WHY RECRUITING IS SO TOUGH FOR THIS AREA
Cumberland Times-News
March 25, 2017
by Todd Helmick
We're talking about athletic recruiting. High School athletes trying to get scholarships to play sports in college. Recruiting is the process, a situation where college coaches scour the country, and many times outside this country, to find the best athletes that give their team a chance to win games.
This area (which easily can be described as the Times-News area or wherever the Times-News gets delivered) doesn't place many student-athletes into scholarships at the highest level. However, this area does place a good many student-athletes into opportunities where school gets paid for. It's just rarely at the highest level, which is Division I. You know...Michigan, Ohio State, Maryland, Virginia Tech, WVU, etc. The dream "big time sports" schools so to speak. Several reasons are at play here.
First, one must accept how rural this area has become. Yea, many people just have never come to grips with this concept. The population a'int what she used to be. So using this as an example, if one out of every 2,000 student-athletes receive a scholarship to play sports at the highest level, how many would there be with 10,000 student athletes living here? Which is why this writer finds it mind-boggling to hear people try to compare what is being done around here to what is being done in other densely populated areas. This is like saying more people bought cars in Baltimore County than they did in all of Western Maryland. Really?
And because this is a far less densely populated area, college coaches are not so apt at driving longer distances over the mountains to meet our student-athletes when they know the population centers are far less costly when it comes to investing their time. That is why it has become imperative that student-athletes from this area get the heck out of dodge when it comes to meeting college coaches. This fact has been pounded into local student-athletes the past five years or so and it seems to be making a measurable difference. With a little more understanding and assistance, there could have / should have been a few more.
Digging deep into the title of this article, it has become apparent more than ever that getting a college athletic scholarship is exactly the same as landing a really good, hard-to-get job. Yes, one has to be qualified. Maybe even more important however is the old adage that it's not what you know, but who you know. The athletic parallel is that many times it's not how good or how fast you are, but who you know. And in this little part of the country we don't know squat. Our connections with higher level college coaches is for the most part non-existent and has been for a very long time. College coaches are rarely employed at the same school for very long. They bounce around from job to job on an obscene scale, which makes it very hard to keep a contact. Let's call it the inability to keep an inside track for knowing someone who can grant a scholarship. Talking with a local high school coach recently it's easy to see what is happening. He says, "I used to have a boat load of college coaching contacts but they all moved on. I don't know anyone at that university anymore." While it's not a high school coaches job to get his pupil a scholarship, it doesn't help when we lose contact with the people who make those decisions.
CALL IT THE PIPELINE
To prove how all this works, ask any area high school coach how many Division II and Division III college coaches do visit every school around these parts religiously. Ask how they email and call these local high school coaches to see who their best prospects may be. Oh, this is a very prevalent process. For football, any given January there is a large array of these college coaches gathering around the local high school office visiting senior prospects: Shepherd, West Virginia Wesleyan, Charleston, West Virginia State, Bowie State, Shippensburg, Fairmont State, Glenville State, Frostburg State, McDaniel College, etc. The familiar list is extensive. Now imagine what it would be like if coaches from Michigan, Ohio State, Maryland, Virginia Tech, WVU, etc. were doing the same. Because that is what happens at schools and locales that have built a reputation for producing Division I athletes. This, in turn, leads to students-athletes getting rewarded Division I scholarships even though they may not be quite as talented or qualified as a student-athlete who attends another school without the same reputation. It's very easy to overlook those student-athletes. Especially when there is not enough folks around here speaking out to promote their abilities. Or more important, not enough folks investing time to not just build, but keep trusted relationships with college coaches. It's very challenging and time consuming.
Every local sports fan knows the name Ty Johnson. That University of Maryland local kid who just became only the ninth player in Terrapin history to ever rush for over 1,000 yards in a season. Ty should have had over 30 Division I schools banging on his high school door. But he didn't. Unfortunately, had Ty resided in Baltimore or Washington DC as a prep player he probably would have. Sports enthusiasts around these parts don't like to hear this type of logic. Probably because the truth hurts. The reasons all stem from what's been described here in the preceding paragraphs.
One thing can be said for ex-Maryland head coach Randy Edsall, the coach who spotted Ty Johnson and granted him a scholarship opportunity. Edsall isn't one of those standard college coaches who recruits the way others do. He based his decision on something he saw watching a student-athlete work out. He didn't have to read an internet report on how many stars some recruiting service placed by Ty's name. It just so happens now there is another Fort Hill football player named Brayden Brown headed to play for Randy Edsall now that he is back coaching at UConn. If you think that was all by coincidence you're one of those people who don't know squat. Me thinks Coach Edsall has heard of Fort Hill and Cumberland, MD before. After all he was on the Greenway Avenue Stadium turf for Homecoming not so long ago. Now do you get what contacts and reputation is all about in this business?
The task of landing a scholarship in Division I is extremely difficult no matter where you live. But yes, it can be just a little harder in this part of the world. At least there is some light in the tunnel now. Understanding why is the difference.
