Overcoming scare tactics small college coaches use in recruiting - OLP’s Josh Hanson

I was talking to a high school player. I finally went and saw a high school game, first time since I played there in '04, this offseason. And after they had— they won CIF, they lost the state playoff. We were in and out. And, you know, some of the kids, they just looked like they were, you know, they were crying. Same thing I did when my high school career was over. That uncertainty, you know, those friendships, that relationship. So I was talking to him and he He had said he had only a couple of D2 offers, actually some GNAC schools we're familiar with, so like Zusa and Dixie. And he was like, I'm not really interested in playing there. And he had a— it was Sac State or UC Davis, something like that. One of the 1AAs offered him a walk-on. They probably weren't going to give him a scholarship, but they wanted him to go there. And that's where he wanted to go at one point. But then one of the small school coaches said, oh, if you go to this, if you walk on to that school, you're just going to be a well, camp body, that's NFL. You're gonna be scout team and you're gonna be treated as such and you won't, you won't get a good experience and you're gonna rack up student loans. And in Cal, California schools are cheap in-state, so like, you, if you're a qualifier, it's not like you're gonna go in debt the rest of your life if you walk on. So what's your thoughts on that? Like saying, hey, you're just gonna be a scout team as a walk-on.

I mean, it's, it's really a scare tactic that a lot of smaller school coaches will use to get better players through school. And I don't, I don't respect that at all. I don't think that a coach should be in any position to tell an athlete what their future is going to be like, especially if you're trying to recruit the, recruit the guy. Shouldn't you be like, yeah, you know what, you could ball out here, but here's the reasons why you should come to my school, instead of flipping it around, be like, you're not good enough, you'll be lucky to come to our school and play. Or, we'll take you because we know you aren't gonna make it. And I think in any other job interview, because the recruiting process is a job interview for student athletes, imagine if an athletic director told a coach who was choosing between a small school position and a Division I coaching position, imagine if the small school AD was like, you know what, You're gonna go to this school and you're gonna have a losing season and be fired in one year. You should come to our school instead. That's, you know, that's the same type of recruiting tactic, but it's much more frowned upon. A coach would just be completely disrespected by it. And I think, you know, there's just not, you know, a— I just don't think it's a good look for coaches. And the athlete, if they know, if they are truly bought in to walk on to a bigger school that maybe, you know, they— a lot of people might think is out of their range, but if they know in their heart that they're going to put everything into playing, they're going to work to the point where they'll get onto the field. I mean, it's not like a walk-on has never seen the field at a Division I school. I mean, I was a walk-on. I played as a true freshman.

It's not like And there was scholarships that, guess what, they were scout team players with a scholarship.

Yeah.

Same class as yours, right? Or even older even.

I think this whole walk-on versus scholarship athlete is so overhyped because you're talking about, you're talking about kids who are 17, 18 years old. You don't know how their body's gonna mature. I was a slow mature. I was young for my grade, so I had a lot more room to develop, and I may have been a walk-on when I got there as a freshman, but I matured much later than most athletes. So by the time, you know, I was sophomore, junior, I was, you know, I was physically more prepared. I was able to compete at a higher level than anyone originally thought I could.