Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #107: Gill1918 presents Brenton Emanuel "Recruiting in Today's NCAA Part 2"
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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- 0:23Now let's get into today's topic.
- 0:28Open this up, you know, ask you many questions about the
- 0:30recruiting process and kind of what we look for or, or or other
- 0:33universities at mid major level when I was there.
- 0:36I can give you some ideas about that stuff too.
- 0:41Come on, you got to come up so he can hear you.
- 0:43Hi. Coach, can you share your
- 0:51thoughts for both of us who are high school coaches on your
- 0:58recruitment when it comes to, I mean you spoke about
- 1:04preparedness in the classroom, having good grades, but now
- 1:07preparedness for college type of experience.
- 1:10Can you share with my thoughts on your recruitment process or
- 1:15even your Staffs recruitment process when it comes to
- 1:20development of an athlete that's a senior, whether they have a
- 1:25private coach, a really great developmental high school coach
- 1:29and how does that look for you when you're recruiting high
- 1:36school athletes, JUCO athletes and portal athletes?
- 1:39Like what's the most important thing as high school coaches
- 1:43need to know to do our athletes? You know, for me, you know, in
- 1:48USC here, the biggest thing, the biggest things are, you know,
- 1:51the academic, you know, we have a really high math standard.
- 1:54And so we look at the math grades, like obviously stats,
- 1:57you know, we get kids that are, you know, are hitting that 1020
- 2:00run 11311225AS women. That's the easy part.
- 2:04But it's it's really deciphering, you know, their
- 2:07personality, you know, are they someone that has ran a lot of
- 2:11volume? We want to talk to the coaches.
- 2:13You know, we one thing we do ask, we'll ask, we'll ask for
- 2:15who are the most important people in your life and we will
- 2:18contact them and we'll ask, you know, one, we'll ask the parents
- 2:21for permission to recruit their son or daughter 2.
- 2:23We'll ask the coaches, like tell me about this kid.
- 2:25Give me the description of their academic.
- 2:27Is there times where you had to get on them about things?
- 2:29And that doesn't necessarily turn us away from somebody.
- 2:32You know, it's just more like, OK, is this something, something
- 2:35we can handle? That's the thing we want to
- 2:36know. Can we handle the things that
- 2:38need to be worked on? A lot of times are your time
- 2:40management and we want to know about their time management
- 2:42skills, any trouble they've been into.
- 2:46But when it comes to like kind of that development piece, we
- 2:49have so many checks and balances in place here.
- 2:50Like we have meetings on top of meetings on top of meetings.
- 2:53We have sports performance to work with our our sports
- 2:56psychologist, our athletic trainers, our strength
- 2:59conditioning coach. We all meet to talk about that
- 3:01student athlete or all student athletes situation.
- 3:04If they're doing well in one spot or if they're lacking in
- 3:06another spot, how can we make that better for them?
- 3:08And then we have academic meeting to discuss everything's
- 3:11going academically with them. And so for here, like you come
- 3:14to a program like us, you're not going to fail.
- 3:17There's no pressure just to be successful.
- 3:20A national champion All American your freshman year, you're
- 3:22giving it a year and two, about two years, you know, 2 1/2 years
- 3:26to kind of get your life together because they do
- 3:28struggle. We are real.
- 3:29I'll say we are very authentic and realistic here.
- 3:31Your freshman is going to be tough.
- 3:33And so the more that you can, you know, talk about time
- 3:36management, starting the little, the little habits of sleeping,
- 3:38getting 8 hours, 8 hours a night of sleep, eating properly, those
- 3:41things that will help us because we, we do work on those things.
- 3:44But we have some kids that are so far off from that right now
- 3:49that we're having to like backtrack and, and, and kind of
- 3:51be elementary with them to get them where they, where they need
- 3:53to be, which is not, I'm not calling you an elementary coach.
- 3:55I'm just saying like, we have to like spoon feed them.
- 3:58Hey, this is how you eat properly.
- 3:59This is how you, this is what time you should go to bed.
- 4:02We have to be so dedicated to their schedule to check in with
- 4:04them to make sure they are taking care of business.
- 4:07So if you can help them with, you know, obviously standing on
- 4:10track academically working on their sleeping habits and their
- 4:13eating habits. I mean, maybe it's just talking
- 4:15about, I know you guys have families yourself and you guys
- 4:17are are very limited on time, but have those conversations.
- 4:19Maybe it's 5 minutes a week. You guys talk about, hey, if you
- 4:22want to go to college, these are things you have to do.
