This comes from a Coaching U Podcast interview with Jay Wright. He talks about the type of player that they recruit and how they present their culture to the kid, his family, and his coaches. The dynamics of recruiting and coaching kids are different, and here he talks about how he is honest and up-front early, and he talks about how important it is for him and his staff to recruit character and fit as much as talent.
As a player or a parent, make sure that the fit - not just the level - is right, make sure that the coaches have yours our your child's best interest at heart, and that the program focuses on growth and development of the person, not just the player.
Young athletes
today are different and the way you have to recruit them has to be
different. You have to keep learning because the one thing that is
definite in life is change, and things change. Part of our challenge
is we know what kids used to be like and what WE used to be like. The
guys that we are recruiting don’t have the expectations that we
had. I had to learn that over the years. When we are
recruiting, we are really looking for the talent level that we need and we are
looking at the people around them because its not like it used to be where a
parent sends the kid to you, you’re the coach, and they tell the kid – “Do what
the coach says.” Everyone is involved now and we have to make sure
that we sit down with the parent, we sit down with the AAU coach, and we sit
down with any other person in their circle and explain to them what Villanova
is all about and explain to them what our culture is, and really – without
trying to convince them, but say,
“Do you think that this
culture is best for your son, or your student, or your player?”
I’m going to tell you what
it is and if you believe in it, you gotta let them fail, you gotta let them
struggle, and you gotta let us work it out.
We’ll
communicate with you, but we are going to tell you what it is up front and our
goal is for him to be the best student, the best man, and the best player that
he can be at the end. That’s our goal. Its not simply to
make him an NBA player. We want him to be an NBA player, but to also
be the best student and the best player. If you don’t think that its
important, then don’t send him to Villanova. I think its our
responsibility as a program, because we know what our culture is and we know
who is going to be successful here, when we are dealing with kids, we have to
make sure that we are picking the ones that we know are going to be
successful. We don’t want to mislead them to get them here and then
when they get here and then try to get them to buy-in to the
culture. We have to know from our experience that they are going to
enjoy it and be successful here.
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