By Dion Martorano
CHS grad Matt Miller
There are 1,696 players in the National Football League and 800 players in Major League Baseball and most of these athletes all have one thing in common, they all got recruited into college.
An athlete chooses a college that fits them best and where they feel they can make their greatest impact.
The question though is how do they come about making their choice and how do the coaches select these athletes to one day have a chance to make it to the pros and help their program out.
The coaches look for talent when they recruit but it is not everything they look for. If the athlete is local, than it is an added benefit.
“I don’t think we look any more or less because a player is local,” Roc Bellantoni, Eastern Illinois associate head coach and defensive coordinator, said. “We like to recruit local guys if we can. Local guys are usually more familiar with us because it’s easier to come to our camps, our clinics, practices, junior recruiting days, etc. They also may have more pride in our program because they may have grown up rooting for us. The local guys will be able to attend all of our summer workouts as they get ready for the season. So, there are a lot of benefits to recruiting local guys.”
This fall Adam Drake, currently a senior at Charleston High School, signed on to come to EIU. He had the chance to go to other schools but the fact he grew up in Charleston helped him make his decision.
“I did have some major scholarships from other schools even some that are in the same conference as EIU,” Drake said. “It wasn’t just the fact that I was already an EIU fan, but that EIU has the best program around. They had a pretty decent year not to mention the exceptional coaching staff. Also, EIU has some pretty big connections if I plan on furthering my career as a football/athlete.”
EIU may be an FCS (Football Championship Series} team, the lower of the two divisions in D-I football, but they currently have the most coaches in the NFL with three. Along with that, there are a few players currently in the NFL that started their careers off at EIU, most notably Dallas Cowboy’s quarterback Tony Romo.
While the prospect of going to the pros was a huge factor for Drake, others were looking for a chance just to be a D-I athlete.
“The fact that EIU was giving me a chance to be on the track and cross team is the reason I decided to come here,” Gena Nance, a redshirt sophomore mid-distance runner on the Track and Field team, said. “And even though I only live a mile away from my family, I can make EIU seem as far away as I want. Yes, there are times I want to be farther away, but my family is great at giving me the support I need while also giving me the space I need. The other schools that were offering me money to run were smaller D-2 or D-3 schools. While there can still be good runners at those schools, I always wanted to go to a D-1 school, which EIU is.”
While there are over 400 athletes at EIU, only nine athletes are Charleston High School graduates. That number will grow next year when Drake and Brittany O’Dell join their respective sports. Drake will be a receiver for the football team while O’Dell will be a goalie on the women’s soccer team.
Having the local athletes is great, but the reason most coaches go for further away recruits is the larger talent pool available in bigger cities.
“When I am recruiting I am looking for talent, if it happens to be local it is all the better,” Kate Price, Eastern Illinois Volleyball coach, said. “I would definitely love to have more local kids, but majority of the time kids playing at a very high level are coming from the big cities where volleyball is these kids life. Most of the kids from the big clubs are playing more and playing in big tournaments against the top kids in the country.”
Charleston has some great talent that has made its way through EIU before making it to the pros. Marty Pattin was born and raised in Charleston, went to high school there and later college at EIU. After he graduated from EIU he got drafted by California Angels in the 7th round of the 1965 MLB draft. He went on to play 13 seasons in the majors and was a one time all star selection.
CHS and EIU graduate Marty Pattin
Pattin though has been a rare commodity, a local “townie” who has made it to the big leagues. Most of the athletes today just look for the chance to compete and the place they will fit in best.
“I really wanted to go to a four year and the thought of playing soccer in a junior college and not having a school to transfer to and keep playing was something I really didn’t like,” O’Dell said.
The local athletes did not always necessarily plan on going to EIU when they were younger; they had dreams and aspirations of attending other universities.
“I was always changing my mind on where to go to school,” Nance said. “Some that I wanted to attend were NYU, UCLA, and Oregon. I knew I wanted to run in college, and I needed to be realistic about where I could get the opportunity to do so.”
Fellow CHS graduate and current rugby player Coartney McKinney agreed with Nance and came to the same conclusion for them in the end, that EIU was the place to go.
“When I was younger Eastern was definitely not my top choice,” McKinney said. “I didn’t even want to apply. It was always my dream to go the U of I. I got in too. Then something changed and I began to look past the fact that Eastern was in the same town I grew up in. I’ve separated myself from high school and made college a completely new experience. I am glad I didn’t choose to go somewhere else.”
All the athletes mentioned the low cost of tuition as an added benefit to going to EIU.
While they did get scholarships to come here and that helps pay for their tuition, they still would have ended up saving money coming to EIU than say, Northern Illinois. EIU costs about $8,782 a semester, while NIU costs about $22,900 annually for Illinois residents.
“EIU had what I wanted, a swim team I could swim for and a very good program for my major (athletic training),” Michael Bower, a swimmer at EIU, said. “These two things were also factors in my decision but the biggest factor was the fact I got a full tuition scholarship for EIU.”
McKinney said that there is a scholarship for local residents.
