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Sports

Elite local athletes tackle the high-pressure world of college recruiting

By Alan Siegel
asiegel@eagletribune.com
Published: October 5, 2008

11They've all been here before, in a near empty, high school gym at 6:30 a.m., watching a teenager show off his skills. The see-and-be-seen routine is just part of the job these days.

"Everyone's afraid they're going to miss out on somebody," Rutgers head coach Fred Hill says in a thick Jersey accent.

Central Catholic junior Carson Desrosiers, this morning's object of affection, is hard to miss. The 6-foot-10, 220-pound center has already been offered scholarships by New Hampshire, Fordham, Oregon State, Massachusetts, Providence and Syracuse. As his Mass Rivals AAU coach Vin Pastore leads him through a series of drills, it's easy to see why. He has long arms, broad shoulders and a deft shooting touch.

First-year coach UMass coach Derek Kellogg doesn't need the large Dunkin' Donuts iced he's toting to fuel his excitement. Desrosiers, a Windham, N.H., resident, is a building block carved from local stone.

The recruiting scene, Kellogg says, hasn't changed much since he was a point guard at Springfield (Mass.) Central High and UMass in the early 1990s. Sure schools were interested, but he never got this kind of attention.

"I wasn't that good a player," says Kellogg, who hopes the search for the next Marcus Camby isn't an eternal one.

For now, his heart-to-heart with Desrosiers must wait. NCAA regulations prohibit interaction between player and coach at preseason workouts. Strict guidelines are seemingly necessary for the all-consuming recruiting process. Being wooed by colleges is an exhilarating and exhausting exercise, one that the region's small group of highly touted athletes knows well.

"It's quite a game," Jamie D'Innocenzo says.

Her son, Nick, a senior at Andover High, is happy to play it. He's a champion swimmer, but his final college list could belong to a top-flight quarterback. Should he pick Georgia, Florida, Auburn or Texas?

The decision will come soon, he says. First, he's soaking in each campus.

"I've got a lot of friends in different positions," says Nick, who flew to Texas for an official visit Thursday. "I totally appreciate that this doesn't happen to a lot of kids. I'm really blessed."

The recruiting pitch

At a swim meet this summer, D'Innocenzo felt like a mini-celebrity. A small pack of coaches followed him around like paparazzi. They weren't pushy, but they were persistent. And like the college hoop coaches watching Desrosiers last week, they were chummy.

"They all know each other," Jamie says. "He'd be talking to one, and another would kiddingly go up and say, 'Excuse me, am I interrupting?'"

Long-time Andover High girls swim coach Marilyn Fitzgerald has seen it before.

"It's a well-oiled machine, the recruiting process," she says.

Her granddaughter Connie Brown, an Andover High grad who swam at Texas, got hounded by coaches for months. At one point, they'd call Fitzgerald asking odd questions. What was her social life like? Did she have a boyfriend?

Get in with grandma, they figured, get in with Connie. It didn't work. But that didn't stop them from incessantly calling.

"Until that decision is made," says Fitzgerald, who at one point was screening Brown's calls, "you don't even want to answer."

The key is to expect the deluge. Every time Desrosiers returns home, his mother Debi asks if any coaches contacted him. If one did — at this point a college coach is allowed one call a month — she makes sure to write it down.

At times, it feels like the pursuit is unending. If coaches are interested in a kid, they won't let up.

"They will call," Desrosiers' father Andrew says, enunciating each word.

That's not to say it can't be fun. Fellow Central Catholic junior Katie Zenevitch, who last month made a verbal commitment to Boston College, choosing the Chestnut Hill campus over West Virginia, Providence, Holy Cross, Northeastern and Marist, has received hundreds of pieces of mail over the past few years.

She remembers opening one package containing puzzle pieces. After putting it together, she realized the design on the completed puzzle spelled out, "You are the missing piece."

D'Innocenzo attended an Auburn football game during an official visit last month. A few years ago, Brown walked across the field at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. When she toured the swimming facilities, her nameplate was already attached to the top of a locker.

Creativity and showmanship can be effective, but so is pure star power. Of all the coaches who have swung through Memorial Gymnasium to watch Desrosiers - that includes assistants from Stanford, Virginia, Pittsburgh, UNLV, Marquette and Purdue head coach Matt Painter - none has the resume of Jim Boeheim.

