FB: Ohio Athletic Conference

[reality check]

I was upset about how my senior season ended and talked things over with my coach.  He suggested I look at Marietta.  ONU talked to another senior and me and I scheduled a visit there before my trip to Etta.  I was impressed so much with the condition of ONU's campus, the friendliness of everyone associated with the university I encountered and then seeing the athletic center I was more than pleased.  I thought this was the start to a great recruiting experience as I had other campus visits in line.  My trip to Marietta was a "polar opposite" though.  The football office was a double-wide trailer that also doubled as the weight room. Coach Epley set up my campus tour with a football player and I was not able to see the inside of my academic building and the player giving the tour wasn't able to answer half of our questions.  The best thing they had going was a decent cafeteria.  I went from thinking Etta was a sure thing and ONU would be a measuring stick to thinking ONU was the place for me and nothing else could compare.  I also liked the challenge I'd have since my high school coach thought so highly of ONU's recent ascension and that I'd have an "easier time playing at Marietta".  Wabash came to my high school to speak to me but I wasn't compelled to schedule a visit since part of the pitch was, "And we're only 30 miles from Purdue and the co-eds."

I loved sitting in Kaz's office and my parents bringing up scholarship questions.  He laughed and said that ONU was division III but they would certainly be able to look into grants and federal aid.  I guess he wasn't used to having President's Scholarship guys in his office as recruits.  Moneywise, I went to ONU ($30K+/yr) for less than I would have paid to go to U of Cincy ($11K/yr) which was the top choice for my academic major. 

Also being guaranteed a new football stadium by the end of my freshman year (1999) was a draw.  I was a little disappointed that it opened (2004) the year after I graduated college.

[seventiesraider]

Glad I'm not the only one who played the Grandama/Grandpa card. Got a lot of free meals and laundry that route. Also helped that coaches took time to write a letter that wasn't rubberstamped to a kid 600 miles away. I was going to Nebraska all the way, until I got a "Reality Check." After all these years, it's hard to admit that Mount was my clear third choice. (My chemistry grades were too bad to get into Ohio Northern Pharmacy School)

[Small but Slow]

Brooksville is an interesting place.  It's the hometown of the late Jerome Brown (former UM and Philadelphia Eagles DT) and known locally for a number of odd social and political issues. 

Just returning home from a week long Carribean cruise.  A lot of Ohioans on the boat.  My 2008 national champs cap was an interesting source of conversation for me with a number of folks on the cruise.  I met a former BW DT who was recruited by MUC, and several rising hs seniors who are being recruited by LK.  The young guys are conflicted about going to Mount and competing to earn playing time by their junior or senior seasons or going to other schools where they can play immediately.  I reminded them of LK's two requirements; Are you a good person and do you love football?  I told them their love of the game and competition would be the key to their choices. 

This is an issue frequently discussed on the board.  Just wasn't expecting it to come up a couple hundred miles out to sea.

[Small but Slow]

Forgot to mention in my previous post that I spent some time talking to a former OAC assistant football coach (Witt and Kenyon).  He spoke very highly of LK, Coach Wable, and Monty, but contended that Mount's success is due to the presidents and mainly the board of directors' support of the program.  He was at Witt when they won a national title and told me their success started to decline when the board became concerned with their reputation as a "jock school".  He is impressed that Mount has embraced their success and has continued to support the program.  He had some stories, some I had heard before about Wable's early battles with faculty regarding their embracing athletic achievement.  Thought his insight was interesting.

[seventiesraider]

Wable also had to fight a very successfull track program at Mount in his early years. that really overshadowed football

Successfull track teams are cheaper than successfull football programs

[Mr. Ypsi]

SbS - excellent posts.  +k

SOME schools HAVE sold their souls and become 'jock schools'.  But it has always mystified me why there is a perceived inherent conflict between academics and athletics.  As a retired academic, I suspect it is that too many academics (especially those who go over to the dark side - i.e., administration ) were wimps picked on by jocks.

They should be complementary, not contradictory.

[theaprof]

SbS - excellent posts.  +k

SOME schools HAVE sold their souls and become 'jock schools'.  But it has always mystified me why there is a perceived inherent conflict between academics and athletics.  As a retired academic, I suspect it is that too many academics (especially those who go over to the dark side - i.e., administration ) were wimps picked on by jocks.

They should be complementary, not contradictory.

