Recruiter training is now a priority at UNC

The  Student-Athlete Academic Initiative Working group wants to raise the standards for coaches who recruit on behalf of the University.

The group, led by Provost Jim Dean and Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham, discussed the possibility of training new coaches to recruit players who fit UNC’s academic profile during the first meeting of the academic year.

Steve Farmer, vice provost for enrollment and undergraduate admissions, said he thinks it is important to put the expectations of coaches’ roles and responsibilities in one place.

“Having a clear idea of the goals would help us come up with training and retraining, and not just for the coaches, but for anybody at the institution who has a hand in athletics,” he said.

Cunningham said this could reduce the amount of frustration that can accompany recruiting.

“When we hire a new coach, we don’t tell them anything except ‘go recruit’,” Cunningham said. “It’s frustrating for a coach to spend a lot of effort recruiting and then to come back and for us to say no.”

The group also discussed ways it could honor those student-athletes who make an effort to get involved in the University community outside of their athletic teams and their academic schedules.

Former UNC gymnast Michelle Ikoma said she knows how hard it is for student-athletes to have the chance to study abroad.

“I’ve talked to a lot of my peers who just don’t have the opportunity to study abroad,” she said. “For me I have noticed that a lot of these opportunities, and even research opportunities, occur during practice times or times when you are taking classes.”

Dana Gelin, a spokeswoman for the athletics department, discussed the importance of the “Latest From Loudermilk” newsletter, which serves as a brief overview of news, events and successes from Student-Athlete Services.

“‘Latest From Loudermilk’ has been going out to the Faculty Athletics Committee for about a year and a half, and we recently started posting it to goheels.com and sending it out to the entire athletic department just to make sure it’s on everybody’s radar screen,” she said. “Our student-athletes do a lot, so we figure the coaches may know what their teams are doing, but not necessarily everybody else.”

Dean said the newsletter could remind faculty that student-athletes are students first.

“I think anything that makes it real for the faculty that read this that these are students just like the others with the same sort of aspirations, I think you would be doing a great service for athletics and for the faculty,” he said.

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