ACC Best Practices: Maryland Uncovers the Connection Between Twitter & Recruiting

From Digital Hoops Blast, via LinkedIN and Andrew Pawlowski.

This blog is all about inspiration.
We’re going to spend 3 days elevating best practices from the squads that make up the Atlantic Coast Conference. And then we’ll talk about how to make that even better…

What makes something a best practice? This isn’t about the most intricate experience. It’s about looking at the world from your consumer’s point of view and delivering something that hits it right smack on the head. In the case of colleges, I’m treating the primary consumer as that prospective student athlete.

Cool?

Let’s move.

It seems fitting that today is here. Yesterday, we covered the details at the bottom of a website (check what Duke does, here)… And today we will flip that around with the top navigation. Let’s move to the Maryland Athletics website, here. As you can see in the image below, they hit us front and center with a For Recruits header.
That’s where the magic happens.

First of all, let’s zoom into that menu, below:

Maryland Positions Twitter as a Recruiting Tool. We have long identified that Twitter offers the potential for prospective student athletes to stay in contact with coaches. But if you look at the majority of sites, they instead offer Twitter under “Fan Zone” or “Multimedia” or, maybe, “Social Media”. And I’m a believer that you identify your audience and speak to them. Maryland makes this very clear.

I clicked into Twitter, and come to Coach Gary Williams’ page, here. Coach Williams does a great job here – he’s up fairly often, and is conversational and relevant. Scroll through it and you’ll see he gives props to former players (Greivis Vasquez, Steve Blake, and Landon Milbourne recently) — signaling that he doesn’t forget you once you leave Maryland. Just solid all around.

How could this be better? Make this the first thing on the menu. Twitter crashed the recruits menu, the mission now is to move it to the first thing we see.

One thing Andrew doesn’t mention is that perhaps an even better use of this comes from “down the hall” at the Comcast Center… Brenda Frese and her staff have, arguably, the Nation’s #1 recruiting class in 2011 and 2012 may be equally as good.  There is no secret that Frese has long been known for her masterful art of recruiting and her staff is tremendous.

The custom UMD Women’s Basketball site (many schools are doing this now) is really, really good.

I follow many coaches “Tweets” out there and the primary difference between the ones flowing out of College Park and the rest is I don’t just here about:  “It’s a beautiful day in (you fill in the college town), or ” Heading to workouts, it’s a great day to be a (fill in mascot of your choice.)” and the best is “just had a great (fill in meal based on time of day) at (fill in local sub, pizza or food spot) AWESOME!”  Don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty of that… every staff does that, it’s a given.  Follow Coach Frese on Twitter, you’ll get the idea.

I haven’t personally done a “Best of Twitter College Basketball Review,” maybe that is something that is out there.

Anyone with input and links to really good uses of Twitter forward them via comments section and we will share.

Remember who has the final decision

Mark Lewis

Mark Lewis writes for Hoop Gurlz… he writes exceptionally well.  Very insightful.  Would I consider him a writer?  Probably not.  No disrespect intended.  Mark’s a basketball coach.  In my mind’s eye I still see him on the sideline, or out on the road recruiting…. minus the camera.

So many times in the recruiting process parents try to re-live their sports lives (or lack there of) through their child’s… HUGE MISTAKE.  Mark’s insight is accurate and helpful.  Mark says, “I’m not a parent…”  I disagree.  Biology may not have played a part in Mark’s “parenting,” but he “parented” many during his 20+ year coaching career.

I’m a parent.  We have a daughter.  Both my wife and I went off to college.  I blew out my ankle twice.  If I didn’t pick the school because I wanted to be there no matter what happened on the basketball court – I would have been miserable.  My wife did transfer because she was miserable.  We had both sides of the story.  Mark is spot on.

I hope Mark is around and I remember his words in 2018 when our daughter is making her decision.

In… Remember who has the final decision, Mark shares a great perspective into the process of recruiting for parents.  Who actually has the final decision is really important.

Parenting is tough. That fact is evidenced every day by rebellious kids and surrendering parents who just throw up their arms in exasperation. The approaches to guiding, teaching, preparing and supporting are varied and as daunting a challenge as any adult will face.

