Season 1: Episode 12 Transcript
Playbook for Athletic Recruitment
Lee Coffin:
Hello, everyone from snowy Hanover, New Hampshire. So the Winter Olympics are underway, and eight athletes are representing Dartmouth in Beijing: in Alpine and Nordic skiing, biathlon and women's ice hockey as members of Team USA and Team Canada, and that's really exciting, but it gives us a moment meant to think about the role of athletics in the college admission process and the idea of athleticism as a type of merit for applicants.
So I've invited my colleague, Peter Roby, Dartmouth's interim athletic director, to join us on this week's pod. Peter will tangle with Charlotte Albright in the newsroom as she quizzes us about some recent headlines at the intersection of admissions and athletics, and then Peter and I will offer a roundtable primer on athletic recruiting for any of you high school juniors, who might be thinking about that very specific type of college search. So, lots to cover, let's get started.
(music)
So, welcome to Admission Beat newsroom. Hi, Charlotte. How are you this week?
Charlotte Albright:
I am doing well, thank you.
Lee Coffin:
Charlotte and I are joined by our guest, Peter Roby, who is the interim director of athletics at Dartmouth, and one of my new besties in the administration. Hi, Peter, it's nice to see you.
Peter Roby:
Thank you, Lee. Great to see you. Charlotte, great to meet you and work with you today.
Lee Coffin:
So we've asked Peter to join us in newsroom as well as roundtable, because there's headlines that swirl around all things athletics. We're going to touch on that. But by way of introducing Peter, he's been with us at Dartmouth for the past year, but previously had been the director of at Northeastern University in Boston and for a while was the head men's basketball coach at Harvard.
So Peter comes at us both as a coach and as an AD in this Division I space. So I'm excited to have you in newsroom and help Charlotte think about some of the headlines. Charlotte, what are you seeing on the admission beat this week?
Charlotte Albright:
Wow, a big headline-
Lee Coffin:
A big headline.
Charlotte Albright:
A big headline. Well, somewhere in the last week of January, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear a challenge to the consideration of race in college admissions, taking up lawsuits claiming that Harvard and the University of North Carolina discriminate against Asian American applicants. So there it is, that whole idea of race as one of the many, many factors that might be involved in making decisions keeps coming up. Surprised, Lee, are you?
Lee Coffin:
No, I mean, this has been bubbling its way through the legal system for several years, and it always seemed likely that it would be on the Supreme Court's docket sooner or later. So here we are, and it's not the first time the Supreme Court will rule on this question of the use of race in college admissions. So there were a couple of cases from the University of Michigan in the early 2000s, and the University of Texas more recently, and these two are high profile, and it brings the question of race as one factor among many back into this conversation about college admissions.
So it's a big deal. The ruling has the potential to upend a policy that's been in place for many years. But the thing I keep saying when people ask me, am I worried? I say, "Well, I never like to see a policy removed, but policies do come and go." It doesn't mean the principle of diversity on our campuses is up for debate. It means the way we create a diverse campus needs to be reconsidered if the Supreme Court lands in that space.
So I think the next several months will be important to watch the way the arguments unfold, and the way colleges, and I assume Dartmouth will be one of them, file amicus briefs with the Supreme Court to support the policies at Harvard and Chapel hill, and then we'll wait to see what the ruling is.
Charlotte Albright:
Yeah, and it would be a big deal. It would be a reversal, because the University of Texas won that case, and as we speak now, it is okay for race to be one of many factors in consideration. So The Hechinger Report is reporting that some admissions directors are, in their words, freaking out. They're not as calm as you're sounding.
Lee Coffin:
I tend to-
Charlotte Albright:
What would you say to them?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I try not to freak out, just as an operating proposition; you've got to keep a cool head, and like I just said, keep your focus on the principle and the value of a diverse undergraduate community. That's not negotiable. That doesn't go away because affirmative action might be outlawed. It just means the path to the campus we imagine has to be designed in a new way, with different variables.
