This article originally appeared on 5/27 on IrishToday.com

COACH MATTISON DISCUSSES MAY RECRUITING
by Rick Schutt

The May evaluation period is now over for the Notre Dame coaching staff, just in time for the coaches to take a breather and enjoy the Holiday weekend with their families.
 
"Planes, Trains and Automobiles" might be the proper title for how a college coach travels during the month of May. Irish defensive line coach Greg Mattison estimates that he spent 20 days on the road during the four-week period that coaches are able to visit recruits.

On average, Mattison visited 6-8 schools per day. Simple math and that adds up to over 120 schools during the month.

"Planning is everything," Mattison said.  "For instance, you have to know when a particular school is practicing, there's nothing worse then going to a school and finding out that a practice has been canceled," Mattison said.
 
Mattison, known as a tireless recruiter, has Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota as states that he recruits as well as the city of Dallas. It all starts in January where a list of some 300 players is established and by the end of spring Mattison will have his target list down to about 50 players he'll go after.
 
As always, academics come first when recruiting at Notre Dame.

"It's critical to get an academic transcript of an athlete before hand so we don't waste a trip," Mattison said. "The thing you have to realize is that Notre Dame isn't going to change, it's always the same." 

If a prospect lacks certain core classes he is then informed on what he needs to do to be eligible for Notre Dame. That's the point in time where some prospects choose to look elsewhere or do what it takes to keep up with Notre Dame requirements.
 
The upcoming week of May 27 thru May 31st will be spent tying up recruiting. The Irish staff has collected highlight tapes and physically evaluated the recruits in person. They have the transcripts and will send them to Notre Dame admissions. The whole staff will watch film of the recruits and rank them right down the line by position and set up a recruiting board just like they do on NFL draft day. If the recruit can't be admitted to Notre Dame, he comes off that board.
 
The next step in recruiting will be the summer football camp in June. It's a big deal to get recruits to come to Notre Dame and see the facilities and the campus in the summertime. At any point, a recruit can make a verbal commitment.

"You would love to go into the season with a number of them (verbal commitments)," Mattison said. "One thing we won't do is offer guys who aren't Notre Dame kids. When we do offer, it's truly a guy we want at Notre Dame."


***********************************************
COLLEGE FOOTBALL AND THE SUMMER DILEMMA
by Coach Tom Pagna

The NCAA has faced many dilemmas in ruling collegiate athletics and from time to time they have adjusted their rules to better solidify fairness and expediency.  Having high school recruits sign a letter of intent over a designated period of time, is an example that narrowed the stress of recruit and recruiters.  Still, there are many discrepancies within the system that foster inequity.

Reading this in May, you realize that the school year is over and all major collegiate football teams have concluded their spring practices.  Most will resume that practice in August.  The NCAA legislates how many days of practice a team may have prior to their season's opener.

Here's where a major loophole in fairness, equity and consistency exists.  Let's suppose that, as an under classman, school ends for you in late May.  That will allow you June, July and nearly all of August to claim a summer job.  Let's also suppose that a 40-hour per week job at $10.00 per hour (if that) multiplied by 10 or 12 weeks can gross a laborer roughly $4,000 to $5,000.  When it is netted out it is realistically closer to $3,000.  That money, frugally tended, can allow you one year's worth of money to date, call home, buy an occasional pizza, eat out, buy new clothes, purchase a Christmas gift or whatever.  For many years, that's how it was done.  I never want to live my life living in the past.  All things and circumstances change, and "that was then and this is now".

But the needs are still there.  Most, or a large percentage of athletes receiving a "scholarship" (more realistically, a grant in aid), could not afford the price of (1) Books, (2) Room, (3) Board, (4) Tuition plus personal spending money.

Because of the huge money machine that collegiate athletics generate, god-fathered by the T.V. and radio networks, a great deal of minor sports can be paid by the income produced by a school's major ones.
 
Is it any wonder that the clamor for great recruiting classes, facilities, successful and winning programs is unrelenting?

To compete in the top categories and do it successfully ensures financial success in many ways.  For the university, it can mean a certain image, newer and better buildings and programs, a greater receptiveness by would-be students.  To the coaches go inflated salaries, putting them on a par with some C.E.O. and
captains of industry.  Much of this is disdained and envied by professors who have spent their lives in research of a particular discipline that in most cases, aids humanity.

How to compete with the ever spiraling desire to win championships becomes the Holy Grail not for just coaches, but also the university per se.  So much so, is this the fact, that a talented athlete not quite ready for prime time, is "red shirted".   That is, "held back" a year for experience and physical maturity.   That began as equity and justice if the athlete received an injury and lost a year of eligibility.  The decision of a school's athletic board voted on each case.

No such presumption is needed today.  A coach can arbitrarily make this decision with the athlete's consent.

Here is the "Kicker and the crux" of the dilemma.  To better facilitate the players budgeting of time, a lesser schedule of classes is slated during the season of his or her sport.  "No problem," coaches echo.  "We'll keep him/her on campus through the summer.  They'll take a few make-up courses and be at ease to work out on the practice field, gym, pool, whatever."

Sounds good, sounds fair, but is it?

On average, about 55 out of 90 football players remain in summer school under this plan.   They'll have access to weight rooms, tutors, maybe even a coach hiding in the shadows. (Supervised coaching is a no-no in the off season.)

Yes, everyone in athletics is concerned for the athlete.  No, nobody wants to use steroids or other illegal additives, but in the weight room that 220-pound freshman is well on his way to a graduate 300 pounds.

College was never meant to be just a feeder system for the professional leagues.   Long after the body declines and arthritis sets in, the mind functions.   Education has been the armor of people, first, last and always.  One twisted knee, one dislocated shoulder, one over-worked heart, etc, etc, is all that separates one a player from becoming a spectator.  To parents, the education is everything.   Lucky, the player that realizes this at an early age.

Through all this, the player survives.  He takes six or nine hours of summer classes and works out in his free time.  He or she gains their muscle, their strength and size, their expertise.  The summer ends and the pageantry of fall semester begins. Remember that they worked no summer job.  Their parents are barely making ends meet for their siblings who didn't win a "scholarship".  Dead broke, but assured of room, food, tuition and books, where does this athlete turn and remain legal?   Remember President of the University, Athletic Director, Coach. you're asking this for four consecutive years and possibly five.

Enter Joe Alumni, loyal, financially successful, loves athletics.  "Hey kid. let's make a deal.  For every home game I'll give you $100 a piece for every ticket!"  A senior is entitled to 4 home game tickets.  If he's lucky and they go to a post season game, it'll be a bonus.  Thus, we allow the athlete to be coerced into what amounts to illegality.

When some advocates to the NCAA pleaded to discipline this activity and allow a player a monthly stipend to live on, the word was out that, "they were getting enough through the scholarship".  Through the millions of dollars generated from collegiate athletics, a player's stipend does not seem unjustifiable.

Red shirting, summer classes and lightened schedules are not allowing the collegiate experience, the campus and social life that has proven its value.

With this dilemma, I don't know what is exactly right or wrong, but the present system spawns inequity and "Win at all costs" seems too costly.

In my personal coaching experience, I've witnessed the return of athletes from their summer jobs and their stay at home vacations.  They returned in great shape, rejuvenated and thirsty to compete.  It is a measurement inaccessible to the stop watch or tape measure.  Athletics stress the physical, mental and emotional if one is to succeed.  All three of these are contained in a verifiable break in an otherwise drudge of routine.

Maybe modern times and coaches must re-learn this lesson.