Recruiting at Division II

Recruiting is a hot topic in the world of college sports. We constantly hear stories about high profile recruits and coaches; scandals and stories of triumph. The process can be confusing and overwhelming for young athletes and their parents. I want to do a short post to provide a bit of insight to the world of recruiting from the DII/Regis perspective.

My first advice for families is to take control of the process. Recruiting takes as much or more energy on your part as the college coaches. Sitting back and waiting to be "discovered" is a passive and risky way to approach what is probably the first major decsion a young person will make.

As a family, make a list of things that are important to you when searching for a college. Think about location, size, academic offerings, public v private, etc. Add the athletic piece in and come up with a vision of what would be a good "fit" for the student-athlete. Go on to identify some colleges that match what you think you might want. Contact these schools.

Something I would caution people: Be very skeptical of "all or none" types of statements. For example, "only kids who play club ball get full scholarships". We have 14 players on our team, all 14 have different recruiting stories about how they ended up at Regis. It's also dangerous to assume all schools recruit about the same way. There as many recruiting philosophies as there are coaches.

At Regis, we love it when people contact us. Having people be interested in Regis and our program is over half the battle. We are a staff of 2. It is simply not possible for us to know about every player in the region who might be a good fit for us. We have 3 criteria we never waiver from in recruiting. Find good people, serious students and great basketball players. In that order. We are trying to find players that are a good fit for us and who will be happy here. You are doing the exact same thing. We are going to ask you questions and get as much information as possible, you need to do the same thing.

Ok, so maybe that wasn't a short post. The message is BE PROACTIVE. Look around for resources, ask questions, get informed. Don't let recruiting (or no recruiting) happen to you. The following is a link to the NCAA Guide for the College Bound Student Athlete.

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaahome?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/wps/wcm/connect/ncaa/NCAA/Legislation+and+Governance/Eligibility+and+Recruiting/InformationforCollege-BoundStudent-Athletes

Game tonight at UCCS, 6pm. They must be worried-they are having a live Mountain Lion there before the game.

Coach Bain

Emilyyyyyy!

The gym gets quite just about the time Coach Raunig decides to gently remind Emily to stay off the sideline. Yep, that's Emily, getting the job done. All she has done is record back-back-back double-doubles, earning her "RMAC Player of the Week" honors.

http://www.rmacsports.org/sports/wbkb/2009-10/news/0910_rmac_wbb_week9.pdf

Nice job Em!