Jan. 31, 2006

by Jared Gelfond, Illinois Sports Information

It's a job that requires late nights--very late nights--and days that are filled with constant phone calls, letters, questionnaires and a number of headaches. It requires attention for the 24 hours in a day and for the 365 days in a year. And just when it's all over and you can show the entire world what your work produced, you get to start it all over again.

Such is the life of a recruiting coordinator at the Division I level. For Illinois' recruiting coordinator, Reggie Mitchell, the job to recruit the class of 2006 started immediately upon his arrival a year ago.

"When we first took the job we got started pretty late and we still had to finish off the class for '05," said Mitchell on Monday, just two days away from announcing the class of 2006. "As we were finishing off that class, we tried to make some strides for the class of '06 because we were behind on that as well."

In a normal year, the recruiting for the following class will start much earlier. When the coaches head out each spring they are always keeping an eye out or looking for that next great prospect to recruit.

"When our coaches are out recruiting in April and May, we will get started on the class the year after," said Mitchell who, while putting the finishing touches on the 2006 class, still managed to bring in more than 35 juniors this past weekend. "We will also always ask about underclassmen that they might have, because if they have a sophomore or a freshman that they like, we will write the name down and keep track of those guys. Basically you always want to stay a year or two ahead."

As the recruiting coordinator at the University of Illinois, Mitchell has a broad range of responsibilities. Whether it's scheduling visits, overseeing the mailings, meeting to discuss recruits or just looking at videotape, his most important job as coordinator is to keep things organized.

"One of the main jobs I have is to coordinate the recruiting weekends," stated Mitchell. "We have to decide where we are going to make evaluations and those types of things. While the ultimate decision is Coach Zook's, I have to make sure that we are always organized and going in the same direction."

While that task might sound easy, it actually takes a lot of planning. There are hundreds upon hundreds of recruits on the Illinois radar screen throughout the season and hundreds of high school football games all over the country. Trying to figure out who is going where during the season can become a difficult task.

"The first thing we do when we try to figure out where we are going is to look at who we are playing," said Mitchell, who had spent two previous years as coordinator at Michigan State before joining Coach Zook in Champaign. "If we are playing at home, then we can probably go a little bit further because you have major airports that you can get in and out of. If we are on the road, then we are probably going to do some more local evaluations because we may not be able to get in and out when we want to."

Coaches use many different means to evaluate recruits. They speak with people they know in the area, they look at videotape, they visit with high school coaches, and in the new age of recruiting they deal with several recruiting services.

These services have become a major part of recruiting in the 21st century.

"The one thing we are going to do is give our coaches the opportunity to get whatever they feel is going to help them in their area," stated Mitchell. "We leave it up to the individual coach to decide which one he wants to use, because some are better than others."

Mitchell doesn't want to limit the resources the assistant coaches have to identify and evaluate prospects.

"If a coach says he really needs something like a particular service, we are going to get it for him. There is really no set number of services that we are going to use," said Mitchell. "If a coach thinks he is going to need 10 services in his area then we are going to do that, because we want to go in and recruit the best possible player."

Once a player has been identified by an Illinois coach, the staff goes through a specific procedure before it decides whether or not to offer the young man a scholarship.

"We have three different coaches look at the film on a kid. It will be the recruiting coach, the position coach and the coordinator and, of course, Coach Zook. Each coach will assign the kid a number and at the end of the evaluations, we look at he highest numbers, and those are the kids we will recruit."

After the three evaluations are done and the numbers are assigned, if there are any questions about whether to offer a scholarship, another system is used.

"Coach Zook is going to always give his opinion, and if there is ever a complete standstill, then he will make the decision, but usually the position coach is going to make the call," explained Mitchell. "If we are talking about an offensive lineman, Coach Warriner is going to say, `That is the guy I want.' As long as the numbers are similar, that is the guy we will take."

Another important aspect of a recruiting coordinator's job is to make sure he works with the head coach to set the recruiting areas for all of his assistant coaches. It is these types of decisions that can greatly affect a program's recruiting success.

"When we try to figure out the areas our assistants cover, Coach Zook and I sit down and try to map it out. We initially set the areas and then we will sit down to discuss it as a staff. We try to put guys in areas they are familiar with and areas where they may have contacts. If you put a coach in an area he is comfortable in, he will be more effective in being able to recruit guys."