“The scholarship is called the Charleston City Roads Scholarship,” Nance said. “When EIU built Doudna they traded Charleston $400,000 for the road it sits on. It was Seventh Street. When the money runs out, the scholarship is done. To get it your parents have to live in the city limits and maintain a 2.5 GPA. And there might be other criteria as well. The scholarship covers 15 hours of tuition for the fall and spring. Everyone must reapply each year. The money is supposed to run out after this next year.”
Another factor to the local athletes was the closeness to their families. While a lot of students come from long distances to come here, they miss out on time with their family. If a graduate from Charleston wants to see their family, it is within five minutes of home.
“My family and I are really close so it was important to me not to go far away,” McKinney said. “The furthest school I looked at was only two hours away. I wanted to be able to come home when I wanted. Now it has turned out to be even more of a good thing. It’s the best of both worlds. I live in an apartment away from my family but I can drive four minutes anytime I want to for a home cooked meal.”
The coaches on the other hand have many factors to look into when they try to show off an athlete, one of which is their behavior.
“I will contact any coach at a school that my athlete is interested in,” Blain Mayhall, Charleston’s Track and Field coach, said. “If the coach contacts me, I let them know how the individual is not only in his event, but in the classroom as well … Even if they don’t ask [about the athlete’s behavior], I bring it up. I feel it is important to know how a kid is behaviorally. If I was a coach at the collegiate level, I would want to know, so I always disclose that info.”
EIU football coach Roc Bellantoni said, “We put a lot of weight on HS coaches’ recommendations as far as character, grades, and love of the game. But, the film will tell us what we want to know as far as playing ability. Seeing a guy in camp will allow us to see him in person, which could help his case. We see how he accepts coaching, what kind of person and competitor he is.”
Summer Perala, Eastern Illinois women’s soccer coach, agrees with Bellantoni and looks into the person they are as much as the athlete.
“Our sport is performance based and not time/scores, we have to see our prospective student athlete a few times,” Perala said. “My assistant and I also research the recruits background…lots of emails/calls to previous coaches to get a feel for how the recruit is on and off the field. We also follow up with the recruit as much as possible. Emails, phone calls when permissible…we have to work to ‘sell’ the program and the positive direction we feel a prospective student athlete can take it.”
The coach’s career depends on the success of their athletes, if they do well, the coach looks good, if they fail the program and their reputation can get hurt. One of the things that coaches look for is a good contact to help identify great players.
“Recruiting is all about relationships,” Bellantoni said. “It’s taken a long time to build some of those relationships. I have been going to Florida schools for 10 years or so. I know who I can trust when I ask about attitudes and personalities and who I can’t trust. I would say that’s the same for all of our coaches. There have been some coaches who have lied to us or misled us that we don’t think we can trust and that hurts the kids who come out of those schools.”
Perala said the same thing and that the programs that have lied to her have hurt her trust in believing those programs.
EIU Track and Field coach Tom Akers said that while the local recruits can help with attendance, it is not guaranteed.
“Local kids are great and good for any program or sport,” Akers said. “It helps with local news coverage. As far as attendance and other support, there does not seem to be much of a difference. I have some parents very involved who are traveling the farthest to see a track meet. Support for your program does not always have to be face to face.”
Kate Price, the volleyball coach at EIU, said that local athletes are good for community support, but she will not bring in a local athlete if they do not have the talent to back it up.
The thing that can help out the athlete the most in getting recruited is not just the talent, but for them to remember they are students first and athletes second.
“We are definitely looking for players who are solid students; we prefer to recruit students who have at least a 3.0 high school GPA, if not higher,” John Blackburn, the tennis coach at EIU, said. “We are also very interested in speaking with the recruit’s teachers and coaches to get a glimpse into their character. I have been turned off by recruits in the past by low grades or bad recommendations.”
Eastern has a great track record of bringing in good student-athletes to the school. The women’s basketball program was ranked ninth in the nation for best team GPA. Overall the athletic department’s GPA is 3.0. In fall 2009, there were 13 teams with a GPA at or above 3.0 and 260 athletes with a GPA above 3.0.
“I think Eastern has a very good background on recruiting STUDENT-athletes and it is important to stress to the athletes that there is a reason the “student” comes before the ‘athlete,’” Price said. “So grades are important.”
By the end of their time at EIU, the athletes should be able to walk out with a few qualities.
“Our goal is to, at the end of an athlete’s career here at EIU, have her graduate with a great degree; be a solid contributor to society; and become a self-sufficient and confident young woman,” Perala said. “Soccer is icing on the cake in the big picture.”
The athletes come to compete here and it doesn’t matter if you are local or not. The coach’s job is to not only make them the best players on the field, but also the best person they can be off of it. Very few of the athletes at EIU will become pros in their respective sports, but their education they get here will last them the rest of their lives.
The factors that lead a local recruit to coming to a local university, like Eastern is the cost of tuition, closeness to family and the great programs offered at EIU. The coach’s look for the best student-athlete they can get, and one who is also a great person off the field. If a person has the brains and the talent to the job done, they may just get recruited into a university like Eastern Illinois.
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Great pictures, Dion!