When a college sport’s season is done, work for the coaches is really just beginning.Coaches from every sport hit the recruiting trail, trying to find the best athletes to help their program succeed. Talladega College men’s basketball coach Matt Cross and volleyball coach Rebecca Phipps have spent their first month or so hard at work trying to find players for the 2008-2009 school year.
Recruiting for these two is a little different since they’re building a program where there hasn’t been one for several years. While they can’t yet sell the success of the teams, both coaches believe they have to sell the students on the school and the town.
“You just have to be able to sell,” Cross said. “The college, Talladega College and what it has to offer. And then you have to sell yourself as a coach, and the experiences you’ve had and just give them a, let them see where playing for you or coming here, where it can get you in the next two years or four years.”
As for Phipps, she’s bringing players who were planning to play for her at the last school she was at.
“I have some players that’s coming out of Texas,” Phipps said in an earlier interview. “They were going to be my redshirt (freshmen). I was going to work with my sophomores. I was building a program in Texas, but I pretty much talked all of them into coming.”
In addition to her players from Texas, Phipps said she is working on finding players from the local area and also around the state.
Both coaches are looking to have successful teams this year, which could help with recruiting for the next year.
“Once you begin and start having success, and establish a winning program, then your program will recruit for itself,” Cross said. “
After spending some time out recruiting athletes from East Central Alabama, Cross said bigger colleges are missing out on some talented players.
“I recruit the same people that Stillman or Morehouse, Clark-Atlanta, Tuskegee, teams like that are recruiting,” he said. “What I’m coming to find, in this area, a lot of these high school kids are being overlooked by Division I colleges, because I think the game’s gone to more AAU and high school athletes in these rural areas haven’t been part of AAU, so they’re not exposed in the summertime. That’s where the sanctioned events take place, during the summer and spring.
“So the coaches don’t see the kids around here, so a lot of these kids are getting overlooked. That’s something I’m excited about taking advantage of.”
Local athletes who have been overlooked could now have an opportunity to shine on the college level while being close to home.
“They’re excited, everyone I’ve talked to about it is excited,” Cross said. “They’ve expressed to me that they’ve had a lot of student athletes that wanted to go on, but either college is too far away, but now they’ll have something right here at home.”
