Two overnight visits. Countless emails. Unanswered phone calls. A missed game of pick-up soccer. Finally a chance to play on the women’s soccer team.
The story sounds like a MasterCard ‘Priceless’ commercial. But for incoming freshman Becca Heymann, it was all part of her journey to landing a spot on Washington University’s women’s soccer team.
“My first impression was bad,” said Heymann. “I kept emailing and emailing and [women’s soccer coach Wendy Dillinger] never seemed to be interested.”
Heymann, who will play mid-field or forward for the Bears this fall, attributes Dillinger’s initial disinterest to geography. She hails from just outside of Boston, an area of the country that gets little attention from most Washington University coaches when it comes to recruiting simply because coaches cannot watch these players compete. More than half of the women’s soccer team is from Missouri, Illinois or Indiana.
But when Heymann decided to visit the University in October of her senior year of high school, Dillinger was quick to respond. And ever since, “she’s [Dillinger] been really great about keeping in touch,” reported Heymann, who went back for a second visit in April.
Heymann will join eleven other soccer recruits (and likely some walk-ons) who will be vying for spots on a team that went 11-7-1 (3-4 in the University Athletic Conference) last season. According to a number of current players, this will be the first year Coach Wendy Dillinger will have to make roster cuts.
While each coach takes a different approach to recruiting student-athletes, all have to hurdle the same obstacle – the admissions office. Unlike Division I schools which frequently admit athletes with less-than-qualified test scores and GPAs, the Washington University Office of Undergraduate Admissions holds athletic recruits to the same standards as non-athletes. And because of the school’s Division III affiliation, there are no athletic scholarships.
With one of the most successful programs in women’s collegiate volleyball history (at any level), Head Coach Rich Luenemann often has to compete against Division I coaches for recruits. But Luenemann starts at somewhat of a disadvantage in the recruiting game since he cannot offer any scholarship money and must find players who meet the University’s stringent academic requirements. He can offer something that other coaches cannot: a degree from a top-notch academic institution and four legitimate chances at winning a national championship.
The University presented the best combination of volleyball and academics for incoming freshman defensive specialist Jennee Montijo.
“The volleyball team is not only great [athletically], they are extremely friendly and love to have fun,” said Montijo.
Luenemann says he spends much of his day emailing, calling and writing high school students and coaches in order to identify potential recruits.
“We evaluate the academic and athletic profiles of the 1,000-plus recruits in our database,” says Luenemann. “We cull that number down to our elite recruits and then offer roster positions to 3-4 players based upon the needs we anticipate for the coming season.” With the departure of three seniors from 2005, Luenemann has restocked his roster with four freshmen and three transfers.
Luenemann also recognizes that sometimes he just gets lucky. “Many of our contacts occur when recruits take the time to fully investigate their collegiate opportunities, become intrigued by the incredible combination of academic and athletic excellence Washington University offers, and then contact us.”
In seven years at the helm of the volleyball Bears, Luenemann has guided his team to the NCAA tournament each year, reaching the Final Four four times and winning the national championship in 2003. The last time a University volleyball team missed the post-season (1988) most of this year’s recruiting class had just been born.
While football coach Larry Kindbom still faces many of the same common recruiting obstacles as other coaches, his coaching staff has at least one luxury which many other Division III football coaches do not: the ability to recruit nationally. The thirty-five football recruits reporting to training camp on Aug. 11 hail from as far away as California and Florida. A list of 1,000 potential recruits gets pared down to 200 and from that number, Kindbom and his staff scour the country in search of the best available players for the final roster.
Kindbom, who enters his 18th season guiding the Bears, says it is necessary to start with such a large pool of potential recruits in order to guarantee 30 or 35 new players each fall. Kindbom expects a roster between 100 and 105 players this season.
According to Kindbom, recruiting is about two things: communication and numbers. The longtime coach is meticulous when it comes to keeping in touch with his players – future and current. In the off-season he is in frequent contact with his players over e-mail and on the phone. At the time he was interviewed for this story, Kindbom was in the midst of composing a series of newsletters he sends to his players each year.
Besides evaluating a player’s academic and athletic prowess, Kindbom insists that an evaluation of a player’s character is equally if not more important. “Each recruit stays with a player when they visit so that we can get a sense of him as a person, not just a football player. We want good guys on this team in addition to good students and good football players.”
Indeed, many Wash U. athletes report that athletics was only one element which convinced them to come to the Danforth Campus. Said Montijo, “I loved the atmosphere of the school and the personality of the students [when I visited]. I remember I saw a group of people playing frisbee on the field late at night and I remember thinking this is the type of school I want to go to – one where people work hard but also have time for fun.”