- 4:24You heard it from USC, you heard it from University of Illinois,
- 4:26you heard it from all of that Nazarene.
- 4:28They're all going to be the same.
- 4:29You're sleeping, you're eating and your and your work habits
- 4:32are going to be the three things that we're going to look at the
- 4:34most. And then we want to want to talk
- 4:35to you guys as coaches. Like I want to, I want to know
- 4:38each coach that is coached my student athletes so that I know
- 4:41what I'm getting myself into, but also it does help build that
- 4:43relationship. So when you call me again, hey
- 4:45coach, I got another kit for you.
- 4:46I don't. I don't second guess myself.
- 4:48Like I know this guy's calling me and the kids going to be
- 4:51really good or they're going to have the right foundation behind
- 4:53them to be successful. My question would be, would it
- 5:01be more easier to have some type of program of tracking this?
- 5:05Over to. To give to colleges, not just
- 5:07UIC and IC, but I'm just saying, would that be easier to do it?
- 5:12Do you have a program that you guys might ask for, like what
- 5:15you work, ask for the workout portion.
- 5:18You said that now when you call a student or whatever the case
- 5:23may be, if they have that program together, what program
- 5:26should they? Be using.
- 5:28If you have something. Advisable.
- 5:30You mean like a program to like to get in contact with us?
- 5:33Is that what you're saying program?
- 5:34Like they workout program. Like if you're asking what are
- 5:37what's their workout schedule, do you even ask that?
- 5:40Is that something? Yeah, we do, we do.
- 5:41And you know, I would say like it's just you know what I do
- 5:45when I when I call recruit, I have my notebook.
- 5:47I have a recruiting notebook that I use.
- 5:48I write down the kids name and I listen to what everything that I
- 5:50say, like I have like little checkpoints, ask my questions,
- 5:53but then I also will follow up with the coach.
- 5:55So then I'll ask like, hey, so they say mention you guys run,
- 5:58you know, hills on Wednesday and just to kind of confirm the
- 6:01things that they're telling me are about the same.
- 6:02But also seeing what what you see, how the program makes a lot
- 6:07of time. You can say, Oh, 'cause we don't
- 6:08really run that much. And it's like, what does that
- 6:10mean? We only did, you know, 10-4
- 6:12hundreds? Like, well, is there a reason
- 6:14why you did 10-4 hundreds today? Like can I know why?
- 6:16So I, you know, I listen to the student athlete, but all I
- 6:18follow up with the coach. So there's not really it's on
- 6:21every single coach. Some coaches don't care about
- 6:22those things. But for me personally, I want to
- 6:25know if you're a volume person, if you like a lot of volume or
- 6:27have you been hurt, injuries and stuff like that.
- 6:30Well, obviously we're doing 3:50 hundreds.
- 6:31I'm I'm sorry if you guys do this workout, but some athletes,
- 6:34athletes can't handle that and they get hurt and they get hurt
- 6:37and it's like, OK, so I'm going to tell you right now, I know
- 6:40they'll give you 10 to 400, which I would never do that.
- 6:42But I hear that they hear the amount of volume people are
- 6:45doing. It's like, OK, then I see that
- 6:46they've done well with it, but obviously there's injuries that
- 6:49come with it. So maybe we got to find a common
- 6:51median what they're training to help them be successful.
- 6:54And, and for me, like, you know, as much as it takes a lot of
- 6:57time, but I'm able to individualize a lot of, a lot of
- 7:00my workouts. And so I, I will have, you know,
- 7:02different workouts for, for a lot of different people because
- 7:05I, I hear the conversations I have with the coaches and the
- 7:07athletes and like hearing how they responded.
- 7:09Like I do feel like I don't have to recreate the wheel with some
- 7:12athletes if it's been working really well, but I will, you
- 7:15know, make sure that I, you know, we do things I want to get
- 7:18done, but I'm I'm out here. I'm out here trying to create
- 7:20all these crazy workouts. There's nothing like we talked
- 7:22about somebody in the office. There's no other workout.
- 7:24There's nothing, there's no secret to this thing.
- 7:26Like I have someone emailed me this past year, like coach,
- 7:28what's the secret of USC? We just have kids that run fast.
- 7:32Like we just don't mess them up. There's no true secret is
- 7:34there's no secret workout out there.
- 7:35You know, so I follow up with the coach and the athlete and I,
- 7:39I jotted down, but not every coach is going to do that.
- 7:41Not every coach is is as involved as as we may be.
- 7:45So I wish I could tell you there was a program for that, but I'll
- 7:48just be honest with them and just kind of tell them what you
- 7:50do and just give it, you know, a pretty good briefing of it.
