Tony Pacella
03:53:47 PM
Can you hear me?
OK, they should come in right now.
Yeah, you're in Tony. We're about to start here.
So everybody else is already into, so I'm going to do a little intro here. Everybody welcome. We're glad to hear we're going to wait about 10 seconds and I'm just going to fill the space with words to see if anybody else logs in to join us, but we're glad you're here with us today.
And it looks like we're getting the last few registrants here, so I will go ahead and do introductions, but we're really glad you're here with us today, for the NCA division, through recruitment panel, we have a great panel of coaches and administrators, and who are going to answer your questions?
I'm gonna I'm Jeff Heitzenrater. I work here in the admissions office. I've worked at the University for about 30 years and I spent a lot of time over in the athletic Department, but I'm one of the admission counselors now, and I help coaches with their recruiting process and the admission process and all that. Then we'll let our panel introduce themselves, and then we'll talk a little bit about the format of this program, and we'll go from there.
Taylor Baird
04:01:42 PM
Welcome, everyone! Thanks so much for tuning into today's Sewanee Session.
Chip, I'm Jackie McCarthy. I've been in Swanee now for 18 years. Came here in 2003 as women's basketball coach coach Women's basketball for 12 years and then moved over onto the administrative spot. At that point, I've actually done compliance and I think that's my role here. Today is talk a little bit about the NCAA and how things are handled at the Division Three level and I've been doing that for about 10 or 12 years. Actually, with the students wanting back in the early 70s. Came here to play basketball and.
Love Swanee Anne. Yes one is right.
Alright, I'm just going to feed y'all Nancy. You can be next.
Taylor Baird
04:02:16 PM
Please feel free to introduce yourselves in the chat feature.
OK, great, my name is Nancy Mueller. I'm the head volleyball coach here. I am entering my third season here at Swanee, but I have over 28 years of experience, 23 at Division One, but by third season here at Swanee.
And loving it. It's a beautiful place to be. I'm excited about the future here. It's Lonnie.
All right, bill, you're next.
Well, I'm the newest one here on the call or almost the newest on staff. My name is Bill Cooper. I'm the head track and cross country coach. I've been here. This is my second year now.
Any plus years of coaching, all at NCA Division Three type institutions throughout the course of my career.
Hey everyone, my name is Tony Pacella. I'm the head men's soccer coach here and every my 7th season here. It's one Ian.
Been in Coaching Division One and Division Three levels as well. So 10 years of college coaching 7 here it's wanting.
Cassidy G.
04:03:25 PM
I'm Cassidy Guyton, a senior from Charlottesville, VA!
Excellent thank you guys. Have got a great panel here today and thank you Taylor for working behind the scenes. As you can see in the in the chat feature which is on the left part of your screen. Feel free to introduce yourself those of you who are here will also give you the opportunity in the chat to ask some questions. Some of you increase admitted questions and we have those and almost all of the questions they're going to cover automatically through the session, so you'll get those answered and then we had a couple that were not going to be answered.
Ying S.
04:03:51 PM
Hi! I'm Ying Stock-Bordnick from New Orleans!
In what we're talking about, and so we'll, we'll get to those that we go through. So we've got a series of questions here I should have put that one up earlier. That's our panel we have here today, so let's just dive into this.
Jane-Kathryn W.
04:03:56 PM
Hey! My name is Jane-Kathryn Whittington, from Tallahassee, Florida.
Katharine A.
04:03:58 PM
Katharine Alsobrook, a senior from GA. I'm a swimmer!
CiCi H.
04:03:59 PM
Hi! I'm CiCi Hardin from New Orleans, La!
I'm gonna feed these questions. We're going to start with Dickie. He is our compliance director in the athletic Department. So did we want you to put the fundamental differences are between NCA Division Three and all other divisions.
Taylor Baird
04:04:15 PM
Awesome - glad you're here!
Walker I.
04:04:17 PM
Walker Iller, a senior from Jacksonville FL
Will G.
04:04:19 PM
I'm Will Grant - I am senior at Mountain Brook High School (interested in football)
Conor G.
04:04:21 PM
Hey guys, I'm Conor Gallagher, a senior from Silver Spring, MD
Leonardo K.
04:04:23 PM
I am Leonardo Kelly form Kingston, Jamaica. I'm interested in mens soccer
Aidan N.
04:04:27 PM
hey im Aidan Newman, a senior from Gainesville florida. im a basketball player.
Rachel W.
04:04:33 PM
I am Rachel Wilson (swimmer) and a junior from Alexandria,Va
But yeah, thanks, I'm gonna I'm gonna take care of this compliance part and I don't want to take up a lot of your time. 'cause I want these coaches to be able to talk to these student athletes. I know they won't talk to them and ask them questions for more pertinent to what the University is all about. What's was all about but just wanted to give you a few details on maybe the difference is the fundamental. Like just said, the fundamental difference in Division One and and two in Division Three. I guess if you don't know much about Division Three at 445 member schools, that is the largest.
Henry H.
04:04:39 PM
Hello, I am Mary Elaine Haden from Atlanta, Henry's mom. Henry is interested in running XC and track. He is at XC practice right now.
Nick T.
04:04:41 PM
Hello, my name is Nick Taylor. I am from Washington Crossing, PA. I am a senior at Council Rock High School North and I would like to play golf in college
Brock B.
