Recruiting isn’t necessarily easy for college coaches in the best of times.
Trying to do it while their schools and those of their targets are closed to deter the spread of COVID-19 makes it much more difficult — doesn’t it?
“That’s a hard question to answer,” said Southwest Mississippi Community College baseball coach Ken Jackson. “We have to go about it in different ways we never thought we’d try.”
The same is true for other organizations and the college at large.
“This is definitely a first for me in college recruitment,” said SMCC academic recruiter Karinlee Brister, who claims almost 13 years of experience in the field, nine of those at SMCC.
While she can’t visit groups of students at their schools and can’t host groups of students at Southwest, Brister said she is doing her best to stay in touch with them by phone and online.
“The students are so great, and they’ve lost their senior year,” she said. “I’m trying to get them every opportunity to get into school and make the transition as easy as possible.”
Brister said she is available to students as much as she can be under the circumstances. Her office phone number at SMCC, (601) 276-3849, forwards to her cell phone now.
She trades lots of emails with prospective students, and has met with incoming and prospective students on videoconferencing applications like Facetime and Zoom, including two students who were quarantined for 14 days after returning to Mississippi from New York City.
She has also worked extensively with other college administrators, faculty and organization sponsors and directors to help students get information, register and schedule summer or fall classes.
“My colleagues have been great,” Brister said. “I can email them and hear back almost instantly. I think it says a lot about our college with how well we work together.
“It’s been incredible to see how understanding and helpful everybody is during this time.”
She said she enjoys recruiting for a school rated first in the state and 15th in the nation, as well as a school that — attractively in these days of campus closure — has been rated tops in the nation at providing classes online.
Still, she misses conducting tours on campus.
“This is probably one of the most beautiful campuses I’ve seen,” Brister said. “This is the time of year when it’s in bloom and so green. I miss showing off the campus. I can’t wait to do that when we open back up.
“I’m very much a people person. I’m ready to get back out there.”
School organizations and activities are adapting to prime recruitment time being affected by the pandemic closure, as well.
The school’s Redline dance squad, sponsored by Lauren Woodworth — also the director of housing and student activities — conducted auditions by video submissions.
Instead of having two on-campus clinics and then in-person tryouts, Woodworth emailed exact instructions to this year’s applicants, sent videos of the music for the fight song and another song they were to dance to, and instructions for the dances. Applicants also had to do splits and a pirouette, plus a jump of their choice.
Woodworth said auditioning by video didn’t seem to deter any of the applicants.
“This age group is very tech-savvy,” she said. “It didn’t bother them at all. In this world of technology, that’s just their daily life.”
The format also helped the judges, she said.
“You could tell the ones who followed the instructions,” Woodworth said. “It was easy to see if they really followed the instructions, or tweaked them to do how they wanted.
“The judges were able to look at the moves again and make sure the kids did what they were supposed to. In person, the judges might have missed something.”
The auditions resulted in a Redline squad of 20 — nine freshmen and 11 sophomores, including eight returning members — that will cheer at home football and basketball games, as well as selected road games.
Woodworth said this year’s auditions actually brought in more applicants than usual, as 29 prospective members sent in videos. The previous year, around 20 applications were received, and 16 made the squad.
Back at the baseball diamond, Jackson said this year’s seniors are actually in good shape.
“Most of the players we’re going to have next year, we’ve seen already,” he said. “The ones who are going to be hurt are the 2021 and 2022 seniors. We haven’t seen them as much.
“Last summer and the last school year, that’s where we got most of our information on next year’s (incoming) class.”
Like other groups, the baseball team has been talking to their coaches and each other through FaceTime and Zoom, Jackson said, as well as “a lot of text messaging.”
He said he feared the team would lose its fall practice and scrimmage season in September and October, but hoped the conditions caused by the pandemic would be improved by then.
“This is completely different from anything we’ve ever dealt with,” Jackson said. “But it’s the same everywhere, and everybody is dealing with it.”