So one of the things that... You know, you said, does it surprise me? In the 2003 ruling for the University of Michigan, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor upheld the use of race as one factor among many, but said that she imagined this policy would no longer be necessary in 25 years. So, 2003 plus 25 brings us to 2028. So even without this particular lawsuit, the sunset clause in the Grutter and Gratz ruling is nearing, and it doesn't mean it would be activated, but she signal that within a 25-year window, this could be revisited. So here we are, couple years earlier than that, but it is not a surprise that this topic has returned to the court's attention.
Charlotte Albright:
And what's really interesting is, assuming they hear it for this particular session, it may be one of the last big rulings that Steven Breyer is involved in, since he's just announced he's retiring next year. And Biden has, of course, announced that he would keep his campaign promise and nominate a black woman. So all this adds layers of complication and interest.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and the Breyer departure probably doesn't change the outcome of the ultimate decision. I don't think he is one of the variables in terms of how he would vote on this one, but we'll see. Peter, as you listen to this, you're in athletics, not in admissions, but do you have any reaction to this lawsuit as it moves through?
Peter Roby:
Well, sure. I mean, as a person of color, I have a reaction to it, because what I find to be interesting is that for hundreds of years, race was used in excluding people from access. And now when the country has tried to redo those wrongs, it becomes more of an issue again.
So I think context is really important in any of these types of things, and the reason that we got to this point, or got to a point where people wanted to use race as one of the factors in considering admission is because for many years, race had been used in the opposite way.
Lee Coffin:
Right.
Peter Roby:
And many people were excluded from access to higher education at certain institutions because of the color of their skin or their ethnicity, or in some cases, their gender.
Lee Coffin:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peter Roby:
So we just have to make sure that people keep that in mind. Context is really important, and if we're thinking that we're at a point in time in the country's history where that no longer is needed because we're doing so well with it, I would beg to differ, and I think most people that are being completely transparent would agree.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, that's really well said. You can write our amicus brief, because I think you put a nice clarity and purpose on the topic.
Charlotte Albright:
So, Peter Roby, I'm going to ask you a question about athletics, with the proviso that I know almost nothing about athletics, as my family will tell you. I cross-country ski occasionally, and when I was in high school, I was on a swimming team, and that's about the extent of my knowledge of college athletics. I can assure you nobody would've recruited me.
However, as you know, last June, the Supreme Court—it's been busy—ruled unanimously that the NCAA can't limit education-related benefits like computers or paid internships that some colleges offer their sports stars, which the AP said was a victory for athletes that could help open door to further easing in the decades-old fight over paying student athletes.
And then in September, it would seem, anyway, and The Chronicle reported this, that college athletes got one step closer to being recognized as employees when the National Labor Relations Board General Counsel said certain college players are employees and should be protected by labor laws. So this is all Greek to me. Maybe you can help me out, understand how important this is.
Peter Roby:
Well, it has a chance to be very important, because it could change the whole dynamic of the relationship between a college and its athletes or its students that participate in athletics, from being an amateur pursuit with benefits that accrue as a result of their participation, and now would transition to a situation where it would actually be more of a pay-for-play, so that colleges could decide how much they think you're worth based on your contributions to that particular team.
So, for me, as someone who is a product of an Ivy League education at Dartmouth College, and then coached in the League for many years, and other very highly selective colleges and universities, I don't agree and subscribe to the notion that our student athletes should be employees, because that completely changes the dynamic. They're supposed to be pursuing their education. They're supposed to be doing it as a co-curricular activity.
So we're losing the focus on what this whole pursuit was supposed to be about. It was supposed to be about helping people gain access to higher education to prepare themselves for a career and a life of achievement and fulfillment because of what they learned and how they developed when they were in college.
