Recruiting in girls basketball in Delaware

[Filmore00]

I was out and ran into a father who told me that one of our fine coaches from a private school has offered his eight grade daughter the opportunity to come to this private school. He told me the coach said "here is our admissions directors number, give them a call." This father followed it up by saying " you would think the coach knew I was good friends with the girls father that left his school for another Delaware school".

In Delaware, should we go to 2 divisions? Those that can recruit &
those that can't. Is the playing field level? Has the garbage that goes on in college trickled down to high girls basketball? A kid or parent isn't happy so they transfer out of school x, y, or z. Is this a life lesson or parent or kid taking the easy way out. As parents are you coddling your child? Do you pave the road for them or do you prepare them for the road ahead. Times are surely changing and I can't say I think it's for the good. I can tell you- the kids who's parents prepare them for the road ahead will be strides ahead of those kids/parents who coddle & enable there youngins.

 

[GateKeeperRefugee]

I don't know if the playing field was ever level to begin with.

Let's start with this link:

http://php.delawareonline.com/news/.../?hootPostID=68fec4374e66f36bba8a06ff84f27b47

That is the list of 45 state championship teams since Delaware's had a girls hoops tournament. NINE (depending on how you feel about Delcastle and Polytech) are from public schools. Private schools have always had the upper hand, not because of recruiting, but because of the CYO leagues. The CYOs aren't as prominent now, but don't have to be because the reputation and the legacies have already been built.

Ursuline has DelleDone, Hahn, Val Whiting and a host others. Sanford has Monick Foote. St. E's has Rushdan (who's an assistant at the school right now). Sure coaches might put a bug in a parent or a kid's ear, but the parents/kids see the success and want to be down with that.

Public schools don't have the tradition or a feeder program to get the quality players necessary to dethrone the privates. And it's too late to change that.

 

[Justabasketballfan]

I've had this conversation with many people. and i hope this comes across the right way and understandable: The reason the public are losing out now is because to parents there is no safe place for maximum learning. With the history of public schools having fights, deaths, and poor testing. Parent have been looking for schools that is safe for there child's potential learning. that is the one thing a private school really can offer. to me the education part is almost the same depending on what you child takes. You can go to poorly run school and still have a kid go to harvard or yale. if there taking the right courses and do very well on the SAT's. Now if the school debating on your kid at Moyer vs a kid from Sanford. well based on the eye test, the moyer kid could lose out. I've heard more parents recruit other parents explaining this to them. The second seems to be cost to go that school. parents want to know how much could a school offer to child if they come to that school as a good student and a basketball player. or really any high elite player in any sport. the third seems to be what kind of schedule does the team play. a really talented kid wants to play the best win lose or draw. they want to get better. and they don't care who is at the school to challenge them either. coaching style and coach come in to play last. they want to know will the coach push them to get better. and they going to put them into position to get better. and mostly be fair with the time giving out if they are playing well in the games. Well this would only make it easy for only a couple of schools based on the criteria i just mentioned:
Ursuline, Sanford, St. Elizabeth, and caravel

Now there are many public schools (non- vo-tech) who also would be a great program. Concord, A.I dupont, Appo., and Dover who could play a strong schedule and still have a great academic place for childs learning. but they fail to play an extremely tough schedule to lure the talent everyone wants year to year.

Now said this before. All of this means nothing if your child can't pass the entrance exam to get into the school. And no recruiting can get you pass that. What i havve been hearing is that the parents more so than anything will tell parent of a talented kid "hey, have you checked out the school my child goes to?" The parents talk about school first, financial second, and the sport third. the last thing they say is call the admission. go through the tour. and then take the test. every coach i've talked to has said the same thing to me. can they pass the test and what do there grades look like. once they pass the test then i start to see how much they want the kid by how much financial has been given.

Now the problem the public school coaches have is they do a poor job getting kids to know them and developing a relationship with the family and child. I have spoken to a top D1 coach who says his main objective to develop a relationship with the family and player when recruiting a player. When they see them they will have personal conversation with them: "how is school going?" "how is your mom/dad doing?" "are you working in the summer?" "how is your summer going?" "how is your siblings doing?" so when its time to sign. the child is picking the relationship and not names sake of the school SOMETIMES. i can honestly say Noonan, Freeman Williams, and Stan Waterman have developed a system to have these camps and to get these kids to come to these camps. And it doesn't matter what type is coming to the camp. White, black, rich, and poor. there all coming. they have scholarship some of those kids to get them in and see what it like to be there and compete. Some of these kids who are really talented and poor remember what they did for them and chose to go to there school. I'm sorry i don't see that from the public schools. Now maybe they cant have access to the schools gym during that time, maybe they can. but these coaches are beating out the other coaches because they are out working them and developing relationships with these kids. and that's even before the coaching starts.

Now if that is recruiting, then every college, high school, and AAU team has been doing for years!!

 

[GateKeeperRefugee]

All great points Just.

I think public school coaches' hands are tired because they don't have the same time to hit the circuit that private school coaches do - remember, there's that stupid obsolete rule in place that to coach in a public school, you have to be a school employee, so usually that means teaching and teaching takes up most of their time.

 

[Justabasketballfan]

All great points Just.

