In the thread on Competitive Equity, the term “recruiting” was thrown around rather loosely. Maybe worth defining terms.
First to register two givens; (1) some degree of recruiting occurs in both private and public school settings, and (2) private schools have a built in advantage of being able to enroll kids from anywhere geographically.
To the point: Below is a range of what I think happens at the high school level that people define as recruiting. The scale of 1 to 5 begins with extremely passive behavior and runs on up through what are extreme cases of obvious unscrupulous recruiting.
1: A program is either in a desired area or perhaps has been successful with a respected good coach and so, with no communication between the program and a middle schooler or transfer, the player decides to enroll and play in that program.
2. The HS coach runs an AAU program that exposes players to their HS system. They do not persuade individuals, but rather simply advertises open tryouts.
3. Coach communicates through an intermediary (or directly) to a middle school player or family that they hope the player will attend their high school.
4. Coach communicates through an intermediary (or directly) to a high school player enrolled elsewhere that they would like the player to transfer to their high school.
5-10: Coach bad talks rival programs, promises things at their program, incentivizes players to attend their school, waives tuition, provides transportation, provides living arrangements.
In my opinion, numbers 1 and 2 are not recruiting. Number 3 gets close. Numbers 4 and 5+ are recruiting. The term recruiting is often thrown around when a certain program has a period of long term success. “Oh, their success makes sense because they recruit”. But the term can mean a variety of things; some innocent, some nefarious. Thoughts?
First to register two givens; (1) some degree of recruiting occurs in both private and public school settings, and (2) private schools have a built in advantage of being able to enroll kids from anywhere geographically.
To the point: Below is a range of what I think happens at the high school level that people define as recruiting. The scale of 1 to 5 begins with extremely passive behavior and runs on up through what are extreme cases of obvious unscrupulous recruiting.
1: A program is either in a desired area or perhaps has been successful with a respected good coach and so, with no communication between the program and a middle schooler or transfer, the player decides to enroll and play in that program.
2. The HS coach runs an AAU program that exposes players to their HS system. They do not persuade individuals, but rather simply advertises open tryouts.
3. Coach communicates through an intermediary (or directly) to a middle school player or family that they hope the player will attend their high school.
4. Coach communicates through an intermediary (or directly) to a high school player enrolled elsewhere that they would like the player to transfer to their high school.
5-10: Coach bad talks rival programs, promises things at their program, incentivizes players to attend their school, waives tuition, provides transportation, provides living arrangements.
In my opinion, numbers 1 and 2 are not recruiting. Number 3 gets close. Numbers 4 and 5+ are recruiting. The term recruiting is often thrown around when a certain program has a period of long term success. “Oh, their success makes sense because they recruit”. But the term can mean a variety of things; some innocent, some nefarious. Thoughts?