High school hoops 101: Recruiting

Bottom line: Talent wins.

You can have the best schemes in the state. You can bring in trainers for shooting and ballhandling. You can have a roster full of high-character kids who play like their hair is on fire.

And you can lose by 30 to a taller, stronger, more athletic, more explosive, more skilled team.

In fact, they don’t even have to be more skilled. Athleticism (and size) erase talent. That 5-4 girl or 5-8 boy who can drain threes all night won’t even see the rim if guarded by a defender who’s six inches taller and just as quick. And if your point guard can’t the ball across halfcourt without multiple screens, whatever offense you have installed is, well, worthless.

It's possible you might win a league title with just the kids who show up on that first day in October. It’s not likely, but it’s possible. But you’re not winning many playoff games with just the players who wander into the for tryouts. To consistently do much more than break even, you simply have to recruit – and maybe the most important part of recruiting is inside your own school.

After all, there are only so many elite athletes at any school, and there are a whole lot of sports. Sure, you’ll get the two or three elite athletes who really love basketball, but to win big games, you need to attract other elite athletes who could conceivably wind up playing another sport.

That tall girl playing volleyball could be your starting power forward. That 6-0 shortstop on the baseball team could be your defensive stopper. And at the high school level, running out a 6-2, 220-pound football-playing post can wreak havoc with that superskilled center across town.

So how do you get that talent? First, encourage them all to play two sports. Outright stealing a player might work for a year, but in the long run, other coaches and the athletic director will not stand for it. Ideally, all the coaches work together, and you encourage your basketball players to play fall or spring sports. (Water polo, by the way, is basically basketball. The concept of the game is much the same, and swimming is good for strength and easy on the knees.)

Then, have an attractive program, from top to bottom. The freshman team should have fun, and win games; the JV team should win games and have fun; and the varsity should go on trips, draw crowds, win games, and have fun. If your program is a grind-it-out, run-‘til-you-drop, coaches-in-your-ear program, you may find it hard to get those other elite athletes to play for you. They can play soccer or boys’ volleyball or whatever and have a good time while doing so. If you’re no fun and everyone knows it, attracting talent won’t be as easy as you’d like.

Along that line, your frosh and JV coaches need to be good ambassadors in the school. You want all the players, even those who will never sniff the varsity, to say good things about the basketball program around the school. You want their parents to be happy, because who knows? Little brother might be a big-time player who’s deciding between baseball and basketball right now.

And ideally, some of your coaches are involved at the middle school level, either in local rec leagues or CYO, or even coaching the middle school teams – because that’s where the real recruiting goes on.

State associations may officially frown on recruiting seventh graders, but realistically that’s impossible to enforce – or even know about. Motivated parents can manipulate the system to get their children in the high school of their choice, and you and your staff should make them want that choice to be your school. Which again comes back to the attractiveness of your overall program, and community perceptions on what that experience is like.

To make that happen, a head coach needs to be seen at a few middle school or rec league events. Nothing needs to be said to a parent or child, but if the high school varsity coach cares enough to be at the middle school championship game, word will get around.

The actual recruiting – as in conversations that go beyond “I like the way your daughter plays” – should ideally be done by parents or non-staff members, but again, who’s checking? And it’s a rare state that penalizes anyone for recruiting in middle school.

Transfers, though, are a different story. Every state is different, but transfers happen everywhere. Often a physical move by the family is required, but sometimes just filling out the paperwork during the proper time is enough.

Usually, though, a top-shelf player who transfers after his or her sophomore year is going to be scrutinized. Is there a connection to a club coach? Is there evidence of recruiting, or at least persuasion? In some states, the default reply to any such request is a flat no, and a year sit-out. In other states, there are partial sit-outs, and sometimes, it’s ridiculously easy.

But there is one constant: If you have the resources to lawyer up, most state associations will give in. Spending $50,000 to defend a case in court is usually spending money the state association doesn’t have, and with any kind of a case, the state will cave. (To guarantee success, send the player to a psychologist who will write that the player a) can’t play at his or her present school any more due to psychological stress; but b) must continue playing to preserve his or her fragile mental health. There’s nowhere for state associations to go with this kind of appeal.)

And of course the major powers have the resources to make transfers happen. Parents can get new jobs, or a deal on a condo. Tuition at private schools can be waived or cut. Connections to college programs can be increased.

So it’s no accident that the same schools dominate over time. They know how to work the system to maximize the talent flowing into the program. Most schools, of course, aren’t going to support going to extremes to build a basketball program, so most coaches aren’t in a position to dive into all-out recruiting. Of course, most coaches don’t want to. Recruiting, after all, is sales, and selling isn’t a lot of fun. It’s certainly not as much fun as putting in a series of inbounds plays, or working on shooting fundamentals, or developing relationships with players.

In the long run, though, the coaches that completely disdain recruiting, inside or outside of their school, will struggle to win, and coaches that don’t win don’t get to coach all that long. So disdain recruiting all you want, but if you like coaching, you’d better put your qualms aside – because the bottom line remains the same: Talent wins.

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Photo byKyle O'Sullivan for Unsplash