College coaches: Let's hear your recruiting horror stories

H.S. Coach #977154 wrote:

Just a reminder to college coaches, talk to the high school coach! We can give you some insight above & beyond times.

I agree about talking with the kid's coach during the recruiting process.

In addition, one of the best things I did as a college coach (and I regret having gotten away from) was to send a little questionnaire to the high school coaches of my incoming freshmen, just trying to get an idea of the HS coach's general training approach, maybe any "key" workouts the kid did in high school, any insights, major or minor, into the kid's personality/coachability, etc.

Not every HS coach responded, but some of the ones who did wrote *volumes* about the athlete and her/his training, how to deal with the kid, etc. I found this stuff enormously helpful, and appreciated the time and thought that the coaches put in to it. (You could tell that this was the kind of thing the coach had rarely or never been asked about her/his other kids.)

Even if you think that a kid's high school coach is clueless, it's still helpful to know what kind of training philosophy the kid will have absorbed--if only so you can know what you'll be coaching *against* in the athlete's college years. But beyond that: here you've got someone who's spent several years dealing with a student. Isn't it possible that such an individual will have useful insights? Why not tap that person's experience and build on it, rather than being obliged to start from zero and completely reinvent the wheel?

As a former HS coach, I am surprised by how many college coaches didn't bother to talk to me. It also went the other way, where parents wouldn't talk to me about the realities of whether or not their child could run in college and the potentials of it.

I had one girl that was a pretty good talent (Division 2, low Division 1 potential) and had a solid work ethic, but was a soft racer and emotionally up and down. Her parents convinced a private NAIA coach to give her a scholarship to run for them. The scholarship started at 25% and would increase each year until getting 50% her senior year. Overall, it was worth about $25-30K. I never spoke to the college coach and only learned about her getting the scholarship from one of my other athletes.

Her first year in cross country, she was their number 2 on a team that finished top ten at NAIA nationals. That scholarship investment looks pretty good for the coach/team so far. That winter, during indoor track, she quit the team because practice ran late and she never got to eat dinner with her friends or hang out on the weekends because they were gone at meets. Of course, her scholarship got yanked.

The ironic part for her was that she ended having to get a job in the school cafeteria during dinner and on weekends because her parents couldn't afford for her to go to the school without the job or her scholarship.

Another year, I had a girl (returning state qualifier in both XC and track) decide not to come out as a senior. We had talked during track about the plan for her senior year and how we could position her to get some scholarship offers (she was also a 3.8 student). I told her that a couple of D2 schools with good programs were interested in her, so it was important for her to get in a good base over the summer. Going into summer, she seemed genuinely excited about that prospect. Since she lived with her dad in another part of the state during the summer, I didn't see her, but she said she was training.

The week before XC season started, she called me and said she wasn't coming out. When I asked why, she said it was because she didn't think she was going to get a scholarship offer at one of the two major D1 schools in our state and she really wanted to go to one of those schools with her friends. I knew two top 20 D2 schools in our state were very interested in her and told her that. She said she didn't care and "just wanted to have fun" her senior year before going off to college. A few weeks later, both D2 schools had contacted me and said they wanted to offer her scholarships, one at 100% (combo athletic/academic) and the other 50% with the chance to increase it if she did really well her senior year. Of course, both coaches lost interest when I told them she didn't come out from cross country. When I ran into the mom a couple of months later, she was really upset at her daughter for not going out and passing up the chance

Late in the XC season, a guy from our program who was running at one of the of the two major D1 programs called me and asked about her. I told her what had happened. He laughed and said the coaches at his school had been interested in possibly offering her a scholarship based upon how she did during XC (that school was actually her first choice). When I ran into her a year after she graduated, she confessed to me that she regretted not coming out her senior year. If only she had kept an open mind.

I can't imagine not speaking with a recruit's HS coach, even if you know the guy is English teacher that took the XC gig for that extra $1200 supplement. At least you could find out how the kid behaves at practice, and when he's away at meets. Is he a jerk, is he a hard worker, study habits, does he run on his own?

My alma mater is a "name" D1 school on the west coast, and our coach had a very high standing with a certain shoe company because of family. Our coach was contacted by a very well known Kenyan pro at the time to see if he would give his "brother" in Kenya a full scholarship. Coach obliged sight unseen, thinking he had a ringer. Kid shows up appearing chubby, and WALKS during his first run with the team. Ends up with a best of 29.xx for 8k that year. Kid disappears. Coach calls the pro runner, and really chews into him. Well, the pro runner admits that this was a "different brother", and promises to make it up to him. A different guy shows up WITH THE SAME NAME in the spring. Definitely a true freshman, and definitely the pro runner's relation. He's completely destroying our best guys at the time (we had a sub4 guy and two 4.0x's when that was actually a big thing). Well, we traditionally run a 1200 trial before our first indoor meet. Kid runs 2:53, and the sub4 guy is 2:56-ish(?). Long story longer, the next morning, we're on our usual early Sunday long run and a drunk driver goes up the curb on a right turn where we're standing to wait and cross a busy intersection. Kid gets hit hard. He breaks his leg, and his pelvis is crushed. I seriously thought he was dead. Turns out, the drunk driver was an extremely wealthy man, and an attorney gets wind of this. Kid supposedly gets a payout of $75k and his remaining university paid for, but never runs again. To his credit, I heard that he finished his 4 years and graduated before moving back to Kenya.

