FROM THE PRESS BOX COLUMN: Problems attracting players at IVCC
By Holli L. Rapp
Some IVCC athletic teams are having trouble attracting enough players, even the ones that have been very successful in the last few years. What is the problem?
Many coaches are part-time at IVCC and have full-time jobs off campus. But while they are willing to coach, are they willing or able to dedicate the time into recruiting?
One athletic director I interviewed for the story at the left ("Women’s Teams Face Many Problems") identified another recruiting problem when he said that some coaches just don’t like to recruit.
Actually, recruiting is a big part of coaching, and anyone who doesn’t like recruiting probably should not take a coaching job.
At any college, a coach who doesn’t recruit will have a team that will be less successful which not only makes the team look bad but also makes the coach look bad. At small schools like IVCC if the recruits aren’t there, you don’t have a team, which means that the coach doesn’t have a job.
While coaches should accept responsibility for some of the problems fielding teams, so should students.
Some former high school athletes don’t go out for community college teams because their part-time jobs conflict with practices and game schedules. While some students have to work to support themselves and pay college expenses, others, who want a nicer car, better clothes or money to go out on Friday night, make their jobs a priority.
Some students who aren’t interested in competing at the community college level don’t tell the coach they just won’t play. But whatever their reason for not participating, they need to tell the coach, up front, that they aren’t interested so the coach can dedicate time to finding someone else.
Coaches also need to listen when students say they aren’t interested. Some students really don’t want to compete at the community college level, and others have decided to make their studies a priority.
And coaches need to do their recruiting early, probably before the student reaches IVCC. A former high school athlete contacted by a coach when practice or the season is about to start gets the message:
"You weren’t good enough originally, but now that we’re a bit short-handed, we’d like you on the team."
As a former high school athlete, I know how that feels.
Oct. 8, 1998 the Apache