04:04:49 PM
Brock Burnette, Senior Football player from South Florida
Division of all the other divisions and a rule book is not very big. I look just more than actually checked the Division Three rulebook which I have here is 260 pages or the Division One manual is 464 pages, so you see we don't have quite as many rules as they do it at the big boys do it division win, but we still abide by what we have. I guess the most significant in the most fundamental difference in Division One and two and Division Three is that we offer no athletic scholarships. That seems to be the.
Owen T.
04:05:27 PM
I’m Owen Trimmier, a senior from Columbia, South Carolina, I’m a soccer player
Walker I.
04:05:27 PM
Walker Iller- Interested in Lacrosse
Taylor Baird
04:05:31 PM
http://www.ncaa.org/d3
The biggest catch subject that comes about and talked about, but don't let you hit. They'll let that hinder you. We do give scholarships based on merit, academic scholarships and need based scholarships. I'm sure just going to cover this toward the end of this talk, but we do not give any scholarships based on your athletic ability. All applicants are treated the same with regards to financial aid. Another one of the other.
Sarah N.
04:05:40 PM
im sarah nowetner, im a senior from philadelphia, pennsylvania
Thomas S.
04:05:42 PM
Thomas Sumner, senior from Goldsboro North Carolina. I am interested in men's soccer
Georgia K.
04:05:43 PM
HI! I'm Georgia Kemmett, a soccer player who is junior at Saint Mary's Hall in San Antonio, Texas.
Anne Marie F.
04:05:45 PM
Anne Marie Frazier. Volleyball
Important parts of that is that no coaches or athletic personnel can have anything to do with the financial aid process. If when you go through this process and you have a question regarding financial aid, don't protect your coach because they can't get involved at all. That should be contacted straight through the financial aid office, and that's a very important part, because like I said, we we here in the athletic building can have absolutely nothing to do with the financial aid process Division Three, there's no. MLI, I'm sure.
Most of the athletes have heard of national letter intent. You find no national letter of intent that Division Three, there's no need to register with NCAA clearinghouse for Division Three.
Eliza F.
04:06:30 PM
Eliza Ford, swimming
Laney K.
04:06:39 PM
Laney Kalsu. soccer
We do have a nonbinding celebratory signing form that you will be given by your coaches once you've been admitted. Those signing ceremonies are important at the high school level and I know they are very important for you to share that time with your with your classmates and your teammates. And like I said, We do offer a nonbinding celebratory signing form this NCAA approved that your coach will get to you at the point when you want to have a signing ceremony. Then it's spring in the fall. I know that's important.
Just a few guidelines as far as.
When are you considered a recruitable athlete? When you start classes for the 9th grade in high school, you are then considered by the NCAA's or recruitable athlete. Another important date is as far as that goes is coaches can have off campus contact with you once you enter after. Since you finish your sophomore sophomore year school, that changed about two years ago. It used to be you couldn't talk to kids off campus at their school or at their contests until they were beginning their senior year. So they backed that up years metal more.
Convenient for coaches and coaches are able to talk to Kids a little earlier now because the recruiting process.
Spencer B.
04:07:44 PM
I’m Spencer Brown, i’m interested in men’s soccer and i’m from Roanoke VA
Cole I.
04:07:45 PM
Cole Iken, Baseball
Jordyn W.
04:07:46 PM
Hi! My name is Jordyn Ward , from Atlanta , Georgia.
Jackie S.
04:07:47 PM
Jaqueline Salas cross country and soccer
Really, Division One driven has really moved up and I think some of your coaches are on this panel. May talk about that a little later how the timeline and the schedule have moved up from it was, say, 1012 years ago.
A lot of questions, sometimes about unofficial and official visits. When you make your visits to campus, an unofficial visit is, we don't do a lot of official visits at the Division Three level. Those are usually weekend type things. Multiday events where the University pays for all expenses, probably 99.9% of our business. Our unofficial visits you can only have one official visit as a student perspective through nicely but unofficial physics you can have as many as you want, and that's usually what we do overnight visits where.
Comments that possibly stay with her current player because we can't do that right now, but when all these things I'm saying or post code pre covid questions and answers or information, but no limit to the number of unofficial visits, you can make the other big hot topic now is with hot topic with anything is social media and how? What are the NCAA restrictions and guidelines on for coaches? And I must say your coaches. This is the coaches side of it.
For social media, the little term would like to use a little saying that the NCAA's put out is tight as temp. I'm sorry. Tap type.
Taylor Baird
04:09:17 PM
Here are the current admission visit options at Sewanee: https://new.sewanee.edu/admission-aid/visit/
Coaches cannot generate content on social media. They can follow. They can, like you can be friends on Facebook. They can retweet things like that. That's OK, but they cannot create any content, so they can't comment on anything. You've done things like that.
The timeline on how things can happen is that before deposit, before you deposit to the University and before May 1st, you're limited to private communication. You can text, you can call and they can give actions of approval like likes and tweets after a deposit and prior to May 1.
Still limited to private communication and actions of approval, but they can announce if you've once deposited, they can announce the prospects commitment to the University and then after May one there no restrictions on social media interaction at all. And like I said, that's just a few things that I think are hot topics. That's usually add when I recruited for years when I was coaching women, so I had a lot of those same questions. So I sort of want to throw some of those out. There's not bore you with a lot of content or rules or details.
And possibly answer some questions, then down the road now as most compliance officers will do if you ask a very specific question.
I may get an email address and get back to you on some things, so if you ask some questions I'll be happy to take some questions on on just on general terms, but that's kind of an opening to the rule part. Like I said, I want to turn over these coaches 'cause I know that's the ones that really can give you the best Swaney who are.
