A Collegiate Coach Recruiting Adventure: On the Road Again

February 11, 2015 | By Lonnie Mitchel
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It’s recruiting season again for us college coaches. I’m on the road quite often, driving my car to different tennis venues, diners and homes, meeting several families who want their children to get a great education and the opportunity to be a student/athlete playing tennis in college. The dilemma for parents rears its head over and over, Division I or II vs. Division III? I now have a theme to write about while navigating my vehicle on the country roads en route to an indoor tennis facility in chilly Rochester, N.Y. I want to be controversial, and I want to get your attention in this article. What do I have to do? If I could I would. Education first … not tennis.

So, here is the latest adventure in my recruiting adventures as I fill out my roster for the upcoming 2015-2016 season. I met a young woman on this trip who is possibly what many tennis coaches would consider Division I tennis talent. They had another child who had played Division I sports, and they quickly discovered their error as the amount of time spent practicing the sport to fulfill the scholarship requirements was quite disproportionate to the time spent on studying and preparing for life after college.

So here I am, talking to a family whose daughter is now committed to and is going to play high-level tennis and get a great education at a Division III institution. This is all happening right here at the college where I coach! I was successful. I got the message across to this nice family. They got it … education will make the ultimate difference.

Another tennis director of a New York area academy laughed when one of my male players decided to commit and get an education while playing collegiate tennis at the college where I coach. That was not a misprint, the director really did laugh. That same director, an individual with more than 250 young children in his program, has maybe three or four students in the academy that would actually get a sniff at my starting lineup. Maybe I should chuckle too, but I know that there are so many institutions and divisions to choose from. However, laughing at a student for playing collegiate tennis and getting a good education is deplorable. I do, however, have wonderful relationships with tennis academies who want to do right by their students by giving choices, and I commend them for it.

I am declaring war! I am declaring war on tennis academies that tout their program as the best and celebrate the students who go only to Division I colleges. Please give your students and parents the right information. Here is a statistic for you, 87 percent of Division III athletes graduate, and only 81 percent do so at the Division I level. Seventy-five percent of student/athletes at the Division III level receive some form of non-athletics grants or scholarships and only 53 percent of Division I athletes receive athletic scholarship money. The grants and scholarships received at Division III usually are more than the athletic scholarship itself. Division III schools may not offer athletic scholarships, but they certainly know how to use grants and aid to help reduce cost. Furthering the good news for athletes is that your ability in athletics can help you even if it is a non-scholarship school that you are looking at. This program could be at the Division III level, but if they think you are good enough, they are going to find a number of different ways to help you out financially.

Scholarship money for sports is hard to come by–only the most talented athletes will qualify–and even if a coach is considering you for an athletic scholarship, most of these scholarships are not the “free rides” that we all hear about. Many coaches are given a fixed amount of scholarships, but then may divide them among several recruits, so the result is that no single player receives more than a few thousand dollars. That is the truth. Then the coach will have the players up at 5:30 a.m. three days a week or late at night in the offseason doing their workouts. Don’t you want your sons and daughters rested and studying? Don’t you want them getting into professional organizations and interning in their intended profession as well? Now, make no mistake about it, we work hard at Division III in season and only in season. We travel, we dine together, we stay at hotels, travel to warm destinations and work hard at the craft of tennis … work very hard! We also turn out students who are very ready to tackle their intended profession.

I am not declaring war on Division I or II institutions that all do a great job in their athletic programs of course. I am only declaring war on the tennis academies that think only outstanding success lies in sending their tennis pupils to a Division I institution.

Turn your nose up at us if you want to, but if you really want to add value to your programs, give your students the choices that are really out there in the college marketplace. Parents want choices, kids want choices and you will be adding to your credibility in a way that you never thought possible. Variety is the spice of life and there are more than 440 Division III institutions to choose from, with 183,500 student athletes. They all could not be wrong.


Lonnie Mitchel
Head Men’s and Women’s Tennis Coach at SUNY Oneonta

Lonnie Mitchel is head men’s and women’s tennis coach at SUNY Oneonta. Lonnie was named an assistant coach to Team USA for the 2013 Maccabiah Games in Israel for the Grand Master Tennis Division. Lonnie may be reached by phone at (516) 414-7202 or e-mail lonniemitchel@yahoo.com.

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