welcome. You could hear egos deflating all around that hall.
Marshmallows don’t last long in the coaching business. If your daughter is rebellious, she will soon find herself in a world of hurt. If she is a party animal, can she control it? I knew a player I tried to help whose blood alcohol level was higher than her GPA. I’ve known a very few who would make Paris Hilton blush.
People: God didn’t put coaches on this earth to be foster parents, and resolve the problems you couldn’t resolve at home.
What many parents and players overlook is that the coach is also an employee of that school – and his or her tenure depends in part on how your daughter performs. Similarly, if a travel ball coach consistently loses, he will have difficulty in attracting players – and continue to be a loser. Your daughter’s skills are a factor in their longevity. Be respectful of those assistant coaches; some parents’ country club dues exceed the salaries earned by these young people whose lifestyles are very limited by softball.
The next hard question, particularly if you’ve been the HS or travel ball coach. Are you ready to let someone else coach your kid – without your intervention? Independently of each other, two parents recently disclosed their daughters’ problems with their coaches at different schools. In both instances, the parents said their first reaction was to go to the school and defend their daughters, which meant being aggressive with the coach. If at all possible, let these young ladies work out their problems – with coaches and team-mates.
Yes, the temptation is great. You taught her how to hit, to throw, to run – all the basics. And, if you’re like most of us, you’ve made a very significant financial contribution – as much as $3-5,000 a year for her to play travel ball, not counting your own travel, time away from work, and other sacrifices made by your and her siblings.
(I must admit I made a significant intervention in my daughter’s college career. Allison’s long distance romance with a Canadian was written up in Seventeen magazine; cute young couple, but, I thought he was a loser, and the romance was interfering with academics. History!)
If you must intervene, make it positive. I know the parents of one of the very top players in our sport; in four years, her father had one conversation with the coach and that was to ask for recommendations on off-season training.
However, I also have observed parents, who once were so proud that a coach offered their daughter a scholarship, and who now sit in the stands and berate the coaches. The coach may turn out to be a dunderhead but if he/she lacked coaching skills, why did your daughter accept the offer? Too often, playing time is at the root of the catcalls. You deal a body blow to team discipline and morale when you engage in such behavior – particularly if other players hear you.
Unfortunately, when unrealistic expectations remain unfulfilled, the lesson too many parents teach their daughters is that the coaches are at fault, or that a particular parent of a competing player has too much influence – and they do not hesitate to pull their daughters off such teams – at the travel ball and collegiate level.
I know parents who are almost endlessly “scouting” – for the travel team which will give their daughter the playing time and exposure they think she deserves, or, the team which seems to have the best track record with Division I coaches, etc.
Too often, the net effect of this kind of parenting is that the player adopts an attitude which holds that her personal advancement is more important than team loyalty.
Unfortunately, loyalty is the one ingredient most of the college coaches told me is missing in today’s players. To be sure, that lack is also felt in other sports. The other ingredient most often missing is a concept of teamwork.
Coaches at the younger age levels can provide some of the guidance needed here – but the learning curve begins with parents! I can’t emphasize enough the value of having a well thought out recruiting plan – which assesses both athletics and academics.
A lot to chew on, and I’ve gotten away from one of the start-out themes: integrity in recruiting. Adhering to the foregoing principles will eliminate many selection problems that are attributable to parents. There are others – and the burden is shared.
A coach is as much a gambler as Nick the Greek. Nick liked to buck the house, bet the back line, fade the shooter. The coach is betting on the shooter – your daughter. When she is recruiting your daughter, she is gambling that your daughter can bring her game up to the level at which that school plays (eg, a pitcher adjusting to 43 feet), if not at once, certainly over four years. The coach is in effect letting her bet ride for four years. It is in her direct, professional interest for your daughter to succeed – to max the bet. The coach is betting her job on her assessment of your daughter.
The coach wants the best possible player for each position – but that player has to fit in – and judging whether a girl can be a team player is not only high on every college coach’s list, it has become a staple on the lists of the committee which selects the USA national teams. I know several very capable players – at the travel ball and college levels -- whom no coach wants.
