Recruiting, Part 2

I first blogged on the topic of recruiting back on December 29. It has really been impressive to watch Ron Rose and his staff on the recruiting trail all season long. Dennis Martel (head baseball coach), and IWU's two part-time assistants (Chad Hutson and David Steinbrueck) have put in countless hours helping Coach Rose find a great group of future Titans to complement the returnees.

Mid-February is recruiting crunch time. As high school seasons start to wind down, there are regularly multiple small college coaches watching the same players at each game. Coach Rose mentioned a game he attended over the weekend in which coaches from Augustana, North Central, and others were all there to watch the same player Ron was recruiting. Everyone is making that final push on their top prospects.

Division III recruiting is so much different than the process at Division I, Division II, and NAIA schools because there is no "letter of intent" or "signing day." Basically, Division III prospects apply to the university like every other student and go through the same admissions process. If accepted to the university they would like to attend, recruits will typically notify the coach of their decision -- a "verbal commitment", to use a DI term. IWU has typically not announced recruits until the individual has paid their rooming deposit. In the absence of a letter intent, that is about as official as it gets in Division III.

Ron Rose and staff have done a great job identifying impact recruits and building relationships with them. Now it's just a waiting game. As soon as high school seasons end, Ron will start to get calls from young men who have made a decision. Other recruits will take another month or so to make the big decision. In looking back five years, Adam Dauksas commited to IWU on March 26, 2002 and Keelan Amelianovich on April 29. The following year Zach and Andrew Freeman on April 22, 2003...

http://www.iwuhoops.com/recruiting2002a.html

http://www.iwuhoops.com/RECR2003.HTM


Still a long way to go.