Hear! Hear!  Part of being a well rounded student includes activities outside of the classroom--be that through sports, music, theatre, the radio station, student government, etc. etc. etc.

Schools (and faculty) need to embrace this idea in order to have successful programs and successful students.

[reality check]

Happy Father's Day to all the dads on the OAC page! 

[The_end_of_overlook]

Bump,
The recruiting process can be fun, and nerve racking at the same time. For me, my decision turned out to be an easy one. My recruiting process started out with two mass recruit days at Ashland and West Liberty, neither of which impressed me because the coaches' didn't have a clue of who I was, where I was from or even what position I played. I now understand that if they had been interested in me they would have known that information. But as a player at that age you assume everyone wants you and wants to give you a scholarship lol. I then went on a recruit visit to Ohio Northern for wrestling. Very good experience, however I knew I wanted to play football, and as a last resort I would be willing to wrestle. During my visit I asked the wrestling coach ( who was awesome ) if I could speak with a football coach to possibly see about playing football, ten minutes later he had me in a football coaches office. I was excited and thought, man this is the place for me, until the football coach began to talk. His first response was "so you want to try to play football here, if you are so good how come we have never heard of you" (believe me I am not making this up). I began to take in all the nonverbal cues lol and decided if I went to ONU I would just wrestle. A month or two went by with nothing, finally I received a phone call from coach Raeburn who spoke to me like he knew me, he gave me advice and asked me what I was looking for out of my college experience. I came to mount for a one day visit took the tour, talked to Coach Raeburn and some players and fell in LOVE with Mount. I then got a phone call from coach Woj saying coach Raeburn had left and he would be my contact person, which made me nervous but coach Woj then had me up for an overnight just to help me confirm my choice and it left no doubt in my mind that MUC was the place for me. The big thing was everyone I spoke with at Mount said the same things; you have to be a good person, you have to be willing to play your role on the team, you have to be willing to wait to see the field, and you have to love football, and if you aren't willing to be or do one of those things than Mount probably isn't for you. Because they were straight forward with me I knew what to expect.

[Bump]

T_e_o_o, The recruiting process was fun for me. It did seem to be stressful at times for my son. The stressful part for me comes in a month or so when we start writing the first of many checks for tuition and board.

I do remember when I went through this process many years ago that it was pretty stressful visiting BW and sitting across the desk from Lee Tressell. You may not believe it but back then going to Muskingum could be very stressful. The Ed Sherman mystic hadn't worn off yet. I hope the current Muskie staff gets that program turned around. They are a great group of men and seem to really care about the kids and the program. The athletic program at Muskingum is getting a lot of support from the alumni. They had the best locker room and training room of all the schools we visited. The weight room was also pretty nice. I read on the baseball board that some schools are de-emphasizing athletics. That doesn't seem to be the case in New Concord.

[seventiesraider]

A lot of people mentioned coaches offices. I gotta wonder what those of us old enough to remember the coaches offices in Memorial Hall in Alliance were thinking at the time. Even the Athletic Directors Office was so small you had to stand up to get out of the way if someone came to the door. The locker rooms were dungeons that flooded during heavy rains and the weight room was a bunch of loose weights in a cage in the basement.

Saw Larry's football office the other day, times have changed.

Can still see Coach Wuske standing there in that 20 year old top coat handing out meal money

BTW My best sprinter is on his way to Musky to play LB, and joining one of my other track kids there. At least I can tell you schools like Theil and Musky are hitting the small high schools hard

[Knightstalker]

I did not play a sport at NJCU but my roommate was on the Basketball team.  His decision to attend NJCU came down to a few basic things.  One was they had the major he wanted, two was the affordability and the third and probably most important was Coach Brown promised his mother he would attend class, get decent grades and would graduate.  Coach always came through on that promise he made to parents, if the kids did not do what they needed to do he handled matters, including benching All American players.  I guess it helps when the coach was a teacher and a retired principle.

He understood that Academics and Athletics could and should mix if the student desires it.  He also knew that education combined with sports was a way for many of the inner city kids he coached and taught to improve their lives.

[JK]

My recruitment was probably a little different from most because I had to factor in the ROTC scholarship into my choice of schools.