While I was on a D1 team we had a couple times where we hosted several recruits at the same time. I think it was a scheduling cost issue, but it was tough sometimes because coordinating 8 different peoples trips who are interested in different areas of study was tough.

The one thing that was easy was showing them places we would run or taking them to a football or basketball game.

We had an itinerary letting them know when we would take them where and then free time. One girl whose mom came on the trip with her and when we said we were taking recruits to the football game the girl and her mom declined and said they were visiting a family friend who was a professor. Sounds school related and lots of runners aren't into football so we didn't think anything of it. Later our coaches get a phone call from the AD saying that their recruit (girl and her mom) were trying to get the prof and themselves into a suite in the stadium and being obnoxious about it. Recruits usually get GA student seats.

The next day they blew the team and coaches off when we tried to take them on a run and out to lunch.

I can't remember if it was one of the coaches or our teammates, but they were insinuating that the mom was having an affair with the professor and they had used the recruiting trip as an excuse. Girl did not get asked to attend the school.

Agree on asking the HS coach.

Had a girl low 18s offered $. Nice girl and all but I knew no way she runs in college. School signs her and lo and behold doesn't run sr track and does not run in college. Coulda saved time and now school looks bad.

Have a dude on roster right now that runs 1:20 half marathon at ease sub 165 heart rate. But zero eeed. So track times look bad 445, 10:00. No offers right now obviously but is suited for 10k plus. Convo with coach and it's a done deal

I didn't do much in high school 4th or 5th best distance runner but eventually made it on a Big Ten school.

I'm a current athlete, not a coach, but I think this one is too good not to share.

A couple years ago my coaches recruited a guy named Dakota. When they saw his name/times, they assumed that Dakota was a girl and was a high level 800 runner, as he had run ~2:10 in high school. Luckily they figured out that he was a guy before he showed up to campus in the fall, but it was too late so he still had a spot on the team. He ended up quitting before the year was over, as he couldn't handle the level of training on the team. Totally the coaches' fault for not figuring it out sooner, but he didn't come on a visit or anything so they must not have looked into him enough to figure out that he was a guy.

About to offer a girl a great scholarship, almost a full ride. Was researching her and doing my homework and I came across her twitter page. Front page is a picture of her smoking a huge joint. Half of her tweets were about marijuana so I passed on her and never contacted her again.

I have far too many as an athlete, college coach, and high school coach to keep from boring you silly. I will share one.

As a DI college coach in 1986, I was showing an athlete around campus as part of an official visit. He was with his HS coach (no parents). The coach was extremely religious mentioning faith several times. I took them to the on-campus apartment of my top few runners to showcase nicer housing. I made an appointment with the guys and they knew we were coming. Mistakenly, I did not visit beforehand. They had several large posters of nude women on one wall. I quickly positioned myself so the HS coach's back was to the posters delaying the inevitable. A TV was on and before he saw the posters the space shuttle blew up capturing our attention. Things became very somber and the HS coach wept. We left without the coach seeing the posters due to the timing of the tragedy. The coach went on to become an outstanding and highly recognizable DI college coach and still is today.

A couple things:

As a XC coach at a mid-major DI, I was at the mercy of the Head Track Coach for scholarships. The distance program was very weak, but I had some success in at least attracting some solid HS recruits. One girl I had really worked hard on bringing in for a visit would have been a huge get for us and would have really elevated our program; possibly drawing in more recruits if she signed with us.

As per our usual, the HC discussed with me what the offer would be to this girl. I never tell any recruit anything about scholarships--that was rightfully the job of the HC. In my discussion with HC prior to girl's visit, I am told the offer would be 80%. That was going to be enough to land this kid, and certainly more than others were going to offer, mainly due to our program needing to overpay for talent just to bring kids in (y'all know how that works).

The visit goes very well--all positives from current team members, parents are engaged in the visit, and the recruit seems really into it. Final stop on visit is with HC to discuss scholarship. HC drops a bomb--offers 25%. Dad, very politely, excuses his family and states they are going home. Shakes my hand, says no hard feelings as he could tell on my face that I was as stunned as he was about the offer.