And the more we keep talking about compensation, the more the conversation slips from that noble pursuit of development and education to one about compensation. And we'd be naïve if we don't talk about the fact that part of the reason we've gotten here is because there is a fairly small percentage of the over 1,100 institutions that make up the NCAA in Divisions I, II and III, who have generated enough revenue that they compensate their coaches as if they were professional coaches. So you have coaches in some of the major conferences in the country that are making upwards of 10 million a year.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Peter Roby:
Plus bonuses, while people suggest that their student athletes are not getting anything, quote, unquote. So what that tells you is that they're minimizing the value of an education because they're equating getting something with monetary compensation because their coaches are being compensated so well, and it's an optic that's hard for the folks at those particular schools to justify.
So that that's the issue in a nutshell, and if student athletes become compensated for a pay-to-play, they become employees, and they're subject to withholding taxes and all the things that go with being an employee. So I guess they could collectively bargain, but they also could be fired if they don't perform at a certain level.
So they get taxed on their income. They're no longer considered amateurs. So if I recruit you and you don't perform, on Monday I could fire you, in essence, because it's no longer about you being a student athlete, it's now about you being an employee. So that dynamic has a chance to really not be in the favor of the student, and so we have to be thoughtful about all of those unintended consequences.
Lee Coffin:
So, Peter, this is not a headline I've seen this week, like Charlotte trolls the internet and comes to me with like, "Look what I just found." But there is an ongoing story that started in the fall of 2019 called Varsity Blues, where there was a scandal involving parents and coaches. The conspiracy was parents with some coaches pretending that the students were recruited athletes when they were not, and it's gone to court and some parents have pled guilty and gotten fines. Others have been found guilty.
And I'm wondering, as an AD and as a former coach, how you look at this. I mean, do you think there's a permanent stain on college athletics and admissions? Because that I continue to get questions about it from the admission side, about, is this all on the up and up? And I'm quick to point out that whatever happened didn't happen under the umbrella of admissions. It happened nearby, but not in my shop. But what's your sense of where we are on that scandal, and the impact it might be having two years later?
Peter Roby:
Yeah. I do think that there's certainly a reputational price that you pay as an industry whenever you have a controversy that gets this much attention, even though when those of us that know anything about how this all works could tell you that, based on the number of incidences that have been raised, given a number of these kinds of admissions transactions, if you will, about kids being recruited out of high school or junior college, going to a four-year institution and being admitted, the number is so minuscule compared to the overall volume of these types of things that happen, that it's not fair to paint the entire industry with that broad brush-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I agree, yeah.
Peter Roby:
... reputationally. But it is what it is, and the NCAA is facing a similar type of broad-based industry reputational attack because of the transgressions or the extreme issues at some small percentage of the schools within the NCAA, and this is another example of that.
So there is a reputational impact that will wane over time, but just like what happened when we had the terrible issues that were uncovered at Penn State with minors on campus being abused by people that were associated with the college, and in this case associated with the athletic department, everybody then took a really close lens to their policies and procedures around minors on campus. So everybody's policies are now reflective of that. Can't be alone with minors. They have to be accompanied. Background checks for anybody that's taking minors on campus. So we benefited from the unfortunate set of circumstances that Penn State was involved in.
I think this is going to be another one of those things. It's going to be a chance for everybody to level-set what their policies and procedures are when it comes to admissions. I know within the Dartmouth athletics department, you've got sport administrators who are in touch with our coaches and are liaisons with admission, who are validating and confirming by a videotape, transcript, information on the web, newspaper articles, that this person is a real person that is being recruited for valid athletic and academic credentials.
But those are the kinds of things that have probably ratcheted up over the years, because I think Varsity Blues to me is a example of laziness on the part of those institutions, or a laissez-faire attitude, where they just gave athletics a certain number of positions and didn't bother to be thorough about credentials and confirming that these people were really athletes of the first order, and abuses were experienced. And I think now the industry's going to be much more inclined to trust, but verify, as Ronald Reagan used to say.
Lee Coffin:
You just dated yourself.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, I sure did.
Lee Coffin:
But I think it's an interesting example, though, of, out of crisis comes some positive forward momentum, and I think that's important to remember.
Peter Roby:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
So just to end newsroom on a positive, upbeat note, so I was noticing as the Olympics kicked off that there are eight Dartmouth athletes competing in Beijing right now, and you smile as I say that. Tell us about that. That's exciting. We're such a tiny place, and yet there are eight athletes on the US and Canadian teams.
