By Judy Richter
Head coach Tara VanDerveer wasn’t quite exaggerating when she said, “It’s always recruiting time.” She was responding to a young girl who had asked her about recruiting for the Stanford women’s basketball team during the tent after the Fresno game.
Continuing her response, Tara said that she and her fellow coaches look for girls who have strong offensive skills and who are good students with a good attitude and a willingness to share the ball. “It’s nice if you’re big,” she added.
Because Tara is so busy with the team during the academic year, most of the recruiting is done by her coaching staff – associate head coach Amy Tucker and assistant coaches Kate Paye and Bobbie Kelsey. Amy coordinates their efforts. She recently talked about the process during an interview in her office.
With the two 2009 recruits already signed, the coaches are concentrating on high school juniors, who will graduate in 2010. Most of them already know which colleges want them. Stanford has narrowed its list to fewer than a dozen players, Amy said. The process for recruiters will become most intense shortly before the signing period in November.
The scouting and recruiting process is governed by NCAA rules, which are very specific about contacts with players and their families. (For a taste of the NCAA’s strictness on just one aspect of recruiting, see NCAA Booster Rules on the Fast Break Club site.)
Promising young players, some as young as 13 but more often in high school, tend to come to Stanford’s attention through unsolicited contacts by parents, coaches, the girls themselves and even some donors. Sometimes, though, a girl’s talent results in a widely known reputation. One such player was guard Candice Wiggins, who graduated from Stanford this year after four stellar years. “She was so exceptionally good at a young age that everyone knew abut her,” Amy said.
No matter how glowing the recommendations or the reputation, though, “we still have to see them play,” Amy said.
One opportunity comes during a 20-day evaluation period in July, when coaches watch them play in tournaments, usually with club teams. They can watch them play up to another five times during the school year. Each school is limited to a total of 100 evaluations in an academic year, but Stanford usually does between 65 and 70. Still, that’s a lot of traveling for the three recruiting coaches.
Stanford also may invite prospects of any age to attend Tara’s hoops camp during the summer.
A college can offer athletic scholarships to prospects at any time, but in Stanford’s case, “we still have to warn them that nothing is final until the admissions office has its say,” Amy said. NCAA rules limit women’s basketball teams to 15 scholarship players. In addition, they may have walk-on players. Stanford’s last walk-on player was guard Markisha Coleman, who graduated in 2007.
For players, the recruiting process is most intense during their junior years, when they can receive e-mails and letters from teams. The best players often are inundated with correspondence.
A player may make an unofficial visit to a college at almost any time. The exceptions, which include Dec. 24 and 25 and the NCAA tournament, are called dead periods. She is allowed to make official visits during her senior year only. She may make only one official visit per school with a limit of five schools. It’s a 48-hour visit for which the school pays all of the girl’s expenses. It pays for her parents’ meals and lodging only.
During official visits, each Stanford player hosts a prospect and joins her and the coaching staff at dinner. The players then share their impressions with the coaches. “They are a big part of the process,” Amy said.
The questions that Stanford coaches hear most often from recruits concern how Cardinal athletes combine sports and academics and how they manage their time. They also ask about the program itself and want to know where and how they would fit in.
The coaching staff also makes a home visit during the senior year – usually after they know a player has been admitted. It’s a more casual visit that allows the coaches, players and their families to become better acquainted.
The success that the team enjoyed last year – reaching the championship game of the NCAA tournament – “makes Stanford more appealing to kids, but it still doesn’t help them get admitted. It helps in name recognition,” Amy said.
Stanford and the Ivy League schools – Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale – don’t reserve admission slots for athletes. That’s different from the way other colleges operate. Instead, “we operate totally through the admissions process,” Amy said. That means if the admissions office doesn’t accept a girl, she’s out, no matter how skilled she is as a basketball player.
“There’s no way around it,” she said. The same holds true for all other sports at Stanford and the Ivies. “It’s a very different experience than recruiting for other places.” To ease the admission process somewhat, Stanford and the Ivies have adopted a uniform application form so that a student doesn’t have to fill out many different forms.
When considering players, “we tend to look for the best players we can get,” Amy said. Later the coaches consider what the team’s needs might be in a given year.
Because of Stanford’s strict admissions standards, the coaches can’t go just on a player’s talent. “We work with very bright kids,” Amy said.
The coaches also look at a girl’s personal qualities. “You hope you get the whole package. This is not a place for kids who are selfish. They have to have a positive attitude and work hard,” she said.
This article only touches on the NCAA’s strict recruiting rules. For details, see the NCAA Off-Campus Recruiting Guide.
“We follow the rules,” Amy said, adding that Stanford has never had a major recruiting infraction in any sport.