I grew up in the Alliance area, prior to MUC's first NC (graduated HS in 93).  My dad was the head wrestling coach at my HS prior to becoming the AD.  He and Monty had a great relationship (Monty was MUC's wrestling coach for several years).  Monty called me several times asking if I wanted to set up a visit.  I told him I did not.  I didn't really NEED to.  I knew campus backwards and forwards, I knew the coaching staff, I knew the facilities.  I know it's hard for some people to believe, but I just didn't want to go to MUC.  They were not yet what they are now, so it wasn't about being intimindated by the MUC mystique or having to compete with 200+ kids for PT or any of that... it was simply that I didn't want to go to college in Alliance too.  I wanted to "get out" so to speak... get away from home and be on my own for the first time in my life.  Plus, for ROTC I would have had to go all the way to Kent and the Coaches weren't thrilled with me having to miss a whole day of practice (I don't blame them) and the ROTC instructors at Kent weren't willing to "negotiate" and let me do something different during FB season, reminding me "they would be paying for college, not football.  You need to make a decision..."

My Dad and HS head coach were both BW grads and close to Bob Packard.  Kinda the same story there.  Coaches called me and asked if I wanted to set up a visit, I told them no.  I had been there so many times with my Dad that I didn't really need to see campus or meet the coaches.  I actually had an office visit with coach Packard, so BW went further than MUC, but I didn't really want to go to my Dad's alma mater and I would have had to go to JCU for ROTC.  The JCU ROTC department was a little more willing to work with me, but there were still some hang ups that I couldn't get over.

Musky was an option because Heacock was a grad of my HS (his dad was our school districts first superintendant and our FB stadium is named after him) and there was a pretty good pipeline from my HS to there, but I didn't want to go school in the middle of nowhere.  Plus, they had NO ROTC program or partnership.

I had kind of decided in my heart that I wanted to go to Columbus.  So, that left Cap, Ott, and OWU.  I preferred OAC to NCAC, so I wrote off OWU pretty quick (plus ROTC was again an issue with having to travel to Capital). 

I liked Otterbein OK, but I didn't really get a warm fuzzy from the coaching staff.  Again, I would have had to drive to Capital for ROTC once a week.

Capital's coaches had been interested in me from the beginning of the recruiting process, I liked the Poli Sci professors I met on my visit, they promised new facilites (not built until several years after I graduated though), they looked like they had some good young talent on the roster (remember, MUC wasn't MUC yet, so we all actually thought we could go someplace else and win and OAC title), they had their own ROTC program on campus so I wouldn't have to miss an entire day of practice (only missed the last 15 minutes one day a week) and the ROTC department was willing to work with me on morning physical fitness (not required during the season) and fall field exercises (not required my first or second year in the fall, they picked me up after the game my third and fourth year).  My overnight visit was great.  I loved the Columbus nightlife and the ability to be at a small school in a big city.  Outside of the crappy facilities, it was everything I was looking for.  Once I got over the facilites issues (superficial, but a big deal to an 18 year old kid- almost switched to Otterbein a couple of times because of it, but my parents talked me down from the ledge) and realized everything else Cap offered to me, I was in.  Then when the financial aid package came through (the ROTC scholarship was 80% tuition already)... Cap threw in free room with the ROTC scholarship and a $4,000 a year "Capital Challenge Grant," it solidified it.  All I paid out of pocket was my meal plan and about $1500 a year in tution.  I left Cap in 1998 with $4,000 in student loans at a school whose tuition was $15k-18k a year.  By comparison, my roomate left with over $20k in loans and he was from a single parent, low income household.

And, despite playing on three terrible, terrible Capital teams out of my four years of football (my frreshman year we were 5-5, soph 2-8, jr 1-9, sr 1-9), I never regretted it.

[Bump]

BTW My best sprinter is on his way to Musky to play LB, and joining one of my other track kids there. At least I can tell you schools like Theil and Musky are hitting the small high schools hard

While on a visit to Muskingum saw a Mogadore lettermen's jacket and talked to a young man from Manchester. Kids from a couple of pretty good small programs from Summit County if you ask me. They are also beating the bushes pretty hard at the big schools in Stark Co. If given some time and the coaching staff stays put they could bring some respect back to Musky football.

[purple]

 I remember being recruited by Coach Wable.  We went up steps to his "offfice" at Memorial Hall. Upon entering his office I thought, "I see the foyer; where's the office?"  I sat on a couch while he smoked cigarettets  and talked about football.