Thank you Dickey. What I've put up the slide here about the college bound the guide for college bound student athletes and they can download this to get more information about you. What you've talked about and a lot more than that on the NCA website.
I think so, yeah, I think.
Taylor Baird
04:11:16 PM
http://www.ncaa.org/student-athletes/future/educational-resources
Yeah, I think I actually found this. I just Googled College Guide for guide for the college bound student athlete and find it so it should be really and found it so it should be really easy to find. So let's continue on with some recruiting questions and go to our coaches first one here. When does recruiting process begin for N Sadie? Three coaches and athletes? Dickey may have actually talked about all that already, but as coaches, when do you guys find that you begin to communicate with your student athletes in your specific sport?
And if you know in other sports if there's some sort of timeline things you can throw that out there too.
Taylor Baird
04:11:46 PM
You can find the Guide for the College-Bound Student-Athlete using the link above.
Sure, I guess specifically for men soccer we start dent ifying our recruits as early as their freshman and sophomore years and then start actively recruiting. Typically in your junior year throughout your senior year.
Mari B.
04:12:08 PM
Hello I'm Damari Bender from Washington, DC (FOOTBALL)
I agree with Tony, we probably maybe not your freshman year, but usually yourself. More. Year we'll we'll start seeing video, and just when we're out of tournaments again, free covid. That was kind of how we identified some athletes both in the fall and in the spring. But then we really don't even start to communicate with them until their junior year, whether by email or even by phone.
Yeah, with track and cross country, we're pretty much the same way we'll start reaching out junior year.
Spring of junior year, you're able to come on campus this spring was a little bit different, but I think we're all pretty similar that junior year is where we're really starting to hone in on some kids, and that's where you guys are starting to.
Get involved in your college search process. I think a little bit more.
The questionnaires are great because it's a way to get all of your information into a database for us so that we have everything all in one nice tidy location with schools, contact information and everything else. As much as I love emails and phone calls, sometimes those emails can get buried in an email box.
Taylor Baird
04:13:48 PM
https://www.sewaneetigers.com/questionnaires/index
And we'll eventually be able to filter our way to get to it, but I'd say the questionnaire is probably the best way but be active. Don't expect somebody to necessarily do it for you or to search you out. Sometimes the more active you are.
The better we are as coaches at getting back to you sometimes.
Yeah I would. I would agree with that bill. I think most of the time I get an email or my assistant gets an email and you know then we kind of begin the process from there. If they haven't filled out a questionnaire, that's our very first move is to send them that link to the online questionnaire and then we kind of begin the process from there and one of the things I really tell recruits that really love Swanee you know I get probably not necessarily commissionaires, but probably anywhere from 10 to 15 emails a day just from recruits.
Um, so one of the things that I think is important is that they would remain relevant. And what I tell them is if I see your name or if I'm getting updates from you more, you're more relevant because I'm going to remember who you are a little bit a little bit better, but yeah, that's really kind of just like built. That questionnaires are important, but again, if we, if we get an introductory email and we want to hear from you, I don't want to hear from your mom or your dad. We want that interaction with the student athlete because we're the ones that work in a potentially coach.
So that that's that's important or even a scouting service. I know a lot of people are using scouting services now to kind of really reach as many coaches as possible. I would recommend if you do use a scouting service you follow up with more of a personal email 'cause sometimes, like coach Cooper said, those get those get lost in the shuffle.
Yeah, just to reiterate what what Bill and Nancy mentioned is that I think the questionnaire is fantastic and I like to be followed up with an email and I think just like a general guideline for initial recruit email. Make sure you put your graduation year in there. Your GPA, your test scores. You know what team you play for.
Jersey number position. A link to a highlight film in game film and I say link. Make sure it's it's it's that Asheville YouTube lot of people coaches Wanna download actual film on their computers. So having a link there is as much better.
Patrick transcripts in your senior class scheduler junior class schedule. Along with that and give an upcoming schedule for your actual events. Whether you're playing your high school season or club or travel team schedule, whatever. Maybe that's pretty. Generic thing that you can send to apply most coaches that you're in contact with and the last thing I would say is make it unique. The Swanee. Why are you reaching out to the coaching staff here? What's wrong? What's drawing you to the University of the South? Whether it's our campus?
Or a certain major. Or you know geographics. You know whatever? Maybe is. Make sure you add that one little piece of interest because that's what typically gives me a more reason to respond those little tidbits.
Hey Jeff, I would say I would add to that to be persistent if you if you want be persistent because these guys have one assistant each have one assistant. Their staff of two and if they are in season they compare very very busy constantly. So if you don't hear right back for them, you need to be persistent because it may take a couple of days for them to get back to you because it's not. It's not a Division One staff where Tony's got for assistance and recruiting coordinator. And you know three or four administrative assistance. It's he and Pat bank. That's it.
And it's a lot of work for two people to do so. Be persistent.
So I think this kind of ties in with what we're looking for, and I think we'll talk about that in a bit.
Most of the kids come to not just Suwannee, but Division Three schools in general because they want to be involved in a lot of different things. Athletics is part of who they are. It's not necessarily the sole determining factor of why they choose at school, and to that end, what I tell all of our kids is we're never going to tell you what classes you can or can't take. We work practice schedules around the teams after academic schedules as much as we can. We've got students that study abroad. We've got students that work as proctors, which is ra's in the dorms.
Eli H.
04:18:46 PM
Hello, I'm Eli Holland from Nashville, TN and I'm interested in Men's Basketball.