I think public school coaches' hands are tired because they don't have the same time to hit the circuit that private school coaches do - remember, there's that stupid obsolete rule in place that to coach in a public school, you have to be a school employee, so usually that means teaching and teaching takes up most of their time.

that is not true unless this just happened with in the last week. because there are several coaches who do not work in the school system and are coaches. John armstrong does not work at concord, and Shannon mccants does not work for Newark, and that is just off the top of my head. but you don't have to work at the school to be the coach.

 

[SenatorPride]

All great points Just.

I think public school coaches' hands are tired because they don't have the same time to hit the circuit that private school coaches do - remember, there's that stupid obsolete rule in place that to coach in a public school, you have to be a school employee, so usually that means teaching and teaching takes up most of their time.

If you talk to any Private school parent this is so far from the truth, in actuality the public's have huge advantage's it just that they don't take advantage of it. I could list about 20 reasons why but here is just a couple.

1) Public schools have stable funding and can go to referendum for capital and operational funding if needed. Not to say they always pass but they have the option not so for privates.

2) Compare a public's teacher/coach salary and benefits we know who wins here.

3) Contrary to popular belief parents who send the athletes to private school do pay something maybe not all are paying full fare but the majority are. Add in transportation, uniforms, no free lunches and other fees that privates charge parents look at it as an investment in their kids.

4) If an athlete has any special education needs or IEP, it's more than likely up to the private parents to get/pay for additional help, that's not the case in public schools with their Special Ed mandated funding.

5) Top private players tend to seek out the best AAU teams which is more time and investments and not all family are super rich like everyone wants to believe. Public girls have the same opportunity but not all but most choose not to take advantage. But they can rock the latest KD or Kobes or $100 jeans just to walk the halls.

The only true advantage privates have is the want to be good at particular sport and to make it happen and coaches and players that want to be there and not just collecting a paycheck. Just so I make this clear, before the negative replies, this a generalization on public school programs not individual players! There are some good players whose family gets it but for various reasons choose the public school route. There are exceptions for instance; I truly think that Smyrna wants to be good at sports and put in the effort into making it happen i.e their football, basketball wrestling program are all tops. There others add-in Cape girls sports, Middleton football at least they make an effort.

 

[GateKeeperRefugee]

Coming back to this and you're right SP. So many of these public schools are de-emphasizing sports when in reality, sports helps build up a school's morale and unity among the students and staff. That is why Middletown, Smyrna, Cape and a few others are good because their administrations actually are.

 

[MightyMik]

Any further news on where kids are?

 

[GateKeeperRefugee]

One kid that seems to have stayed put is Ronnasia Blatch-Huggins at Howard. She's on their volleyball roster, so my guess is she'll be playing basketball this year for the Wildcats as well.

 

[Justabasketballfan]

There is no real change from the big names that have been mentioned. Lewis, and Yanni have left Ursuline. Kendra warren has left Sanford to go to caravel. Arianna henry left Padua to go to st. Elizabeth. Fatty has left A.I. to go to st. Elizabeth. I have heard good news that pullich is playing for Sanford this year. after a long summer of her saying she is done playing basketball. Tink is at appo.

The only real issues are where are the new freshman are coming in going. St. Thomas more has seem to have loaded up with more freshman to go along with the talent they already have.

on the grils side it will be tough for Ursuline to win this year. they are ravaged by injury and the lost of some major players.
Caravel
Conrad
Ursuline
Ceaser Rodney
Sanford
Archmere
St. Thomas More
Hodgson
Sussex Tech
Mount Pleasant
Howard
Appo

others to watch: st. Elizabeth, Delcastle, St. georges, laurel, cape henlopen, and Wilmington friends

 

[GateKeeperRefugee]

Samantha Pollich playing makes Sanford tough because while Warren might've been the better of the three, Pollich and Kubek together in the post with Olivia Tucker on the perimeter makes a PG's job easy and Lauren can dish at will.

 

[Justabasketballfan]

Samantha Pollich playing makes Sanford tough because while Warren might've been the better of the three, Pollich and Kubek together in the post with Olivia Tucker on the perimeter makes a PG's job easy and Lauren can dish at will.

Sanford only has two scorers that can create off the dribble. Kanisa tucker and Lauren park lane. The rest are spot up shooters and solid re-bounders of missed shots. The one thing Kendra could do is generate offense from the floor. one dribble pull-up, post up moves, and the ability to get the ball off the backboard and push the ball up the floor. Although Olivia is a solid ball handler she is not creating a shot off the dribble. at least the last time i seen her play. Unless they have a some players that came in the this past year, they have 5 players and no bench. Now with Alicia gone Lauren becomes possibly the best point guard in the state. But she isn't a great one -on-one defender. i know- i know but who is.and she wont really get challenged until Sanford plays a ursuline(maggie), st. Elizabeth (fatty), hodgson (ja-niah or kayla), howard (nalieghia), Appo (tink, or senay), laural (logan), and conrad (the sisters). All of those guards look to score and she will have to play both ends of the floor. Not saying she can't, but to be able to do it with no back up on the bench is going to be tough for sanford this year. The good thing is, they only have 5, but there 5 is a lot better then 96% of the 5 in the state.