Peter Roby:
Yeah. I mean, it's just a wonderful confirmation of the quality of the types of people that come to Dartmouth and pursue their dreams, their hopes and aspirations, of all kinds, and I think that's really important for all of us within the Dartmouth community to appreciate, that... And to the point that we were talking about earlier, about the data points that admissions uses when they think about admitting people, that what people bring to this community is going to be diverse and varied. And it's not just about their academic interests and curiosities and talents, but it's about all the things that make them who they are and make this community so vibrant and valuable.
So you have athletes that have gone to Dartmouth, matriculated at Dartmouth and have pursued their dreams, and now those dreams are coming true on the highest, largest stage. So, what a great thing for Dartmouth, to have people with this much talent and this much commitment to represent their country in the Olympic Games, and just really proud of all of them, proud of the coaches that helped them, proud of the college for viewing them the way they did in terms of their admission and how they supported them throughout their journey, and how we continue to be proud of them many years after they've graduated.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, no, it's exciting. I don't think most people in the country would immediately think Dartmouth, Olympics, and yet in the Winter Games, anyway, we've had a... We're like Norway, we've had a remarkably consistent degree of representation in the Games for a place of our size.
Charlotte Albright:
It snows a lot here.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Charlotte Albright:
And not only does it snow a lot, which is perfect for the kind of sports we're talking about, it's one of the very few, maybe one of the only ones, Peter, Ivy League schools that owns its own ski slope.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, that's…
Charlotte Albright:
I mean, right there…
Lee Coffin:
It helps when you have mountains around you.
Peter Roby:
Probably a pretty good bet, yeah.
Lee Coffin:
That's a fun way to end newsroom. So, Charlotte, thanks for those headlines. When we come back, Peter and I will take a step backwards or maybe sideways, and think about the path from high school to college athletics. We'll be right back.
(music)
So this week's roundtable brings us to an important and very specific part of college admission, which is the intersection of athletics and selective admissions. And I wanted to offer a resource to high school students and their parents who might be thinking this is a possibility, but they have no idea how to start.
And Peter, I had this thought over the holidays when my dad was in Columbus visiting my stepsister, and she has a son who's going to be a senior in high school, a very talented soccer player at a public high school. And she's like, "He wants to play in college. I have no idea how to start that process." So I thought, we need to pod about this.
So, with your background, you've been an administrator in two places. You've also been a coach. So, maybe we should just start at the very fundamental level first, and say, like you're Dana, she's got Gabriel, trying to figure out how to help him meet coaches, tell his story. How does someone begin this conversation with a college?
Peter Roby:
Yeah. Well, I mean, high school coaches can be really helpful and club coaches can be really helpful because many of them have those networks of college coaches who they may have been involved with in the past, with former players. So the first thing to do is have a conversation with your coach, to say, "I'm interested in potentially playing this sport when I get to college," and, "Can you help me by making contact with any of the colleges that I might be interested in attending to let them know that I'm on your team, what you know about me, how you would rate me in terms of a prospect?"
So that's the first place that I would encourage high school students to go, especially because the high school coach is going to have, or the club coach is going to have a lot of, I think, a lot of traction and juice with college coaches, because college coaches don't want to offend a high school coach by not taking a call, by not responding to an email. So I would say that that's the first thing.
The second thing I would suggest is, nowadays, technology is so much more a part of the recruiting process than it was back when I was either going to school or when I was coaching, because we didn't have the internet, we didn't have YouTube, and all the kinds of technologies that kids have now at their disposal.
So, sending coaches a short clip of your highlights, or game film, or directing them to a website where they can see a bunch of things about you, your profile, your academic background, and maybe some highlights of you playing in high school or on your club team. That's another way to get coaches to take more of an interest in you and know more about you.