- 7:51And the coach, most coaches will reach out to you and kind of
- 7:54find out those things, so. So if you are keeping data on
- 7:58it, that's that's my whole question.
- 7:59It's not what type of program you're running if you're keeping
- 8:02data on the. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 8:06That easier just to transfer over to you that.
- 8:08Was why? Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, if, if
- 8:10you have something like that, absolutely.
- 8:11I mean, we love that. I mean, if if you know,
- 8:14especially I'm a I'm a track nerd.
- 8:15So I want to see everything that you guys are doing, like just
- 8:18kind of see how it's been tracking.
- 8:19So yeah, I would yes, I would definitely do that.
- 8:21If you have if you're that type of I'm sorry, I just answered
- 8:23your question, man. I mean to go on a rant, OK?
- 8:37Are there any? Indicators that you may learn
- 8:40about a recruit even no matter how good they are, you
- 8:44absolutely will not recruit them.
- 8:46Like if they fit all your standards but you find out 1
- 8:49little tidbit about them that you hold a standard.
- 8:52Like I will not recruit you because of their only child or
- 8:57they play a sport you don't like or anything odd.
- 9:01No, I would say there's I've been thing that sticks out to me
- 9:05as how they treat you guys as coaches and how they treat their
- 9:07parents. I mean, I watched a kid told her
- 9:09mom, her mom to shut up in front of me and I said, oh, listen,
- 9:12this is over with now. I I'm definitely not recruiting.
- 9:15Eric, you, you tell your mom to shut up in front of a coach.
- 9:17Like to me, it's like if you're able and her mom didn't say
- 9:20anything and it's like, that's just wild to me that you were
- 9:22able to feel that comfortable. Tell your mom to shut up in
- 9:24front of a coach. You don't really barely even
- 9:25know. So no, you know, I, I take it,
- 9:28you know, I used to have like a couple questions on ask
- 9:31recruits. Like for instance, my guy here
- 9:32that runs 1985 in the 200 when I was recruiting him out of high
- 9:36school, he was A468 kid, 21 one. And I remember I would pick him
- 9:39up from the airport. And you know, most kids that
- 9:42are, you know, 78 years old, you know that, you know, they're
- 9:45they like hip hop music. And so I'm like, hey, man, what
- 9:46type of music do you listen to? Like, who's your favorite
- 9:48artist? And he said to me, he said video
- 9:50game music. I said, what?
- 9:52The video game music? I said, OK, So I went home and I
- 9:55went to I talked to my wife. I said, I don't know if I can
- 9:57recruit this kid because we have nothing in common.
- 10:00Video game music. I I don't know anything about no
- 10:02video game music. She goes, my wife goes.
- 10:04You remember the last time you had a kid?
- 10:05What, you thought it was a little bit different?
- 10:07He's trying to be one of your best hurdlers ever.
- 10:10I said, you're right. And so I recruited him and look
- 10:12at him now. I ran in 1985.
- 10:13I left Nebraska. He came with me here.
- 10:15So I'm glad I listened to my wife.
- 10:17I talked to her about these repeating processes.
- 10:19A lot of times I will have her meet a kid too, because she has
- 10:22a really good read on people. Because sometimes I get caught
- 10:24up in the, in the times I, I, I'm a human being.
- 10:26Like I see 20.7. I want you.
- 10:29Yeah, absolutely. But then it's like, wait a
- 10:31minute, you got some red flags. Let me talk.
- 10:33Let me, let me have you meet my wife real quick.
- 10:36She's a former teacher. And so she'll be able to, to
- 10:39look at those things and be like, Nah, you don't want this
- 10:40kid. And so no, I just, you know, I
- 10:43try to judge everyone individually, but I will say how
- 10:46they treat their coaches and how they treat their parents is
- 10:48really big for me. And I'll ask, you know, are they
- 10:50good teammates too? You know, we don't want someone
- 10:52that can come up and just tear up our our, our environment or
- 10:56our our team culture. And so those are probably the
- 10:59biggest things I can deal with video game music, I can deal
- 11:02with only eating seafood and stuff like that.
- 11:04I don't like it, but I can deal with those things.
- 11:07But I just need to know that you're going to be a good
- 11:08person. That's probably the biggest
- 11:09thing because I mean, I, I'm not saying this in a bad way.
- 11:12Like I, you spend more time with other people's kids.