We have some that work as tutors, but I'd say in general alot of our students specifically with the track and cross country program are really good at balancing all of the things that they get involved in an IT comes down to time management and it comes down to communication. If you're able to take advantage of the time in between your classes and you use it productively instead of going back to your room and taking a nap or spend in four hours playing the new Call of Duty.
Taylor Baird
04:19:11 PM
Learn more about campus life here: https://new.sewanee.edu/campus-life/
Game that comes out and putting off your homework to the last minute, then you're not going to balance anything very well, and you're not going to do well at a lot of different things, but I think a lot of it for our kids specifically come down to time management skills and finding those windows of time throughout the day where you have more time than you actually think you do to be able to be involved in as many things as you want to be.
Sure, I would do something. It's really hard to be a student athlete. It's it's not easy, but a third. The students here at Swanee are student athletes, so it's completely possible, incapable just revealed said it. It takes time management. It takes maturity. It takes a lot of dedication and a lot of care, but.
It is absolutely doable. Last year I think I don't know exact number, but we we placed a record high number of student athletes on.
The essay our conferences. Academic list, so it's completely doable, and with that said, Our student athletes are involved in so many things other than just their sport here. It's wanting, you know, shooting government organizations. Public campus on our counselor. You name it. Students here are much more than just simply an athlete. Do a myriad of different things.
OK, well for us and it kind of goes into the fall. In the spring we have kind of a traditional and nontraditional season. Volleyball on the NCAA just changed it to 114 days for us to compete. But in the fall when we're in season, we the the athletes, take more classes in the fall and so they have to tie manager. Usually it's 22 classes a day really is if is really the most most of my kids usually have. Sometimes they might even have a lab in there.
Uh, but most of our kids actually, I'm finding, are freshmen are actually getting up and studying before they're going to class, which I'm very happy about. So there doing some studying during the day so they do have their nights free, but in a in an or more normal setting pre kovid. Our kids usually go to class have their meals before and after class and then they had to practice around depending if they need treatment or if they need any kind of extra stretching with our training room staff they usually get to the gym about.
Taylor Baird
04:21:59 PM
We will hold some questions to the end for Q&A! Feel free to chat them in, but you may not see them in the group chat immediately.
Now 4:30 Make sure your nuts are setting up kind of have a little pre warmup routine and we practice usually from 5:00 to 7:00 and then the cafeteria is open until 8:00 PM an so they finish up at about 7:00. Get to eat some dinner and then they had to usually the library or their dorm room to study. So pretty basic, but in the spring it. What difference? Sometimes we go in the morning, we give him different options for workouts.
So it's a little more relaxed in the spring for us and our kids. That's when the sorority rushes in the spring. So in January, so we have a lot of kids that that get involved with Greek life and so they end up.
Doing their own thing really. In January we really start training and getting after it in February through our fall season for volleyball is really kind of.
August mid August through hopefully mid no mid November. If we're going postseason and then once Thanksgiving rolls around their off pretty much until February 1, so that's kind of our athletes. We actually have a large group of our athletes are valuable players that are involved with Saint Jude, so they do a lot of community service with Saint Jude and fund raising through Saint Jude. So yeah, we we, we do some different community service. We have. It's better.
Under leaders so they do some stuff throughout the University as well so.
Well, let me let me go back on just one second to touch on the what Bill and especially bill talked about time management. I just think that from coaching for 12 years here, your women's basketball I found that time management is the most important absolute. They have to be Masters of time management but also find also found that students do better when they're inside. I think they do better academically when they're in season, but 'cause they know they have to manage their time if they get done with classes at 1:00 o'clock in the afternoon.
They've gotta practice at five. They can't go back to their dorms and watch reruns of of Andy Griffith. They gotta go back and they've got to go back and do school work. They've gotta go back and go to work and get that work done before they go to practice 'cause they know they're not going to be worn out. They've got to get something to eat fallen practice. So I think athletics playing athletics forces you to manage that time and use your time better. So I just think that's the that's the key. That's 20 has been able to manage that time, and if they're not good time managers, they're going to really struggle. They have to learn to do that.
First **** I'm sorry, I've just kind of adding to my old days coaching, but but you know non traditional season traditional and non traditional season is like let's just take example Nancy Sport Volleyball. She's in season in the fall. That's her regular season. She starts in mid August. She practices every day she plays how many contest you have, 20 how many contest Cooper?
Regular season about it's 22 dates till about 2728.
27 games she plays for about what? 1718 weeks is, what you finally come up with until early November. She's in season everyday. She's practicing six days a week. NCAA says you have to take one day off every calendar week, every week. That's a requirement. So one day a week she can't do any athletically related activities. They've gotta have a complete day off from anything that's that's meetings. That's chalk talk that's filmed, everything they've gotta be off. That's an NCAA requirement.
Most times that when they get into travel season, it's usually on Monday for most teams because I travel, get back late Sunday or either play Sunday, they'll take Monday off, then go back to work on Tuesday to get ready for the next weekend. That's traditional season now in the spring they allow Nancy to have our volleyball to have a non traditional season, which is they allow them to 15 opportunities to practice and she can spread that anyway she wants to over so many weeks she's gotta get it done in six weeks, six weeks that was done.
Say six weeks you have to get it done so you got 15 opportunities to practice, and then she'll use that usually for fundamental work and she can play one contest. I think you can play one contest. Tony could play 1 scrimmage as a part of that non traditional season. So it's not a year round activity, but they do give you some opportunities in the offseason to have what they call nontraditional season, which is a limited amount of practices.
