Owen McCall – Staff writer
Recruiting is a cut-throat business in college sports. Programs go to great lengths to get top recruits out of high school. There have even been cases of bribing to get them to join a program.
Annual recruiting culminates with National Signing Day, typically the first Wednesday of February. With junior and state college programs, however, recruiting is an ongoing process, either by bringing players to a school or helping them transfer to a four-year institution.
“We like to have the majority of our players signed and committed by April. Our recruiting is much later than other schools,” said Maggie Manville, assistant head coach of the Daytona State women’s soccer team.
State college programs including Daytona State tend to recruit later, with athletes committing in the fall. Larger four-year institutions like having athletes commit in the spring.
“Our process is a little different. When Division I and Division II schools are looking at high school freshmen and sophomores, we’re looking at high school juniors and seniors,” she added.
Ranking outlets such as Rivals and 24/7 Sports rate recruits on a scale of no stars to five. Lots of student athletes coming out of high school fall in the range of no stars to three stars, with only the best of the best being rated four and five stars. The majority of players have options. There’s the post-graduate prep route, then there’s the junior college route.
A downside to the JUCO route is that it counts against NCAA eligibility. The delay allows players to become better prepared academically and athletically for the next level. NCAA rules allow players four years of eligibility. Sometimes players get extra years through what are referred to as “redshirts.” Redshirts may be granted by sitting out a year, being a graduate student, or because of a season-ending injury. The time a player spends at the JUCO level counts against those years, leaving only two or three years left after transferring.
Daytona State has produced many Division I players. The men’s basketball team has three NCAA Division I players this year: Bryce Williams (Ole Miss), Durey Cadwell (Buffalo) and Corbin Merritt (Oklahoma). On the women’s basketball team Melissa Sam and Myra Williams committed to Delaware State.
“I knew Johnny Lawson, a high school coach down in Winter Haven. He referred me to Daytona State and said they had a couple of talented players who could help me rebuild my program. I was impressed with them as people and as basketball players,” said David Caputo, head coach of the women’s basketball team at Delaware State University of Sam and Williams.
“I was impressed by their professionalism, their body language, the way they carried themselves,” he said in a phone interview.
Caputo has experience at the NJCAA level, being the head coach at Indian River State College from 2008-2011. Under his leadership, Indian River attained a conference record of 30-5. He produced 12 NCAA Division 1 players with nine more signing with other four-year colleges during his time at Indian River.
“I got a lot of NCAA players transfer to Indian River. They didn’t get a lot of playing time, so they transferred,” he said referring to players from the NCAA ranks who transfer to two-year colleges due to disputes over playing time or academic issues.
Daytona State men’s basketball coach Brock Morris agrees: “They’ve seen high level basketball and played high level basketball, have been coached very well and played in some tough environments.”
DSC player Khadim Sy was a member of the 2017-18 squad at Virginia Tech, which made an appearance in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, known informally as March Madness. Sy started 28 games for the Hokies during the season and first transferred to Tallahassee Community College, then back to Virginia Tech, then to Daytona State.
Coach Manville said her team has not had any NCAA soccer players transferring into Daytona State since she came aboard two years ago.
Not every community or state college athlete goes to a Division I school. Some go to Division II schools, such as players on the women’s soccer team.
“We have good relations with most of the Division II schools in Florida,” said Manville. “We’ve had players go to Palm Beach Atlantic, Lenoir-Rhyne, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. We play a lot of these Division II schools such as Embry-Riddle as preseason exhibition matches. This year, we also played an exhibition match against Stetson, a Division I school. We’ve also had several players go to NAIA schools such as Johnson & Wales, Webber and Florida College.”
Not to say they have produced no Division I players. Kayla Armstrong went to Florida Atlantic and Kristian Shores went to Jacksonville University.
According to Manville, coaching is all about networking.
“I used to live in Colorado. When we were recruiting Makenna Gottschalk (the current goalkeeper) I used my connections in Colorado to find out more about her. Was she worth pursuing? Was she a good student? For her, would it be worth it athletically and academically?” Manville recalled.
As a coach, the connections you make can help get your players recruited.
“Coach (Brock) Morris has been a friend of mine for a while. I got to know him during his time at Louisiana-Lafayette. We were talking as friends and he mentioned to me Bryce (Williams) as both a player and as a young man,” said Ronnie Hamilton, an assistant men’s basketball coach at Ole Miss.
Hamilton was the lead recruiter for DSC men’s basketball player Bryce Williams.
“I flew to Daytona with head coach Kermit Davis in September. We saw talent and the recruiting began,” he said in a phone interview.
Before becoming an assistant at Ole Miss, Hamilton made stops at Middle Tennessee, Houston, Tulane, The Citadel, Tarleton State and University of North Carolina-Pembroke. He has experience coaching players who’ve gone to the NBA, working with Joe Young and Danuel House at Houston.
“It’s critical to have good relations with NCAA coaches. The players have a desire to play DI ball and the NCAA coaches are connected to JUCO players,” Morris said.
State college programs don’t have the recruiting budgets of NCAA programs. As a result, many NJCAA programs can’t go out and physically recruit outside of high schools in the immediate area.
“In today’s world, film is a great advantage for lower budget schools,” Morris said, noting that video of players are posted online and on recruitment sites. “We can’t get out and watch players outside of our area. We work our contacts and see where it goes”
Coaches at all types of colleges — NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA, NCCAA — watch film to evaluate talent. It serves as a way of seeing if, athletically, a player is right for a program. Often, coaches like to recruit based on needs from a previous season. DSC women’s basketball head coach Janice Washington said her team recruits for depth and size.
“We finished last year with 10 players,” she said. “Melissa Sam started most of our games at center at 5’ 10”. We have guards that have a lot more size than our previous roster”
Manville and Morris emphasized that chemistry plays a role as well.
“Chemistry is very important to recruiting. You can put talented players together, but it doesn’t mean they’ll work well as a team,” said Morris.