And given all that's happened the last, almost three years now, calendar years, with COVID, coaches are much more likely and willing to start their recruiting process by having seen something of your talents online as they would've before when many people were relying on face-to-face and in-person evaluations, either in the summer at tournaments, or at your high school games. So that would be a way to start the process, and then it can broaden from there.
Lee Coffin:
And that's a really interesting, unexpected democratization of athletic recruiting as a byproduct of the pandemic.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, no doubt.
Lee Coffin:
We've seen that on the admission side too, where, when we would travel, you can only go to so many places, but as we've put more of our recruiting on this virtual platform, it has removed geography as a condition of having a conversation in person. And all of a sudden, the pool has shifted in ways none of us were really expecting.
So, pragmatically, Peter, so great first two steps. When does that happen? When should a student and a parent, and a coach, but really a student and a parent, when do they start doing this? When they're juniors? When they're sophomores? Does it depend on the sport?
Peter Roby:
Yeah, it might depend on the sport to some extent, but I would say certainly by the time you're a junior, and you might have video from your summer between your sophomore and junior year if you feel like it's impressive enough to get people's attention. But certainly at some point in your junior year, you should be reaching out to folks, talking with your high school coach or your club coach, and asking them to help you to strategize about the types of places that you're interested in maybe attending, and idea of trying to have a chance to participate in college athletics.
The other thing is, if you are within a drive of some of these schools, then try to get yourself to those schools and take what they consider to be an unofficial visit. Maybe go through the admissions tour with your family. And then, if you get the chance, let the coaches know that you're going to be there so that they don't necessarily have to spend any money or do anything in particular, but just greet you. And maybe at that point, you put a face with a name, you make a connection, and then you follow up with video or other things that might help them to better appreciate the type of player that you are, and so [crosstalk 00:28:37]-
Lee Coffin:
And that can all happen in 11th grade?
Peter Roby:
Yeah, I think 11th grade is the right time to do that. So much, as you know, Lee, changes between the time you're a sophomore and the time you're a senior in high school, in terms of what you're interested in studying, the types of places you might want to go to school, the geography that you might be interested in, and the dynamics of the team that you might be interested in joining. Half the team might be gone by when you go from being a sophomore to a senior in high school and then ultimately get to the campus. So I've always been concerned about the early recruiting, because I think so much changes on the part of the student in terms of what they're interested in, or them as a person…
Lee Coffin:
And Peter, sorry to interrupt you, but when you talk about early recruiting, what does that mean?
Peter Roby:
That's a situation where somebody is making a decision of where to attend school when they're a sophomore in high school.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Peter Roby:
Because they may be good enough that the coaches think they would like you to come there and participate. But there's so much that's going to change.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
Between your interests, your development, the dynamics on the team. The coaching staff may not even be the same coaching staff by the time you're ready to attend. I mean, that's almost three years, from the time you're a sophomore until the time you matriculate, and a lot can change in that situation. So I would just say it's better to do these types of things as you get closer to when you're actually going to be wanting to go to school there, so you know more about what it is that you're interested in.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and I would think developmentally, too. I mean, I see high school students and 15-year-olds and 17-year-olds don't always look like the same person.
Peter Roby:
My goodness, so much so, and as a coach, you're projecting what you think that 15-year-old is going to be when they're 17-and-a-half or 18.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
But what happens if it doesn't happen? And now all of a sudden you've made a commitment to a place, nobody else has recruited you because you've come out and said you're attending X university, and now X university may not be as interested in you as they once were. So you don't want to box yourself in. So I think parents and students need to resist the temptation to try to lock it in so that they don't have to worry about it anymore, quote, unquote. Because I think if you're talented enough, there's going to be a place for you that you can attend that will allow you to pursue your interests in terms of college athletics.
Lee Coffin:
And is senior year too late? Because I know a lot of people from less sophisticated backgrounds, they're in a high school that this is not the norm, or just my own college search, I didn't really start thinking about it until the fall of my senior year. I mean, that's a long time ago, and it's kind of a different admission environment. But I know a lot of people who, it's September, they're seniors, and they think, "Oh, now I have to start." So that feels late for athletic recruiting.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, I would say it's late in terms of how the industry works now. But I'll tell you this, if you're good enough, it's never too late.