Taylor Baird
04:26:44 PM
Sewanee fields 24 intercollegiate varsity teams, is a member of the NCAA Division III, and competes in the Southern Athletic Association (SAA). Over 30 percent of the student body competes at the varsity level: https://sewaneetigers.com/
Sure, so just Dickey mentioned earlier is that our personal season is the fall in the foyer. Looking at, you know, six days a week, 20 hours week of on the field training plus all the time you spend on travel films, scatter ports, reputation treatment.
Yeah, you name it. That's what it is. A full time job when you're in your primary season. The difference is obviously in our our secondary season, which is a spring. We're limited to those 15 practices. One competition who that said, You know, most of the coaches here, it's 20 or certified strength and conditioning coaches, so we are able to work with our athletes essentially from the time they were turned back to campus after the winter break. So even though we're not necessarily working on.
The skill set of the practicing soccer. We're still doing the training conditioning.
Basically, up to our spring season. On top of that, you know our seniors and captains also organized pick up and playing on their own. It's hard to take you know athletes out of a 10 month environment of plane and when they get to college, not do that. You know a lot of them are very dedicated athletes here. 1 two can be of all they wanna keep playing. So they finally I think it's issued a testament to the maturity. And again how much they care that they're doing this on their own without being forced to buy. Their coaches were doing. They want to.
Outside of other sports, I know for track there's indoor track, outdoor track, and cross country, so they have more control a lot in multiple multiple seasons, but soccer that's kind of how it works.
You know it is still happening. There are a few multisport athletes here at Suwannee, but as you see more high school athletes focus on one sport. You also see more college athletes focusing on one sport. I would be hard pressed to find a coach here that wouldn't allow it, but I do believe it is very difficult. And it's.
Becoming more of an anomaly than a regular occurrence.
As somebody that sees more multi athletes than anybody else usually.
Just like I mentioned earlier that a lot of communication is key to your success academically, I think the same is true athletically. I was a 2 sport athlete in college. I was biology premed. I played soccer all four years, rainbow track and rain outdoor track all four years. So I guess I was a 3 sport athlete by the NCA's rule of the law. So it can be done in terms of communication with your coaches, communication between the coaches with each other.
Especially with non traditional seasons, I think there is a way that all parties involved can be involved in can be a multi sport athlete and especially if that's something that you're passionate about. If you're passionate about volleyball and high jump, then it's definitely something that as coaches we're able to sit down and find a way to make it work and not just make it work in the sense that you can participate. But really we can sit down as a group and figure out a way to make it so that you can be successful and thrive.
And everything that you choose to be involved in.
Yeah, I agree with with bill. I know we've had a couple of conversations about a couple of kids coming into Swanee that are interested in someone. Maybe they're high jumpers? Lot of jumpers? That's kind of why. I guess that's why bill, we get we get. We get the jumper. So I think definitely it's something that way more doable in Division Three than any other level because of the time commitment. But I definitely agree with with bill it is. It is a conversation amongst all parties involved.
For that athlete to be successful, you know if I have a girl that wants to high jump in high jump for bill, then there's a conversation about bill like hey, these are my 15 days. When do you guys have meets? Let's workout a schedule to get her in the gym if we can. If not, well, let's figure it out. So that's one of the great things about Division Three as opposed to some of the other. You know you don't hear too much about that anymore in Division One or Division Two of multisport athletes.
No, but you know several years ago at Division One, they illuminated residential halls just for athletics. No, we don't. There are no rules. The node in C. AA rules that govern that. I think we try to stay away from I know residents of life, I think stop tries to stay away from putting.
Same sport athletes together. I think they put sport there good athletes together, but usually they're different sport.
Which I don't think it's such a bad idea. I think when you put my opinion on it when I was coaching, if I had two kids that were playing a sport they're living together. They're studying together. They're watching TV together and they're playing sports together. Sometimes they work together, too little, too much, and I know sometimes I've had some kids that actually live together.
As I got to the later, great to the later years and sometimes it didn't workout but there are no NCAA regulations that say you can't live together.
The coaches mental different about their athletes living together. I don't know I live in.
I was going to piggyback off of what Dickie to piggyback off a Dickey. What I like to tell my kids is as you're an incoming freshman you fill out the housing forms and be honest. All that's going to do is that's going to pair you with somebody that's similar based off of the answers. If you try to skew the results based off of Hey this is what my buddy is going to put down. You might not get paired with them and it might not be a match anyway. After that first year I've had kids on the team that have ended up.
Living together, I've had kids that have lived with other athletes on campus and I have kids that are on the team who lived with non athletes. I really comes down to just your preference and it really comes down to what kind of a living arrangement you want to be in. So here we've got 19 different dorms and what is it like 15 different theme houses so there's lots of opportunities and I know we have a number of our cross country and track kids that live in some of the different theme houses, so there's a lot of opportunities based off of your interests on where you want to live.
Who you want to live with?
Taylor Baird
04:33:17 PM
https://new.sewanee.edu/campus-life/living/residential-life/
Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong, but we're about a 95% residential campus is at 90.
I mean is that about that?
An approved and approved place to live by the students.
I think that from what I've seen, if you talk to your professors, they are the biggest counseling services you're going to have. From an academic standpoint, an with the smaller class sizes and the Accessibility your professors there. More often than not willing to find time in their schedule even outside of their posted office hours to meet with you to discuss your classes, I always tell the kids that are on the team 'cause we've got 50 kids on our track and cross country roster right now.