That doesn't mean that the Illinois coaches won't go into an area where they don't have a natural fit. From the day he first arrived in Champaign, Zook let everyone know that he will scour the entire country for the best student-athletes.

"If there is an area where we don't have someone with connections, we will put someone in there, and it's kind of like cold-calling," said Mitchell. "The first year you don't really expect much, but you try to develop relationships with people and then in following years try and go get kids."

Even though this year's recruiting class features student-athletes from 10 states, there is one part of the country that where Mitchell hopes the Illini can improve their presence.

"When you look at our potential signings for this year, we didn't recruit anybody from out west," stated Mitchell. "We ended up getting Antonio Steele from a junior college out there, but other than that, we didn't do anything in California, Arizona or other states in that region. Hopefully next year there is a guy that has a connection to us out there and he is a guy we like, so we can get someone from out west."

Back in the 1980's, the recruiting coordinator and other assistant coaches had to fly all over the country to get letters of intent signed on Signing Day. This led to some crazy and wild situations as assistant coaches went everywhere hoping to be the one to get the signatures on the dotted line. Fortunately technology has ended that `arms race' for the signatures.

But the advance of technology has changed much more about recruiting than just obtaining the actual signatures.

"Everybody is going to send out mailings, so we probably get out two mailings a week to the kids," Mitchell explained. "There is a limited amount of time you can call a recruit, but the thing that everybody seems to be doing now is text messaging."

Text messaging a recruit has become something that is done 24/7 and you ought to talk to Coach Zook because I know his texts have come in at all times of the night."

In addition to the advent of the text message, the increased use of the Internet for recruiting information has vastly changed the way recruiting goes.

"I don't think you want to tell everyone they are your No. 1 recruit now, because it will be up on the Internet for everyone to see," laughed Mitchell, referring to a tactic many coaches used in the '80's to get athletes to come to their schools. "It has changed recruiting from the simple standpoint that kids are always on there, so when they come back from their visit it, was either a 9, or a 10, or an 8 and you kind of know where they are at."

"Honestly, I try not to read the Internet stuff too much or put too much stock in it, because it can discourage you from recruiting a guy. When you come back off a visit, you are going to be excited and it's going to be the best thing you have ever seen or done, so you can't take too much from that."

Recruits are now using the Internet to see how many kids have committed, where the recruits are coming from and how many incoming recruits are playing their position. Where in the past there was a shred of secrecy to the `recruiting game,' it's now all out in the open. This has also led to a trend of players committing, but still taking official visits to other schools.

"The kids like to say now they are just putting a reservation on the school they are committing to," joked Mitchell. "It's become more and more frequent, but sooner or later, you have to trust the guy.

"I don't blame a young man for saying that he wants to take a visit. If you are an 18-year old kid from Chicago and you get a chance to go North Carolina or somewhere else, heck, you deserve to do it. There is no solid answer to it; you just have to realize it is going to happen and you have to live with it. You die a thousand deaths when you are recruiting, and if you check the Internet enough, half the guys you have are de-committing or visiting another place, so it just comes down to trusting them."

With kids frequently taking official visits after committing and the constant changing of the recruiting landscape, more than ever in today's day and age, you need to recruit until the absolute last minute.

"It's difficult to play the numbers game, because you may think you have a guy and then he de-commits and you know you have a guy and he is not doing well academically, so you have to adjust there," mentioned Mitchell. "The thing we do here at Illinois is keeping recruiting and as Coach Zook says, `Go man go,' and we are full speed ahead until it's over."

As Coach Mitchell puts the finishing touches on his first full recruiting class as coordinator in Champaign, he is thankful for a lot of things that are in place at Illinois.

"I think we had a great reception this year throughout the entire country," explained Mitchell. "That all starts with Coach Zook and his philosophy that, `people make a place.' There isn't another coach in the entire country that works any harder recruiting than Coach Zook.

"From that standpoint, it makes our job really easy because the kids get to know him and they get a feel for him."

Even though tomorrow is Signing Day, he also knows there work is not yet done.

"It's important we finish out on a good note. Right now this class looks very good, but you never know until Wednesday," stated Mitchell. "One of the best things about college football is when recruiting is winding down you get to spend more time with your team. Everybody here is excited about this class and is ready to get back with the team."

At the end of the day Wednesday, the recruiting class of 2006 at Illinois will be unveiled. For Reggie Mitchell and the rest of the staff, it will be a time to exhale--even if it's just for a minute--because after that it will start all over again for 2007.