USD Magazine, Summer 2004

ALMANAC

Rulesof The Tough Job of Recruiting Student-Athletes Attraction

by Timothy McKernan T here are 16 Division I sports at USD, bur whether the arhleres compete on the field , the court, the course or in the water, their coaches all have to play the same game. It's called recruiting, a labor-intensive business that, unlike the sports in which the athletes participate,

don'rs are perhaps second in complexity only to the federal tax code, and every recruiter has to know ir forward and back. Some of the

rules make sense - recruits can't receive any monetary compensation beyond tuition, room, board and books - and some of the rules, well ... not so much. "There is one that says we can't pick up a recruit in a helicopter," Marpe says. "There's silly stuff, bur also some very important rules that protect both the students and the universities." Those in an official recruiting capacity must pass an annual certification exam - 40 ques– tions about anything in the manual. "Ir's not so bad," Holland know your own name. There's new legislation every year, and preparing for the exam helps us stay on top of that." Managing the scholarships also is a challenge. The NCM allows each D-1 basketball ream 13 full scholarships, although says. "After a while, you know most of it like you

knows no season. The worldwide search to identify prospective players and convince them ro choose Alcala Park is a year– round effort. Attracting students ro

San Diego may seem like an easy task, but Kathy Marpe, head coach of the women's basketball ream, and Brad Holland, her counterpart with the men, have to go about recruiting with the same no-nonsense approach they use to prepare their reams for games. ''Anyone we think can help us is almost always being recruited by other schools," says Erik Johnson, who coor– dinates recruiting for Marpe. ''As beautiful as USD is, that almost never makes the differ– ence. It has to be our university and our program that convinces a recruit. "

partial scholarships - for example, splitting one scholarship between two players - can be an option. Scholarships are awarded for rhe duration of a player's collegiate eligibility, so a scholarship given to an incoming freshman means there are 12 lefr for four years - whether or nor the player completes .,_

Basketball is arguably USD's highest– profile sport, bur it's not special in the eyes of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Like all Division I programs, USD's basketball reams are allowed four sanc- tioned recruiters, each managing a file profiling dozens of high school and community college athletes. While they juggle prospects, the recruiters also grapple with a dizzying volume of restrictions. The NCAA's recruiting dos and

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a four-year career at USD. That delicate balance can tip the wrong way. Holland cites a lack of scholarship maneuverability as one reason this year's men's

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