That's your biggest support services. Somebody on the team has probably taken either that class or that professor, and they can kind of fill you in, especially if you're a freshman talking to the upperclassmen you know what to expect from that class, what the format of the tests are, how the papers are typically written. What are some of the things that the professors usually searching for in addition to the student, the student tutors that we have, and the writing labs. And you know, computer labs and those types of things.
Taylor Baird
04:34:58 PM
https://new.sewanee.edu/sewanee-cares/academic-support/
How does that mean the beautiful thing about this one is that there's free academic and counseling services for every student here at Swanee, not just our athletes. So what they need help with the paper? There's a writing center tutoring you. Name it. Everything here is available for all of our students in it's free just for it. With bill mentioned, you know, I think the greatest resource for athletes is, you know their teammates right now. Almost a third of my roster or pre Med students.
And we travel on the road. You know our upperclassmen or tutoring the younger guys and making sure they're doing well. So there's an added level, and on top of that, you know, as a coaching staff we do have add 12 foods grades, so we get there mid terms and we are on top of them. So there's an added insurance policy you know, per say.
You are who's working relationship with our, you know with your professor, so there's definitely a lot of oversight when it comes to your education.
Oh no, I was just going to mention one of the things that I I do specifically for volleyball is our incoming freshmen. Have an academic weekly academic meeting with me just to check in on how's it going. What's coming up? Show me your calendar, whether it's online or so. They have everything mapped out at least weekly and kind of.
We do that up until midterms to see how they're doing, and if there's anybody that's struggling. And every week, if there's there's conversations that need to be had about. Hey, did this paper get done? Did you get it reviewed? I just like to check in with them every week and then once midterms happen and I get those grades that Tony was talking about, we decide if we need to continue on with those kinds of meetings, but I do all of our freshmen meetings, so I wasn't. That's like right now. 7 mid week with our with our athletes so.
Jeff, I said, and it's one of the hardest things to make freshmen understand when they get here.
I'd have a player come to me and say I'm having trouble with my math class in my very first question was have you talked to your professor? Well, no Sir, I haven't been well. You gotta go. I mean, that's that's the best resource here is to go go go, you got. I know it's sometimes intimidating enough sometimes cause professors can be, but they're not here. They will help you. I don't know of a single professor here that won't sit down and help you find you some help. And also I just reiterate the Writing Lab. Swan Swan is a very writing intensive curriculum. I don't care what you're taking here, you know.
If you don't know how to write when you get here, you going to write how to write when you believe how to write papers, and that writing lab is absolutely, you just can't. I mean, you take a paper you let it peer read it, and gives you suggestions on things and how to restructure it. And there's just no value you can put on that. Get those kids to go. Those writing laughed and talked to professors talk. You gotta go. Gotta go face to face and talk to professor.
Yeah, I think you know the way I explained to all my recruits in my all my players that you know if you can handle it you can do it and I think you know for some of my guys between there.
Academic experience and there are plenty experience except a lot of that pie, you know. But for some of my other guys, you know they're like, you know Jeff mentioned and you know there are firefighters there. In Greek life there in student organizations, we have one sophomore who is the pre Med major Oro student of volunteer firefighter, an Honor Council. You can handle it. You can do it. So I always tell my guys. I like saying yes, more like say no and as long as you know.
I trust you and you are able to do it more than welcome to continue.
Yeah, we're pretty much the same way with our program. Our kids or almost overly involved sometimes to the point where we sit down after they've signed up for all 50 things at the activity fair to be partof and really try to start looking at where do you want to leave an impact?
What kind of an impact do you want to leave in certain organizations and how do you want to best utilize your time while you're here during your 4 years and what's going to help you for whatever your next steps are after Suwannee and like Jeff said. Our kids are involved in the aesopi the outing program their trip leaders. They're big involved with pre there involved as proctors in the dorm. They're involved in Greek life, I've got 4 or 5 right now that are in different theme houses.
That are involved in a lot of community service. We just had one of the guys on the cross country team that organized our rubbish run a couple Fridays ago where we went and ran all over campus and cleaned up trash. Granted we used it as part of practice but it was a great community service thing that brought different parts of the community together for the betterment of Suwannee as a whole. But I think what it comes down to is just if there's something that you want to be involved in you have that opportunity and when you graduate if you say I wish I would have been able to do.
Fill in the blank, then you didn't try is really what it comes down to.
They pretty much said it all, I don't really need to say that much. But I will say you know, one of the things that I didn't realize until I was having one of the meetings with one of my players is.
They're like coach. I need to go because I have a mandatory study Hall with my sorority with you know, so I didn't know that that was part of the Greek life and I never had student athletes that were in the Greek life prior to being in Swanee. And that made me that was really like, OK, I love that you're in that and they're having a an academic standard for you to be involved with that. So I think that that was important. I think one of the other things that are, you know I mentioned where with a lot of our student athletes to Saint Jude, but they also do.
We have several that are Akkadians and give the campus tours on campus and are very involved with that part of just filling their passion and showing the campus to other interesting other interested students.
That's a great question. So typically you know players who make our team are recruited athletes every year. We do make official offers for roster spots anywhere between 8 and 10 guys per year. With that said, one of the best players who come through our program in the last two years was a walk on, so I'm not too proud to only take the players I recruit. If you're able to help us, we'd love to have you. So typically our players are recruited.
But that said, You know if a player on campus can help us with, it will be more than happy to have them.
My thought was the second part of the question, Jeff.
