Recruiting

[Ricardo del Rio]

"As a public institution, I wonder if his recruiting was appropriate."

I am not sure you meant the above.

[ISASO]

Two comments:

1. Turg's biggest hurdle in recruiting was himself.

2. Paul Miller was here because of Brent Kemnitz, Gene Stephenson and Mark Turgeon...in that order.

So your "lightning in a bottle" was in large measure due to the baseball coaches.

[Aargh]

Since it is the off season, not much is going on, and we're discussing some strange aspects of recruiting, let me grab something out of history that I noticed.

When Gary Thompson replaced Ralph Miller, Thompson did not successfully recruit from the base of minority HS players the way Miller did. I don't know if that's because Thompson didn't recruit minorities, or if minorities didn't want to play for Thompson, but the complexion of the team changed (pun intended).

I've always felt that Thompson was "more comfortable" recruiting white guys. That's something a coach can't do - even 40 years ago. The quality of the player and the individual is the only consideration in recruiting.

I don't think WSU had a chance at signing Wilson if his grandparents didn't live here. One way of looking at this is that neither Wilson nor Miller were directly attributable to Turgeon, but Turgeon was the guy in charge when they both came here and Turg is the guy who coached them to some great success.

Strange things happen in recruiting. Just look at the situation with Johnny Coy and Noel Johnson. Not everything is on the coach. Sometimes it's just that "stuff happens".

[Ricardo del Rio]

Since it is the off season, not much is going on, and we're discussing some strange aspects of recruiting, let me grab something out of history that I noticed.

When Gary Thompson replaced Ralph Miller, Thompson did not successfully recruit from the base of minority HS players the way Miller did. I don't know if that's because Thompson didn't recruit minorities, or if minorities didn't want to play for Thompson, but the complexion of the team changed (pun intended).

I've always felt that Thompson was "more comfortable" recruiting white guys. That's something a coach can't do - even 40 years ago. The quality of the player and the individual is the only consideration in recruiting.

I don't think WSU had a chance at signing Wilson if his grandparents didn't live here. One way of looking at this is that neither Wilson nor Miller were directly attributable to Turgeon, but Turgeon was the guy in charge when they both came here and Turg is the guy who coached them to some great success.

Strange things happen in recruiting. Just look at the situation with Johnny Coy and Noel Johnson. Not everything is on the coach. Sometimes it's just that "stuff happens".

Pretty thoughtful post.

Thank you.

[MikeShox]

Since it is the off season, not much is going on, and we're discussing some strange aspects of recruiting, let me grab something out of history that I noticed.

When Gary Thompson replaced Ralph Miller, Thompson did not successfully recruit from the base of minority HS players the way Miller did. I don't know if that's because Thompson didn't recruit minorities, or if minorities didn't want to play for Thompson, but the complexion of the team changed (pun intended).

I've always felt that Thompson was "more comfortable" recruiting white guys. That's something a coach can't do - even 40 years ago. The quality of the player and the individual is the only consideration in recruiting.

I don't think WSU had a chance at signing Wilson if his grandparents didn't live here. One way of looking at this is that neither Wilson nor Miller were directly attributable to Turgeon, but Turgeon was the guy in charge when they both came here and Turg is the guy who coached them to some great success.

Strange things happen in recruiting. Just look at the situation with Johnny Coy and Noel Johnson. Not everything is on the coach. Sometimes it's just that "stuff happens".

Another example: I believe Antoine Carr was determined to play at WSU. He became friends with Cliff Levingston which was why Cliff came here. That in turn lead to more excellent recruits and enough success to lure even more good players. Who knows what might have happened if it had not been for the NCAA Sanctions, mostly the result of the previous staff.

I'll never know if Gene was a great recruiter, or if he was extremely to have had Carr here and Carr was the great recruiter.

All I know is that it was sure fun for a while.

[SpanglerFan316]

"As a public institution, I wonder if his recruiting was appropriate."

I am not sure you meant the above.

Look at my last post previous to this one. (I'm still unhappy that Jane used practice time for prayer sessions when her teams really NEEDED to practice. Jim Schaus used to hold prayer sessions; maybe this worked because we got Gregg Marshall. :D )