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High-speed recruiting
[April 10, 2006]

High-speed recruiting


(Daily Press (Newport News, VA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 9--HAMPTON -- The laptop computer screen on the display table inside Hampton University's Holland Hall flashed a message: Welcome To The Revolution.

Beside it were two other laptops showing highlights of past games at the Boo Williams Invitational basketball tournament. A 30-inch flat-screen monitor on a raised platform showed still more highlights, all with a hip-hop soundtrack thumping in the background.



Under the table was video and editing equipment that allowed games shot that day to be downloaded from tape to DVD inside an hour.

Players could finish a game, go out for a bite to eat and come back and watch themselves. They could update a video resume with highlight clips from this weekend and ship it out to dozens of college coaches.


"Technology has changed everything," Boo said last week. "Internet, video, all of it. They're just filling a need."

The display by an outfit called HoopTV.net in the Holland Hall lobby attracted the eyes and ears of kids and adults at Boo's annual spring tournament. It was the most visible example of the marriage between interest and technology within basketball.

"What we're trying to do is get as many kids noticed by colleges as possible," said HoopTV.net CEO and managing partner Mark Owens. "It didn't take a genius to see that Dwight Howard was going to go to the NBA, but I take just as much pride in helping somebody get a scholarship to Appalachian State who might not normally be noticed."

Besides the video service, there are scouts sprinkled throughout the stands at games all weekend. Some are part of the explosion of scouting and recruiting services. Some are affiliated with specific schools and are here keeping track of recruiting targets.

Williams has held his spring invitational tournament for more than 20 years. He remembers the days when scouts were few and college coaches were spread all over the Peninsula watching games.

Now, Boo's boys' tournament is off-limits to college coaches for a couple of reasons: NCAA limitations on scouting out-of-season events; and Boo's own decision not to petition the state high school athletic association to sanction his event so that college coaches may attend.

And how many scouts and bird-dogs attend now?

"So many that we don't give out free media passes any more," Boo said. "It might be as many as 40 guys here."

Dave Telep, a staffer for the recruiting service Scout.com, is attending his 10th consecutive Boo Williams tournament. He said that Boo's event essentially begins his summer. He will spend nearly every weekend between now and mid-August on the road, at tournaments and camps all over the country.

"From where I started 10 years ago to where it is now is an amazing turnaround," Telep said. "Recruiting is a regular beat, and it doesn't have a season. It's not something that you cover for three months and then put away for nine months. You can monitor recruiting 365 days a year."

Telep filed daily updates from Boo's tournament on players and will file summaries next week.

"You're either in the mix of information yourself, or you're logging onto your computer and reading somebody else," he said.

Longtime scout Tom Konchalski said that the boom in scouting services is a product of increased interest in college basketball in general, coupled with the recent run of players who went directly from high school to the NBA before restrictions were passed in the last collective bargaining agreement.

"Most of the dot-coms are just recruiting sheets in terms of where kids are leaning and what schools they're going to visit and so on," Konchalski said. "They're not about evaluating players. Maybe they put a number next to a kid and say he's the No. 93 prospect in the country. But who knows who's the No. 93 player in the country? Only God knows and he's not telling us."

Konchalski, 59, is a self-described "dinosaur" who still types his reports on an electric typewriter in his Forest Hills, N.Y., apartment and sends out hard copies to more than 200 subscribers.

"Obviously, it's not instant information," he said. "The people who subscribe to my service, I think know that I've been around for a long time and have a track record. I'm honest and fair. I'm very conservative in my evaluations. I don't over-hype kids, because when you've been watching it for close to 50 years, you've seen a lot of great players."

HoopTV.net is one of several dozen video services, large and small, that have sprung up in recent years as recruiting tools, keepsakes, or some combination of the two.

At the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, the annual event for college seniors hoping to play professional basketball, a company called CollegeCoachesNetwork.com had a display table in the lobby outside the gym at Churchland High. Based out of Oklahoma, the company filmed every game at the PIT and provided free DVDs to each NBA team as a scouting aid.

The company's primary focus, however, is high school and junior-college recruiting. Schools and individuals can film their games, and the company will put those games online for a fee. Schools and athletes can even use it as a fund-raising tool, selling cards with individual user names to friends and relatives that will allow them access to the Web site to view the games.

"It's an easier way to get kids seen by college coaches," said Chris Waldschmidt, the company's director of information technology. "A high school coach might have to make 20 or 30 tapes to send out, but if you can provide a video link or send a coach a card to download video, that helps everyone."

Most coaches use the new technology, but they say that there is no substitute for personally watching players.

"All the scouting services are very valuable to us," William and Mary assistant Dee Vick said. "They're most valuable for getting names and then we do our own research. Hearing what somebody else thinks of a kid is worthwhile, but they don't know our needs. The majority of scouts didn't play college basketball, so they aren't always looking at a kid the way a coach might."

William and Mary has not delved into the DVD service and video stream scouting arenas yet. But that doesn't mean Tribe coaches are technology-averse.

One incoming recruit, 6-7 forward Danny Sumner from Paul VI in Fairfax, has highlight clips on the Internet.

"We tell kids about one of our recruits and say, 'You can check him out on the Web," " Vick said. "Maybe once they see him and see what kind of player he is, they're more likely to consider William and Mary."

HoopTV.net's Owens said, "A lot of coaches are creatures of habit. They subscribe to the written services and they have to go out and see kids. I think we're starting to change that dynamic a little bit. We give these guys a quality look at kids. We're not going to replace actually going out and seeing kids for yourself, but maybe we can help them travel smarter."

In an arrangement with tournament benefactor and athletic mega-giant Nike, the three-year-old company filmed every one of the 17-and-under boys games at Boo's annual spring event and will provide highlight DVDs to each team.

"I always knew there was value in this, it was just a question of getting it to the masses," said Fred Smith, HoopTV's head of West Coast operations and a man who has worked for almost 30 years as a TV editor and producer.

"The Internet and the technology finally allowed us to do it," he said. "I've been filming for years, but back in the '80s when you had betamax tapes and small screens, it wasn't possible."

The company's Internet guru, Don Freeman, was himself a local TV producer in North Carolina and runs a Web design business. He has helped elevate HoopTV.net's profile.

The company has a supplemental arrangement with Scout.com. Owens' and Smith's contacts have provided entree to various tournaments and events. They hire freelance camera people at most sites, and they are in the beginning phases of allowing individual players to build and update their own athletic and academic resumes for viewing by college coaches.

"It's a business," Smith said. "But we never want to lose focus that it's about helping people."

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