So really with with coronavirus and people losing their spring seasons and recruits for us, how fast did you run? How far did you jump? How far did you throw? A lot of kids and families are worried because they missed their spring season an A lot of kids are missing their fall seasons and they think that based off of their sophomore year or the beginning of their junior year, they're really worried about being recruited.
Ann, are they going to be eligible for a team the way that we're looking at things is fit. So for us, we're building a program and we're trying to build a culture and it's all surrounding about around Suwannee and it's only the right fit for you and for us athletically. The fit that we're looking for, our kids that really want to work hard and kids that genuinely love either track or cross country and they want to receive a really really strong education. So for us.
Finding the Fit is more important than worrying about performances right now. You can find that really, really good kid who is just not a good fit for your program. Who is going to tell you how good they are and they're not going to work very hard at being very good. I don't think that that's the kind of fit that we're looking for. We're looking for just a lot of students that really want to work hard that really want to improve and really, genuinely value what it is here at Sony.
And so from a recruiting standpoint, I think that goes back to the very beginning of this conversation where we talked about engagement with the coaches and getting to know who each other are. Because at the end of the day you might love Suwannee and you might not get along with Nancy's coaching philosophy and you're like, well, that's not the right fit. If I wanted to do athletics, it's finding that perfect fit that fits every piece of the pie, not just one piece of the pie.
Yeah, I would more similar to Tony in terms of our athletes are recruited. We start with a fairly large number and cut a little our way down through communication and engagement and just make sure and that falls into the right fit. But that that bill was talking about, there's a It's not just hey I'm gonna watch your video and make you an offer. It's it's. There's a whole process to it, but we tend to try and get you know.
This is my third season we've had.
Six recruits, 5 recruits and seven recruits. In the last three years, which is a very large router for volleyball. So in the next couple of years we're looking to sign for our get four or five really good athletes in our program, and so we, you know, we kind of filter through those, but it all depends, positionally, a forest to we don't want to have eight defensive players or lab arrows on our team for volleyball and three or four really good hitters, so that so we have to get in terms of positionally too. As well, I think.
So as I'm sure everybody does, I mean you don't whatever for every sport is different, but I think it's important that communication process and and it has to be the right fit and coaching style is a huge factor because a lot of people will say I found your University 'cause it's one of the top 25 most beautiful campuses. Absolutely it is. But you know, if you want to be an athlete here on my team, there has to be some sort of cohesion and fit so.
We're not competing in the fall. I'm not sure. Any Division Three. I think there may be some golf teams playing, maybe some tennis teams playing in throughout the country, but for the most part, Division Three has completely shut down for the fall. Right now we are tentatively very, very tentatively.
Scheduled to play all sports in the spring and will make a final decision on that and the presidents will make a final decision on that in early December.
This fall what we've been focused on this fall is.
Practices for practices for us haven't really changed a whole lot necessarily compared to a normal year because we're outside for cross country and because they are somewhat socially distanced for a lot of their runs. We it's probably about the most normal thing they've had since March in terms of practice. Now that being said, what we've tried to focus on this year is.
You get so caught up on competing and having to win and lose since high school and college. This is the first time a lot of our kids specifically for cross country and for track have been able to train and not worry about preparing for that next competition. And do I have to run a personal best? Do I have to win? Do I have to lose so we've almost taken the step back too?
I want to I want to say a youth sport type mentality where we love what we're doing. We're focusing on learning a lot of skills that sometimes might go by the wayside during the course of a regular season and just enjoying a bit of normalcy. That being said, We're still working really, really hard. In practice, we did time trials, the beginning of our season. We did time trials partway through the season. Everybody showed a lot of improvement in just the way that we're doing things.
But I think that has been kind of a refreshing change for a lot of kids. They're running because they've re found the love for why they're doing what they're doing and not worrying and stressed about the competition side of it.
Yes, similar to bill. You know, our men soccer team. We've been trained three days a week for the first, essentially six weeks of the semester. Now we're entering a string commissioning phase for making part.
Yeah, we really try to focus on, you know.
Teaching the underclassmen, specially the new guys. You know how we play the style of soccer replay formational E and kind of implementing, you know over you know a lot of time. You know exactly what's to be expected and hopefully in preparation for a spring season. You couple that with a lot of plane and scrimmaging towards the end of the season and kind of where we've been.
So, but now again, we're entering our transitioning phase, which we're doing three days a week as well.
Artist actually the exact same as Tony. So what we were We are an indoor sport. The the biggest difference and I'm sure you guys have to wear masks to we. We trained all the coaches wearing mask all the players wearing mask. We made sure there was a lot of social distancing so we trained in small groups of 10 or less three days a week. Actually we really did two days a week with an optional third day we run at them. Actually we just wanted to introduce the concepts of the standards and expectations of what our program is all about to the.
To the younger, the and the newcomers, and even just remind our players what what our focus was, and we actually took some of the most challenging things, and we told him you might not be super successful with this. But this is where we're weak. Let's try and make this a strength, so we were able to focus on some different areas that we'd never never been able to focus on in a fall season. Because once you get here, you're within two weeks. You're competing, and that's very different than in the spring, so that was actually a pretty fun time for us. And we did do some competitions.
In the in, the players really enjoyed that aspect of it, but like Tony, we just are. We just entered our our strength and conditioning phase and we'll continue that through the end of October. Maybe into the first or second week of November. Probably the first week, and then will be done, but we really just wanted to to take a step back and say with and let the underclassmen understand what the spirit is here into what that task and it is.