The Syracuse head coach, a Basketball Hall of Famer with 750 wins and a national title to his credit, spent a few hours on Hampshire Street last month.

Says Desrosiers, who's still far from a decision: "I was pumped about that."

Weeding out the truth

Things have changed, Doc Rivers says.

"First off, they recruit you at 'this' age," he says, lowering his hand to the height of a small child.

His 15-year-old son Austin, a 6-foot-3 sophomore shooting guard at Winter Park (Fla.) High, has already verbally committed to Florida. He's the youngest player ever to do so in Billy Donovan's coaching career.

"I hadn't talked to a coach going into my junior year," says Rivers, a former schoolboy All-American at Proviso East (Ill.) who went on to Marquette and eventually the NBA. "So it's completely changed."

Rivers is pretty sure it's for the better.

"I think the kids are thinking about it at an earlier age," he says. "When you do it early like that, you know where you're going. The college kind of knows how to build around (you). Instead, if you don't (commit early), they just try to sign every guy they can."

In reality, an Austin Rivers is extremely rare. "The exception rather than the rule," Fred Hill says.

The luxury of choosing an entrée from a four-star menu of schools isn't afforded to many. That's why Desrosiers does his research. After coaches contact him, he scours the internet for facts.

Who else are they recruiting? Are there big men already on the roster? What are the academics really like?

"It's hard on a kid in Carson's position," says Central boys basketball coach Rick Nault, who receives several phone calls and 20-25 e-mails from college coaches every day. "Every coach tells him what he wants to hear. Between him and his family, they kind of need to weed out what's the truth and what's not."

And if the pressure gets to be too much, it's OK to take a step back. It's OK to relax, to concentrate on something other than your sport once in a while.

Rivers, who also has a son who plays at Indiana and a daughter who is a volleyball star at Florida, finds the sheer number of national AAU tournaments to be ridiculous.

"It's funny," he says, "I'll say, 'Let's stay home this weekend.' But (the kids) all want to play. But I don't know if they know what's good for them at times."

Zenevitch loves basketball. But a hoop-free family vacation in August was just what she needed.

"You have to get away from it," says Zenevitch, who plays volleyball in the fall. "You need some time, too."

'It can be pretty wild'

Sometimes, being nice doesn't work. Some coaches are too persistent to shoo away politely.

"The hardest thing, and the kids have to speak to this," Fitzgerald says, "is standing up and saying, 'Please don't call so often.' They don't want to hurt the coaches' feelings."

Yes, talented athletes have many options. But it's still not an easy process.

"It's a wonderful position to be in," Fitzgerald says. "On the other hand, if no one's walked you through it, it can be pretty wild."

D'Innocenzo, a talkative and thoughtful teenager, is purposely playing his decision close to the vest. His mother Jamie did not give exact amounts, but she says each of his top four schools have made excellent scholarship offers. At this point, he's not about to give anybody an edge.

All he knows is that he wants to go to a place where he can wear shorts and a T-shirt on most days.

"I don't ever want to see snow ever again," says D'Innocenzo, who solidified his status as one of the nation's top recruits by placing 15th in the 200 individual medley at the Olympic Trials in July. "I'm a swimmer. I have no time to go skiing anymore. Why be in the north and not be able to enjoy it?"

Wherever he ends up, there will be an adjustment period. The same goes for Zenevitch and Desrosiers.

"I always tell my kids, when you're going to the next level," Central girls basketball coach Sue Downer says, "you're back down at the bottom of the totem pole."

Right now, Desrosiers is still at the top, towering over everybody, including the coaches here to see him Thursday morning. He kills the Mikan drill, making layups from both sides of the basket at breakneck speed.

As he finishes his workout, students in Central Catholic polo shirts trickle in. Weary Marquette assistant coach Aki Collins can't help but laugh. He flew in late Wednesday evening. His flight back to Milwaukee leaves in a few short hours.

"If I had to be here (as a student) at 7:30," Collins says, "I'd be late every day."

Collins says he'll back. Desrosiers is only a junior.

"It's early," Kellogg says as the morning sky brightens, "and it's early."

As workout partners Jimmy Zenevitch (Katie's talented younger brother) and Billy Marsden walk off the court, Desrosiers flashes a smile to his visitors, who aren't allowed to engage him in deep conversation this early in the process.

So the coaches stand still along the gym's imaginary starting line, wishing they could sprint like Usain Bolt but realizing they must pace themselves. After all, the race is just beginning.

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