Cumberland Times-News
March 25, 2017
by Todd Helmick
We're talking about athletic recruiting. High School athletes trying to get scholarships to play sports in college. Recruiting is the process, a situation where college coaches scour the country, and many times outside this country, to find the best athletes that give their team a chance to win games.
This area (which easily can be described as the Times-News area or wherever the Times-News gets delivered) doesn't place many student-athletes into scholarships at the highest level. However, this area does place a good many student-athletes into opportunities where school gets paid for. It's just rarely at the highest level, which is Division I. You know...Michigan, Ohio State, Maryland, Virginia Tech, WVU, etc. The dream "big time sports" schools so to speak. Several reasons are at play here.
First, one must accept how rural this area has become. Yea, many people just have never come to grips with this concept. The population a'int what she used to be. So using this as an example, if one out of every 2,000 student-athletes receive a scholarship to play sports at the highest level, how many would there be with 10,000 student athletes living here? Which is why this writer finds it mind-boggling to hear people try to compare what is being done around here to what is being done in other densely populated areas. This is like saying more people bought cars in Baltimore County than they did in all of Western Maryland. Really?
And because this is a far less densely populated area, college coaches are not so apt at driving longer distances over the mountains to meet our student-athletes when they know the population centers are far less costly when it comes to investing their time. That is why it has become imperative that student-athletes from this area get the heck out of dodge when it comes to meeting college coaches. This fact has been pounded into local student-athletes the past five years or so and it seems to be making a measurable difference. With a little more understanding and assistance, there could have / should have been a few more.
Digging deep into the title of this article, it has become apparent more than ever that getting a college athletic scholarship is exactly the same as landing a really good, hard-to-get job. Yes, one has to be qualified. Maybe even more important however is the old adage that it's not what you know, but who you know. The athletic parallel is that many times it's not how good or how fast you are, but who you know. And in this little part of the country we don't know squat. Our connections with higher level college coaches is for the most part non-existent and has been for a very long time. College coaches are rarely employed at the same school for very long. They bounce around from job to job on an obscene scale, which makes it very hard to keep a contact. Let's call it the inability to keep an inside track for knowing someone who can grant a scholarship. Talking with a local high school coach recently it's easy to see what is happening. He says, "I used to have a boat load of college coaching contacts but they all moved on. I don't know anyone at that university anymore." While it's not a high school coaches job to get his pupil a scholarship, it doesn't help when we lose contact with the people who make those decisions.
CALL IT THE PIPELINE
To prove how all this works, ask any area high school coach how many Division II and Division III college coaches do visit every school around these parts religiously. Ask how they email and call these local high school coaches to see who their best prospects may be. Oh, this is a very prevalent process. For football, any given January there is a large array of these college coaches gathering around the local high school office visiting senior prospects: Shepherd, West Virginia Wesleyan, Charleston, West Virginia State, Bowie State, Shippensburg, Fairmont State, Glenville State, Frostburg State, McDaniel College, etc. The familiar list is extensive. Now imagine what it would be like if coaches from Michigan, Ohio State, Maryland, Virginia Tech, WVU, etc. were doing the same. Because that is what happens at schools and locales that have built a reputation for producing Division I athletes. This, in turn, leads to students-athletes getting rewarded Division I scholarships even though they may not be quite as talented or qualified as a student-athlete who attends another school without the same reputation. It's very easy to overlook those student-athletes. Especially when there is not enough folks around here speaking out to promote their abilities. Or more important, not enough folks investing time to not just build, but keep trusted relationships with college coaches. It's very challenging and time consuming.
Every local sports fan knows the name Ty Johnson. That University of Maryland local kid who just became only the ninth player in Terrapin history to ever rush for over 1,000 yards in a season. Ty should have had over 30 Division I schools banging on his high school door. But he didn't. Unfortunately, had Ty resided in Baltimore or Washington DC as a prep player he probably would have. Sports enthusiasts around these parts don't like to hear this type of logic. Probably because the truth hurts. The reasons all stem from what's been described here in the preceding paragraphs.
One thing can be said for ex-Maryland head coach Randy Edsall, the coach who spotted Ty Johnson and granted him a scholarship opportunity. Edsall isn't one of those standard college coaches who recruits the way others do. He based his decision on something he saw watching a student-athlete work out. He didn't have to read an internet report on how many stars some recruiting service placed by Ty's name. It just so happens now there is another Fort Hill football player named Brayden Brown headed to play for Randy Edsall now that he is back coaching at UConn. If you think that was all by coincidence you're one of those people who don't know squat. Me thinks Coach Edsall has heard of Fort Hill and Cumberland, MD before. After all he was on the Greenway Avenue Stadium turf for Homecoming not so long ago. Now do you get what contacts and reputation is all about in this business?
The task of landing a scholarship in Division I is extremely difficult no matter where you live. But yes, it can be just a little harder in this part of the world. At least there is some light in the tunnel now. Understanding why is the difference.