You just add one more thing, I think because no ones competing in the fall right now. Alot of programs really focusing on the cultural side of their program. This too. So for example our soccer team went on a camping trip last weekend and a little shout to the outdoors programs. Here in Swanee we have 65 miles of hiking, biking trails. You know 10 lakes, 3 caves, a ton of a 13,000 acres. You know a ton of things to do outdoors, so our soccer team will, in a five mile hike out.
You know, it's one of the camp sites you know. Spend the night you know got up, went well for height to look out and came back. So spending more time you know creating you know bonds and relationships and improving the culture of our programs have been accused of assess for most of the teams if not all during these times as well.
Jeff, can I just follow up with this? I just want to give a shout out to these guys into other coaches. They've done an absolutely but not from an administrative standpoint. Have done an absolutely phenomenal job this fall into very, very difficult conditions. They've kept these kids engaged. They kept him, but these three people on this panel are very competitive people. They want to be. I can tell you right now they want to be competing with fall and they're not able to compete because of the circumstances. But these guys have done a phenomenal job keeping the kids engaged and keeping them busy and staying within the guidelines that were set by.
Athletic director Marc Webb and our head trainer right night, and they weren't easy restrictions for them to stay in, but they've done a great job of adhering to those and and we got squaddie bubble going and there are a lot to give credit to keeping that 20 bubble and keeping us safe up here right now.
We really appreciate what they've done.
Does that same for volleyball. Those are probably 2 teams we play the most.
'cause we wanted. We wanted. My goal is to take this team into even more than just conference play. I want them to compete against some of the country's best and Emery for volleyball has been in the top two the last two years, so we've actually played them multiple times while I've been here at Swanee.
We've competed against, we compete against Division One, Division Two, Division 3 N AIA Jucos. We track and cross country. We don't have to compete against Division Three. We can compete against the best of the best. We went up to Louisville last year for their huge cross country Carnival. We've had UT Chattanooga bring some of their women up here for indoor track meet last year and then we go down to the cross Plex down in Birmingham, and we've competed against Division One, Division Two, Division Three down there.
Right currently right now the NCAA is granted blanket waivers for last fall. I mean last spring. I'm sorry. Last spring all those athletes get another year. They have granted a blanket waiver for all the fall sports to add another year. Division One is already granted a blanket waiver for their winter sports, so Division Three has not done that yet. But it's just moving along and.
Yeah, if we don't get to participate and they don't get to compete, the NCAA has been very good about granting blanket waivers for everybody to have an extra year.
Yeah, it's a great question I think.
Every coach here would would love is see their entire recruitment be done during the early decision process. The sooner in my opinion the better, but we're also cognizant and aware that it is not always possible for everyone to apply early decision. I do believe it is huge benefit an.
I I sleep much easier at night knowing when my my crude supply any.
If you think if you think that Celani is.
The place that you want to be.
And this is the school that you want to go to, and you are 100% certain of that. Apply early decision.
If you are not 100% certain then I would say make sure that you are before you definitely were to apply early decision because that's a pretty big commitment. That being said, I would love all 30 of our kids that came last year to have applied early decision and then I would be able to sleep a lot better like Tony just mentioned and the last slide that Jeff put up, the corset celani. It's actually our cross country course that also has a golf course as part of it.
We really kind of We really kind of wait a little bit we do. I've already gotten several emails regarding 2020 fours already an that's just super young. That's that's really hard for me. I really started making a really good hard look, and there you really? The spring of their self more year when they're in the club season before they start their junior year of high school. And then like bill said earlier, we like to try and get them on campus in the spring of there, junior.
Here with a preview day or something of that sort, but we really I have gotten a lot of 2020 threes in 2020 fours for some reason lately, and I it's really tough for me to even begin to look at them that young because I know in a year there they're probably gonna be thinking Division One and they just you know so. But yeah, I usually end up their sophomore year and into their junior years. We really start to hammer down on creating a list of kids we want on campus in the spring.
Yeah, it's very very similar. Nancy may be the only addition would be if a younger student athlete came to a clinic or a camp, or we saw him play somewhere else, then we might. You know job down but typically enter your sophomore year. We start identifying evaluating talent.
And what I would say to kind of go with that too is you're going to. You're seeing the vision ones that are moving the timeline earlier in earlier and earlier, so not necessarily for Tracker Cross Country, but you hear some of the other team sports like women's lacrosse or field hockey or soccer where you have coaches that are getting kids to commit their freshman years or their sophomore years.
So it's just pushing that timeline back. Don't let a core coach force you into making a decision before you're ready to deciding on where you want to go.
Now Jeff, I don't have anything, I just know that's a great place to be is a great place to live. It's a great place to go to school all the support you need is here and it's what you make of it. It's what you come to Swanee is what you make of it and it's it's a great place we have. I think I've been here 18 years. Like I said, I think this is the best overall coaching staff that marks ever Mark Webber. Athletic director put together. We have some dedicated coaches at work. Really, really hard. They understand swannies we say they get it.
They get Swanee and they understand what's On is all about. I say all time that Division Three is the last bastion of student athlete in that order. Our kids are true student athletes. I think it Division Two Division Three. Your athletes student. They're going to put your academics 1st and that's what you're here for. But then they're going to coat their guts out when they're on the field or in the court or on the trails with you. Our guys want to win. They want to be good. They want to be the best. I think it's a great coaching staff and it would be.
You know, if I had children, I can't think of a single one up here. I wouldn't want my children that age to play for, so that's that's my closing comment.