The Gentry BreakThrough

Thanks to the well put together presentation Mark and James prepared for class this past Tuesday, I was able to learn a bit more about The Gentry Model. The thing that intrigued me most about this model is the way it seems to have 2 facets that are at times separate but need to work closely together in order for the entire process to be successful. This seems to be perfect for my model's context because the development components can be a blueprint that can be applicable to pretty much every men's soccer program in the country. Then the supporting components aspect is what will ultimately separate certain universities from others. Things like Facilities, Personnel, and Budget/Resources, are at times the final piece of the puzzle with regards to the recruiting process. Those universities that have a better support system in place, will usually be able to sign the top level recruits.

I hope to alter this model in such a way that I am still able to keep the aspects that flow together and work well with each other; at the same time re-design a few aspects that will help the functionality of the model.

Thoughts and comments are more than welcome.

Model Status Report

I have been struggling for a while with regards to how I should design my model on paper. I have ideas in my head with regards to the different aspect that I feel are more important than others; which things I want to be the driving force of my model. The difficulty comes into the actual drawing out a visual representation of what my thoughts are. I guess this is why I was never a good art student while in grade school.
Presently we have a situation on our team where we are graduating a lot of players with experience, talent, and proper attitude towards being a "professional" DI athlete. The environment that we had over this past year is something that we, as a coaching staff, have worked hard to cultivate. Our players became more focused and motivated towards reaching our team goals, they sacrificed more of their time, energy, and other aspects of their life in order to reach their athletic potential. Because of this environment and culture that we had within our team, we were able to have one of the more successful seasons this program has had in about 10 years.
Now we have a gap. There has been a vacuum created with these experienced players graduating from our program. The troubling thing is, I see some of our returning players stepping up and trying to fill the role of those players that have moved on, while I also see many guys thinking that everything will be the same as last fall. What they don't realize is that they need to take a larger role and have a larger investment within our program.
So our ideal future will be that: (1) our current players adjust their attitudes in such a way that they add on to the soccer culture that we had this past year. These players need to buy-in to the fact that being successful players requires more than just showing up during schedules practices and working hard. They need to train like professionals; eat healthy, get plenty of rest, take care of their academic responsibilities, and put in some extra work on their own. This extra work can be a variety of things such as going for a long run, getting an extra session with our strength coach, getting an extra session to improve their individual technique, or just gathering a few guys together and playing a pick up game or some soccer tennis. It could even be that they watch a professional game on tv and try to study the way players play at the next level. (2) From there, our recruiting class must be a successful one. We are in need of a few very talented players that can help replace some of those that we had lost after this past season. We also need to bring in a lot of players, numbers wise, in order to create more depth and competition within our team. The recruiting, which is the focus of my model, will play a crucial role in closing our gap and helping our team to reach our ultimate goal of playing in the NCAA Tournament.

What Do I Need?

Some would say that Recruiting is 80% of collegiate athletics. If the coach cannot recruit talented players into his program, then it does not matter how good of a coach he is. Once he has the talent, the coach then has to develop those players into elite athletes that can succeed at the next level; along with bring them all together to produce a successful team.
But the real question is....What Kind of Recruit do I NEED?
The ultimate need is a successful/winning program. The trick is, what players do I need to recruit that will bring me closer to filling the gap. This usually depends on (1)How successful were we this past season? (2) What players have moved on from our team? (3) What is the capability level of the players still remaining with our team?
I have determined that our success was relatively adequet this past season, but still a little short of reaching our goal. Therefore, our need to improve means that we probably need more talent within our team. With that being said, we have also graduated a lot of "key" players this year; so those players need to be replaced. Then I analyzed the status of our current players. Within that group, we have some that have developed and could be ready to fill in a few of the spots we lost from graduated players. So our needs are to bring in a few "blue chip" recruits, and a few players to fill in the roster spots that our current players are vacating by moving into more contributing roles. (That is the beauty of DI soccer and only being allowed 9.9 scholarships.....when you have 11 players on the field)

So now I need to prioritize my needs. What does it cost to meet these needs? Well it obviously takes time making phone calls, watching player videos, putting together mailings, travel, etc. The key though is what kind of budget you are working with. Your budget needs to account for many things including, scholarships offered, travel to evaluate and visit recruits, travel to bring recruits on campus for official visits, accomodations while on the official visit(i.e. football puts their recruits in the Sheraton, we put ours in Skytop apartments with current players), etc.
Now how does that weigh against not meeting the needs? The program is not as successful, the players do not get recognized and therefore struggle to get drafted, our jobs as coaches are in jeopardy, the university and athletic department lose recognition, and we lose revenue coming into the program and department.
A few other things that need to be considered while recruiting.
-location of recruits
-desired major of recruits
-academic background of recruits
-financial status of recruits

Model Reflection 1

After going back and forth between a few topics that I would like to focus on, I have finally decided to commit with the "Recruiting Process" as it pertains to collegiate athletics; especially men's soccer. The interesting thing about the recruiting process is that it changes from year to year. Each year, one's team will have different gaps and needs as personnel changes.
So the System that the context of "Recruiting" will be focused on is the Syracuse University Men's Soccer program. With that being said, my system exists within the Suprasystem of NCAA Division I Men's Soccer.
Within our SU's men's soccer program, there are many subsystems that influence what occurs inside the system. The few that I plan to focus on for the sake of this model will be (1) The Team, (2) The University, and (3) The Pool of Potential Recruits. Inside each of those subsystems there can be another focused breakdown on the makeup of the team, university, and recruits.

TEAM
- Graduating Players
- Returning Players
- Coach’s Philosophy
- Scholarship $
- Budget
-
Potential Recruits
- Academic Desires
- Academic Transcript
- Soccer Resume
- Financial Situation
University
- Academic Reputation
- Ath. Dept. support
- Athletic Facilities
- NCAA Compliance
- Administrative Politics

During the recruiting process there are two main channels of communication/information. One being between the coaching staff and the university administration; the other being between the coaching staff and the prospective student-athlete.

Fresh Start

Hi everyone
Here is my new blog for IDE 632. I decided not to use the same blog from last semester. I figured New Semester, New Blog, New Experience. Hopefully I will be able to keep this one going in a productive and relevant manner; I'm still trying to get a grasp on the PLE and social bookmarking for this course. Hopefully it's a quicker learning curve than I had with 611.

See you all in class tomorrow.....and possibly on here in the near future.