I also know some coaches at both levels who don’t want particular players because of their parents. And, that in many ways is the hardest question of all: are you a problem parent? If so, the college coaches probably have you in their black book.
I’ve put a lot on parents in this essay. That doesn’t mean there are no valid complaints about college coaches – their recruiting tactics, their promises, their denouements of their fellow coaches, etc., are just as reprehensible as the antics of some parents. Nor are travel ball coaches immune from criticism; tournament after tournament, I see coaches who do everything but tilt the field to win – keeping young talent needing experience on the bench even when there is no championship at stake. And, yes, they steal each others’ star players.
I think college coaches bear some of the responsibility for team jumping. Too many players today are convinced that they will not get a scholarship unless they play Gold – even play Gold for particular teams. I wish college coaches would look at some of the so-called “other” teams. The marquee teams have no problem in helping their players with recruiting. If more college coaches and assistants would split up at these tournaments, and observe more teams, that would take some of the pressure off. It’s sad; Gold is limited to 64 teams and there are probably no more than 48 teams really capable of playing at that level, and perhaps 200 trying to make it – driven in good part by the demand by parents and players for exposure. We need to spread the exposure. (A followup editorial will deal with tournaments; we’re getting a lot of suggestions following the discussion at the NFCA.)
We can’t prevent negative behaviors on the part of all coaches, but we can isolate them, at least to some degree.
It’s hard to resist when a girl is asked to jump from a non-contender to a perennial Sunday competitor, but I would hope that the player and her parents would weigh the consequences for all concerned – to the player, and to both teams. It seems all is fair in fall ball, which is why I like the practice in Southern California Players Association; you make a commitment in January, you live with that commitment. Is there a really good reason for leaving – or just pique?
Making and keeping commitments is part of the maturation process, an essential element in growing up. Every coach has made an investment of time and money in every player they are recruiting – watching them at tournament after tournament – hoping to bring them on campus. When a player schedules a visit and then cancels without warning, one coach may benefit but the other coaches have unnecessarily borne an opportunity cost. If nothing else, the player and her parents owe that coach some respect. The agreement to visit is a commitment in principle by both parties. (Travel ball coaches, who generally work without compensation, have also made an investment in every player.)
Theoretically, it could be argued that, in the best of all worlds, a player who commits to five college site visits should make all five visits – the first four coaches on the list should make their offers – and not put undue pressure on the player or parents – with all parties waiting for an exchange of emails on an NCAA-designated Decision Day – the players across the country choosing from among all offers received. But, withholding all commitments across the summer and fall until a common decision day is not realistic, nor practical. Too much like Russian roulette.
If you are a player on her third visit, and this is a school you are ready to attend, and the coach tells you there are three people competing for that one ride, and first come, first served, your brain goes into over-ride and you commit. Moreover, a college coach does not want to wait until some arbitrary date certain when he/she may learn that none of the first choices have accepted the school’s offer. Coaches will want additional time to consider other possibilities – and all want to end the recruiting process at the earliest possible date. Other draft-type variations have other faults.
Thus, we are probably bound to the current high-risk system. But, we can all demand a higher degree of integrity and honesty on the part of coaches, players, and parents. At minimum, the player has an obligation to inform other coaches of her decision – and that is not always done. I know coaches who first learned they had lost a prospect when they read the lists in SPY. Parents who tell their daughters that, principles notwithstanding, violating commitments and anything else they do is okay are teaching the wrong lesson. The tactics of some coaches, especially those who give misleading information to players, are in effect telling a kid that anything goes as long as you win.
At minimum, players should not make commitments to visit – and especially verbal commitments to sign a letter of intent -- unless they are absolutely certain that they will honor those commitments. It takes courage for a college coach to make an offer, then wait until a player has made all of her visits for an answer, just as it takes courage and confidence on the part of a player to put an offer on hold until she has completed her visits. If you tell a coach her school is your first choice, mean it. If there is greater frankness at every stage of the recruiting process, by all concerned, both coach and player should have a good idea of where they stand when a decision to visit is made.
In sum, we can all take steps to improve the recruiting process – to raise the bar of integrity a few notches – and many of those first steps must be taken by parents and players who should develop a recruiting plan – and endeavor to implement it. RFH