[NU Sports] Interesting article re: GB and PF

[Neil Kaplan]

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/colleges/651590,CST-SPT-nu15.article
 
_________________________________________
NEIL KAPLAN
neilkaplan at yahoo.com

----- Original Message ----
From: Jeff Beamsley <jeff.beamsley at hilgraeve.com>
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 9:38:08 AM
Subject: [NU Sports] Recruiting


I was just doing a little googling because of Carr's retirement and
 came
across something that Jim Harbaugh said regarding recruiting at
 Stanford that
I think bears repeating for this group.  By way of attribution, this
 was
originally published in the NYT.  
 
I think you can generally do a cut and paste replacing Stanford with NU
 and
expect that it represents PF's philosophy too.  BTW, Harbaugh estimates
 that
there are 100-150 kids in this pool of recruits compared to 1000 in the
 pool
of recruits for most other BCS schools.  The difference is that those
 100-150
have already demonstrated by their academic success that they DO value
education.  So schools like Stanford and NU have a leg up in recruiting
 them.
Because they are going to be spread out all over the country, we have
 to
focus nationally, and we have to get to them early to make sure that we
 are
on their list.  We only need 10-20 every year.
 
Jeff
 
Why did you speak out about your academic experience at Michigan
 earlier this
year, condemning them for steering athletes into general studies?

The whole thrust of that was basically I'd like to see more schools do
 it
like Stanford does it. I wasn't singling Michigan out. I wish more
 schools
would have the kind of character that Stanford does as an institution.
 They
won't significantly cut corners for athletes here. They have a sincere
 desire
for athletes to improve academically. They're not just interested in
 how fast
you run and how high you jump. There's a standard to get into Stanford,
 to
graduate from Stanford and a character that they will not cut corners. 

Your pool is limited here. What surprised you when the reality of who
 you can
and can't recruit has come up in the last 10 months? 

It's a smaller pool. What's surprised me? I knew that it was a small
 pool.
That wasn't surprising. But I think the thing is that if you can get
 the
message out early. This is the key thing, getting the message out to
scholar-athletes when they are freshman, sophomores, juniors and
 seniors. To
get it to them at an early age. What a Stanford degree is worth. What a
Stanford degree can do for you. Let them know what to aspire to, and
 they
will do it. I think that the problem is that people say, 'You don't
 have to
do that. You don't have to take an A.P. course or an honors course.'
 People
will rise to the level that you expect of them. The good news is that
 you can
get to parents and perspective scholar-athletes at a younger age and
 get them
to take a rigorous schedule and get them to prepare for the ACT and SAT
testing. B's and A's are what you're shooting for, no C's. D's won't be
accepted. There's a standard to get in and we're not going to bend that
standard. 

How have you got that message out? 

Recruiting the transcript as well as the player. Recruiting the coach,
 the
counselor, the principal and the parents to let them know what it is
 that
they're shooting for. 

 

 
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