More to Coaching Than Meets the Eye.

Building a competative college team takes a lot more effort than just coaching during the season. Coaches spend their offseason trying to recruit players to come to their school and play for their team, and at Lyndon its not that easy.

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In collegiate sports the road to success starts well before the season does.

"Great players make good coaches great," said Vincent Maloney, The LSC women's baskestball coach. At a small school such as Lyndon, great players don't walk through the door, you have to go find them.

Setting up a network of high school, junior college, and prep school coaches is one of the keys to sucesfully recruiting athletes. These networks are usally with in the school's region. Most coaches at Lyndon will look for players through out New England, while larger, division one schools often recruit nation wide and sometimes internationally.

"Recruiting is selling," said Bill Johnson, the Lyndon State sports information director. Coaches need to sell the athlete on the small things that they can't get anywhere else but their school.

Joe Krupinski, the men's basketball coach at Lyndon State, says that he tries to sell the student on improvement of themselves as well as improvement of the team, telling them that they can be part of getting the school back on the winning track.

Chris Ummer, Lyndon States cross-country coach, tries to sell the athletes on their individual improvement. Most coaches will also try to sell the student on the area that suronds the campus.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is seeing the athlete play. Most high school seasons run at the same time as college seasons. This makes it difficult to recruit.

Krupinski said you need to focus on the current season while keeping the future in the back of your head at all times. So many coaches use the semester break to do the bulk of their recruiting.

"Students are very excited when a coach walks in to see them play," said Maloney.

Once the player is found by the coach, they begin sending letters, e-mails and then a phone call to schedule a campus visit.

According to Ummer, the key to getting a player is the campus visit. He tries to have current runners swing by and talk to the recruits, that way they feel like they are already part of the team and want to come to Lyndon.