Now add to that the twists, turns and decisions that come with the recruiting of a prospective student-athlete and you’ve got a volatile mix that can tip the fragile relationship between a teenager and her parents.

I must confess, I’m not a parent. In fact my single greatest contribution to society may well be that I’ve added no offspring of mine to the population. However, I have had a ringside seat to a multitude of recruiting decisions through the years that have revealed some startling child-parent dynamics.

A lot of athletes go through the recruiting process with their parents at their side and come up with the right decision that makes sense for her future in the classroom, on the court and personally. The tug of war begins when the agenda of mom and dad start to override that of their daughter.

Continue Reading…

Play Through the Foul

Most of you know, remember  or have a story about Vera Jones… the Flying V!  A caring a funny lady that you don’t easily forget.  My stories and memories all stem from both our time on the road with the New York Liberty.

Vera Jones

We need to support Vera in her attempt to continue to “Play Through the Foul,” (as her book suggests).  This really isn’t about Vera’s attempt to garner her own talk show… though after spending several years with Vera while she broadcast New York Liberty games, I have to vouch for her gift.  She is a talented broadcaster, a funny, funny lady and a great person.  A talk show featuring Vera would, no doubt, be both inspirational and entertaining.

No, this is about Vera only child Andrew.  Andrew is 12 and a short time ago he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  Andrew underwent many hours of surgery and came out of it alive, but having lost 3/4 of his sight.  She and Andrew were immediately handed the greatest “foul” of thier lives.

As Vera’s book says…”Play Through the Foul,” she has taught her young son… “it’s not how much you can see, but who you are meant to be.”  Well go ahead V… do your thing!

If that means Vera is meant to host her own TV talk show… Great!  We can help her by voting for her audition tape here.

VERA JONES AUDITION.

… and lending her our thoughts and prayers for Andrew’s complete recovery.

Follow the above link, watch V’s audition and vote to help her realize her dream.  Good Luck Vera!

PROCESS OVER RESULTS

Coach Bob Starkey always shares so many good things with us on @LSUCoachStarkey.  Here’s yet another… Safe travels this July coach.

http://bit.ly/cb4CBh

Kids who fantasize about playing in The Show dream of batting .350, hitting 75 home runs, throwing a no-hitter, or getting the game-winning hit in the seventh game of the World Series. Not many kids go to the ballpark and dream of having a good at-bat or an excellent workout in the bullpen. Yet it is learning how to readjust smaller goals that makes the mighty dreams possible. The best professional players discover that goal-setting is about taking charge of those elements a player can control. A player cannot control whether he hits .350, but he can control whether he has a good at-bat and swings at pitches he can drive. A pitcher cannot control whether a batter gets jammed and bloops a hit, but he can control whether he puts in effective work in the bullpen and whether he maintains his concentration on the mound.

“Numbers—I never look at them. I don’t like them,” shortstop Nomar Garciaparra told Baseball Weekly’s Seth Livingstone. In September 1980, Kansas City’s George Brett got the baseball world buzzing with the possibility of his reaching .400 for the first time since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941. The Royals were in a pennant race, and Brett was hitting to win. “Every time up, I was just trying to give out club the kind of at-bat the situation called for,” Brett said. But the night we wrapped up our division, I thought, ‘Hey, I’m close enough. I’m going to go for it. I didn’t have to try to hit .400.’ That was the day things fell apart. I didn’t have many good at-bats when I started concentrating on getting hits.”

Focusing on the job at hand, and on the elements that a player can control, leads to reaching the great goals. Reaching then excelling, in these individual points builds a player’s confidence. The secret is the specifics: do the individual elements correctly and they will lead to greater achievement. The individual, specific goals—journey goals—are what lead to reaching the highest goals—destination goals. Only be mastering the journey goals can you reach the destination.

From Mental Toughness: Baseball’s Winning Edge

by Karl Kuehl, John Kuehl, and Casey Tefertiller

Arizona Men’s Basketball Newsletter – July 2010

Link for the U of A Newsletter – July 2010.

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA NEWSLETTER JULY 2010

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