On the Recruiting Trail

By Bonitta Best
The Triangle Tribune

Johnson C. Smith football coach Tim Harkness thought he had heard it all. Recruiting prospects have invented every excuse imaginable for rejecting Smith, but every now and then, there is a doozy.

"I had a kid tell me he couldn't come to Smith because it was too black," said Harkness, who is entering his fourth season at JCSU. "He was black, the school is black, but he said he didn't know how black it was. That was a first.

"Then I had one tell me he couldn't come here because there were too many good looking girls, he would be distracted. You'd think a guy would want to be where women outnumber men 8 to 1."

Such is the precarious and volatile nature of college recruiting. Coaches can have a top program, the best equipment and up-to-date facilities, only to have a young'un tell him the school is "too black."

For some coaches, recruiting is like filing income taxes - a necessary evil. To others, there's the thrill of the chase and the capture.

"I like to talk to people, that's what it is about," said Fayetteville State women's basketball coach Eric Tucker. "Sometimes we overrate ourselves as coaches, but it's all about recruiting. It's about finding the best athlete, because the best athlete in the world can make the worst coach in the world look great, and vice versa."

"I'd say it's a necessary evil," countered Smith men's basketball coach Steve Joyner. "It is a difficult process because you may not have all the wherewithal to get the best player. It's something that you have to go through (so) you work at it to the best of your ability and your resources."

Coaches say a major change in the recruiting process over the years has been the emergence of the Internet. While most referrals still come through alumni, coaches, scouting services and word of mouth, technology has made players more accessible. Prospects have their own Web pages and think nothing of self-promotion.

"We have something on our Web page that says 'Click on if you're interested in women's basketball,'" Tucker said. "I've gotten 40 to 50 hits. If you know how to use it (Internet) to your advantage, you can stop a lot of unnecessary phone calls."

But no amount of advanced technology can replace the old-fashioned sit-down with mom and dad. And despite those statistics of the female-dominated household, or the stereotype that "you have to go through mom," coaches say they see plenty of dads.

"If it's two parents, you've got to deal with the dad, too," Harkness said. "And if it's a single parent and the dad is still active, then you deal with the dad and the mom. Dads get involved when they are there." Added Joyner: "If it is a single mom, she usually has her head on straight. One thing you usually hear from her is 'I want him to get an education.' We look for that because there are so many pressures on student-athletes these days to do wrong, we need that strong support figure."

Whether they love it or tolerate it, the diagnosis is the same: Coaching and recruiting are a marriage - for better or for worse.

"You tolerate recruiting because it is a necessary thing that's so important for the program," said Virginia Union football coach Willard Bailey. "You come to like it and enjoy it, like a mate that you've been with for 30 years. You see a lot of possibilities to go other places, but you've been there so long, you stay. And that's the same with recruiting. It's something that you get bored with at times, you get sick of at times, but you know there is no way to maintain a program without doing it."

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