- 11:14I do my own kids at times. And so I, I got to know I'm
- 11:16around a good human being. You know, someone that's going
- 11:18to be someone that I want to be around knowing that I'm missing
- 11:20my baby's basketball game. This today we're at practice
- 11:23working hard. Are you a good human being?
- 11:24Like I want to know those things.
- 11:28My last question, you said 2 1/2 years to give them a leeway
- 11:32that's going into their junior year, senior year.
- 11:34So like senior year, I, I believe it's pretty much
- 11:38standing over with, you know what I mean?
- 11:40Are you saying, Yeah, I I would say that, but here is a little
- 11:43bit different because Coach Watts was here for three years.
- 11:45He didn't really do very much in his senior year.
- 11:47He was Olympic champion and NCAA champion.
- 11:49So for us, you know, we're not going to get rid of you.
- 11:52We're not going to force you out the door.
- 11:53Started me to cut you off. I'm just letting you know that's
- 11:55what so I. Mean like as a freshman in high
- 11:59school. Yeah, about.
- 12:01That like when you when do you guys start looking at a kid?
- 12:04Are you talking about their junior year or their senior year
- 12:07or their freshman year or? We've been talking to some
- 12:11juniors already. We can't talk to sophomores or
- 12:14freshmen. That's essentially rule.
- 12:16But we can we we know who's we know who's cooking out there.
- 12:19We know who's not cooking. But I'll say their junior year.
- 12:23We've already we've already kind of identified some kids in the
- 12:2527th class that we're looking at.
- 12:27But as you know, like there's a kid right now that no is on no
- 12:31one's radar that's going to run, you know, probably 740 in the 60
- 12:35as a junior this year as a female and and a guy is going to
- 12:37run 670 or 665 out of nowhere. So it's very fluid.
- 12:42You know, we're there's it's always ongoing, but we start
- 12:44looking their junior year for sure.
- 12:49How many kids are actually getting?
- 12:51Nil. Money.
- 12:52To those who are saying they're getting.
- 12:55That's a great question. You know, like first I was
- 12:57talking to a coach in the SEC about we're we're trying to
- 13:01coordinated recruit coming to visit both of our schools and I
- 13:04was made the drugs like make all that money.
- 13:06You guys got down to Auburn. You can't you can't afford this
- 13:08plane ticket. He goes coach.
- 13:10We don't have we don't have that.
- 13:11We don't have that much money. Like you guys have all this NIL
- 13:13money and it's like, what do y'all have?
- 13:14He goes, we have $50,000 in in two distance kids.
- 13:17I said that's all you have. I said one, I said you guys have
- 13:20distance at your school and I was being dead serious.
- 13:22I wasn't even trying to be like funny with them.
- 13:23Like I got distance and he goes, yes, we have distance and we
- 13:27have two kids on that NIO money. So I would say here, let's say
- 13:32we have 65 kids in our roster. I would say 30 to 35 are in some
- 13:37some type of in IO money. Other universities are probably
- 13:42probably about the same. I would say about 60% of kids
- 13:45are probably are getting something now that something may
- 13:47not maybe 500 bucks. It could be, you know, I, I know
- 13:51there's a guy on our team is making six figures and some you
- 13:55know, so yes, there's but I would say about 65% sixty to 65%
- 14:00probably are getting something. And are the kids.
- 14:04Who are? Getting the NILL money.
- 14:06On full scholarship, Yep. No, OK, yes and no for for us,
- 14:12yes from for the most part, but because you know, we we have a
- 14:15different way of getting kids now.
- 14:16I say it costs 97,000 thousand 7000 to go here.
- 14:19We do have walk ONS technically because there's kids that
- 14:22because of their financial aid situation at home can qualify
- 14:25for a lot of financial aid. And so the university will cover
- 14:27like $80,000 worth of their schooling.
- 14:30And So what we'll do is put them on and I owe money for the extra
- 14:33like 20,000 and give them, give them the same stipend they would
- 14:36have if they were on a full scholarship.
- 14:37So like they're on and I owe money.
- 14:39But really it's just helping us, you know, move our money around
- 14:43so we can get another teammate. But so some of the kids are on
- 14:46it, not necessarily because of their national placing is more
- 14:51because of it's helping us make some other moves here and get
- 14:54another athlete here. But so, yeah, a lot of a lot of
- 14:58them are on money, though. Go ahead, Drew coach Daniel.
- 15:03Coach Calvin resigned that in high school.
- 15:06I tell. My kids all the time to watch
- 15:07what they put out on social media.
- 15:09Do you have you had recruits or you go check their social media?