Left after that year to start coaching HS. Later found out the HC was only using 9.5 of the 18 full rides available to the program. The HC's contract was not renewed a year after I left. What a bunch of shit that was.

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Second thing, for current college coaches, these are my pet peeves with your recruiting.

1. Criticizing the HS training to the recruit--we will hear about it. Even worse, criticizing training while talking to coach (yes, this happened to me; couldn't believe it)

2. Attempting to change recruits running style, cadence, racing strategy, etc. You are not their coach yet.

3. I HATE HATE HATE coaches who put a time out there for a recruit to hit for a scholarship or more scholarship money. As if the kid doesn't want to run as fast as possible, you put unnecessary added pressure on the athlete. If the kid doesn't get there, then leave it be. No need to throw in extra stress.

skdfjiojkqw wrote:

About to offer a girl a great scholarship, almost a full ride. Was researching her and doing my homework and I came across her twitter page. Front page is a picture of her smoking a huge joint. Half of her tweets were about marijuana so I passed on her and never contacted her again.

Wasn't her name Mari Juana?

Ran at a D1 school in the south. While on the team, we had a kid who came on a visit by the name of David Eisenhaeur. He decided not to come to the school, but did murder a 13 year old about 5 months later. That is a horror story. He was the weirdest recruit I have ever been around. Very cocky, trying to out kick our sub-4 guys on the long run.

Old fat guy wrote:

Agree on asking the HS coach.

Had a girl low 18s offered $. Nice girl and all but I knew no way she runs in college. School signs her and lo and behold doesn't run sr track and does not run in college. Coulda saved time and now school looks bad.

Have a dude on roster right now that runs 1:20 half marathon at ease sub 165 heart rate. But zero eeed. So track times look bad 445, 10:00. No offers right now obviously but is suited for 10k plus. Convo with coach and it's a done deal

Lol. You know there's plenty of kids that can run that half marathon with much faster mile and 2 mile PRs, right? Why would you want to recruit a "10k plus" athlete when most of the distances you'll need them for are shorter than that or on the short end of his spectrum. I didn't even have to have a conversation with you to say no to that.

Many years ago, I was helping our coach recruit a kid for track. At the time, he had respectable times in HS, good for a D3 recruit, but not much more. The funny thing was this kid sent in what amounted to a professional modeling portfolio, including glamour headshots and the cockiest 3rd person bio imaginable. We thought: Is this DB auditioning for a movie role? Way over the top stuff, especially for our little school and his times. We never pursued the kid any further, thinking his expectations were far out of touch with reality.

Well, guess what, after laughing about it for 4 years, this cocky kid turns out to be legit after all, and ends up as the NCAA D1 national champion. Oops.

Now let's hear your guesses...

No idea who that is, but if someone is sending that stuff out do you think they went to a "recruiting service" that puts all that stuff together?

I went to something like that once. It was a "career counseling" service where they would redo your resume, turn it into a "portfolio"- it was a bunch of crap.

I hope some HSers are reading though this thread.

Here's the take away so far:

-Don't show up cocky and arrogant.

-Don't go out and get shiddy drunk on your visit

-Police your postings on social media-HEAVILY

-OK to bring parents, but no okay to have them do all the talking.

6000 + altitude. my bad for not saying.

Not in a race, just training run w/ hills ( we are sorta in the mtns). Kid easy runs sub 1:15 at sea level. Thought XC was a 8k/10K. lots of kids come out of hs school not ready for longer races. He is. Im not saying Top 20 D1, but I would wager there are plenty of D2 and low D1 schools that would be happy with a 32:30 10K from an incoming 17yo?

I used to coach at a D3 school as an assistant (sprints, hurdles, relays). A guy on the team told me about a girl in his dorm who had been a State champ in high school. I looked up her times, and she could have placed at the conference meet for us.

So I wrote her a few e-mails to try to convince her to come out for the team. She was against it at first, but eventually I talked her into it. This was right before winter break. I convinced her to start coming to practice over break, which means she had to show up on campus two weeks early (essentially giving up half her winter break).

She shows up...and I could not believe it was her at first. Girl was at least 20 pounds overweight. From the first warm-up lap, it was obvious she did not have it. I went back and talked to the guy who told me about her. "Oh yeah, she was really skinny in high school, but not anymore." I probably should have checked that out before I asked her to come out for the team.

Poor girl. Her weight gain was slightly a product of the "Freshman 15" but mostly that she was a late bloomer to puberty and that's just the way her body was meant to be. She was the slowest member of the team, BY FAR, could not even make the triple jump pit from the 30-foot board, and I did not even bother trying to get her to run the hurdles (her best event in high school) because I was worried she'd trip over them.