- 15:15Absolutely every, every time, every recruit that I, that I,
- 15:18that we sign, we go through all that and, and that's something,
- 15:21you know, like, you know, one thing I will say, OK, here's a
- 15:23red flag. And then you ask me about a red
- 15:24flag. If I look on your social media
- 15:26page and I see more of you doing like beach, Are you on the beach
- 15:30or you're doing this? You're never really on track and
- 15:32field videos that does make you think like, do you really love
- 15:35it? Or you just do it because you're
- 15:36good at it or someone's forcing you?
- 15:37Because a lot of times you will find kids that are, have been
- 15:39forced to do it by their parent or somebody and they don't
- 15:42really love it. So I want to see, do you love
- 15:44this sport? You don't have to be like a lot
- 15:46of my guys here are like obsessed with track and field.
- 15:48They talk about going pro this and that and they're watching
- 15:51every they're watching videos from two years ago and what
- 15:53they're doing. I'm getting texted all through
- 15:55the night about coach, you help me with my start.
- 15:58That's psycho and I love it. But I need to see that you love
- 16:02track and field. I got to see it on your face A
- 16:03lot of time when I see it like some of the women where it's
- 16:05just like you're just they're in bathing suits and stuff like
- 16:08that. I'm like, do you really love
- 16:10this? Because this is not something
- 16:11that you can do part time as much as you know, we can say
- 16:14you're a student athlete. Yes, you are student academics
- 16:17come first, but there's other, you know, where $100,000 comes
- 16:21from. You have to make sure you're
- 16:22you're you're living up to your to that standard.
- 16:24And so I got to know that you love the sport.
- 16:26You know, you don't got to, you know, talk about 24/7, but I got
- 16:29to see that you love the sport on your social media page.
- 16:32If I don't see that is that's an X for me.
- 16:34Sorry, good. Job Bristol, thank you so much.
- 16:41Thank you, guys. Fight on.
- 16:42All right, coach. I'll be in contact with you
- 16:44boss. All right, brother.
- 16:46Hey, make sure you watch the Trojans tonight.
- 16:47Beat the Huskers, please. Oh, my God.
- 16:49All right. I'll see y'all later.
- 16:51Bye. See you like a boss.
- 16:51I'll make 2 cups at the high school at the college.
- 16:55And solid downs. Yeah, I'm a high school, you
- 17:01know, I, I sit in a very unique position.
- 17:03You know, I used to coach, but I know high school and college,
- 17:06I'm in both sides of them, Things like that.
- 17:08Now I could be out-of-the-box. I'm like cracking what you guys
- 17:11are thinking, what you're doing the same with our college guys.
- 17:12So I can see things a little bit differently on the high school,
- 17:15the college side. I don't really entertain a lot
- 17:18of the conversations like you was talking about where someone
- 17:20says, oh, why, Why are you able to get a scholarship with
- 17:23Georgia, not USC? And how come they aren't
- 17:25recruiting my team and things like that.
- 17:26Recruiting's a lot like dating. If someone, if a young lady or a
- 17:30young man says they're not interested in.
- 17:33You what? There's a great thing about it.
- 17:36There are a lot of schools with track programs on the college
- 17:39side. There is a track program for
- 17:41each one of your kids, no matter where their level is.
- 17:44That's interesting. OK, it'll do you no good to
- 17:47argue with that, Coach. How come you're not offering my
- 17:49kid? Or how come you're not offering
- 17:50my kid more? They're told you what they
- 17:54think. That's great and we move on.
- 17:56And look at other team. Can I make a comment?
- 17:59So I have two kids that went to you on and that's I felt a lot
- 18:02of good kids scholars. One of the things that that
- 18:04coaches don't think is good is check your roster.
- 18:07Do you have a foreign hurdler and they currently have three
- 18:10foreign hurdlers and that. Was pretty, yeah.
- 18:14There's no reason to to convince that's right.
- 18:16This this whole, you know, you know, I was wondering high
- 18:20school coaches, you know, if they get in your program and why
- 18:25are they doing that right? Just the the moral story is
- 18:27you're not going to change their mind.
- 18:29Move on. There's a lot of other good
- 18:31options. Now the other thing, what he
- 18:32said there about checking social media and stuff like that, I've
- 18:34been doing a pretty I'm probably not going.
- 18:35To recruit when? I was in college and I've seen a
- 18:37lot of critical football, basketball, track and field.
- 18:40I have yet to see a kid. Bad kids.
- 18:44Sorry, let me change that. Kids who have done bad things
- 18:47for good athletes not get a scholarship.
- 18:50Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
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