Lee Coffin:
Never too late.
Peter Roby:
You know? I mean, if a young person has a skill, there's going to be a college out there that would love to have you participate on their teams, and you just have to bet on yourself.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
And I think it's also why it's important that you think about your college interest for more than just the athletics, so that you're making choices about where you really can see yourself fitting in with the people, with the geography, with the offerings academically, and the extracurriculars, and so that if it doesn't always work out athletically, you still are at the place you really wanted to be.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
And one of the things I think that's contributed to the amount of transfers that happen in athletics is because young people are making decisions when they're 15 years old, 16 years old, and then they get someplace and it's not the place they thought they wanted to be, and now they're looking to go elsewhere because they're disenchanted with their experience.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. No, that's really good advice. And for some parts of the country, some parts of the world, COVID has suspended seasons. So you're a member of the high school class of '23 or '24, perhaps, and that early part of high school, maybe there was no soccer season, or baseball didn't happen. What do those athletes do?
Peter Roby:
Well, to the extent that they could try to get to some camps that are-
Lee Coffin:
Camps, like summer camps.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, summer camps. There are prospect camps, they're called, that happen regionally, that are put on so that the young people can get exposure to college coaches during the recruiting windows, when the coaches are out evaluating talent. Many of the colleges nowadays have their own summer camps, sports-specific.
So it gives you a chance to visit the campus if you're not far away and can afford that. You get to see how the coaches actually interact with athletes, and how they instruct, and what their temperaments are, and how they teach the game. What the campus looks like. What's the surrounding area like? Some of the people that are working the camp as coaches could in fact be the athletes on the team, so you get a chance to see what kinds of people they are, and whether you could see yourself being friends with them and teammates with them.
So, going to a particular school and seeing if they have a camp that they offer, and if it's affordable, trying to get yourself into that camp, even if it's a day camp, will give you an opportunity to showcase your skills a little bit, but also get a chance to get a feel for the institution.
Lee Coffin:
So I have two questions based on that really interesting insight. So, one is just around affordability. So what if you're from a family that doesn't have a resource to pay the fee of a camp? Is there financial aid for camps? I mean, how does that... And how does the student find these camps?
Peter Roby:
Yeah, so obviously you'd want to be on the websites of the individual schools, if it's a school-specific camp. If it's a more of a prospect camp, you'd probably want to be talking to your high school coach or your club coach to understand what the entry requirements are for getting a space in that camp.
But you're bringing up a really important issue, which is access, and not every family can afford the fees that are associated with a club travel situation, or the high-level prospect camp, or a school's sports-specific camp. And there's no good answer that I can give folks, because if there's a financial burden, it may be difficult for you to get yourself to those camps.
And that's why I say, work with your high school coach to make sure that these coaches know that you're out there so that your season then plays a similar role, where the coaches can see video from your games and your season, or they can come to actually watch you play during your season. So that's the equalizer. Some families can afford it, others can't. But if you're a high school athlete, you have seasons' worth of information that coaches can get, but they have to know you're out there. So making contact through your coach is a good way to start.
Lee Coffin:
So, you also mentioned the temperament of the coach as one of the opportunities of a camp. And one of the things I've often said to students when I meet them from the admission side, and they're thinking broadly about athletics in colleges. So when you're a high school student, you usually don't have a choice, like you're at a certain public high school and, you know, Peter is the coach of the basketball team, and you want to play basketball, you play for Peter. [inaudible 00:37:33]
In college, you as the applicant have a decision to make which coach or coaching staff is going to be the best set of mentors, athletic... Developing your talent, right? So you might say, "I love Dartmouth as a college," but the coach in that sport at this college may not be the one you click with. I mean, is that a fair consideration for a student and parent to think about?
Peter Roby:
Oh, I think so. I think, absolutely, and it comes back to the notion that this is about what's best for you as a student, as a person, as an athlete, and you have to own this process as much as you can. And if you are interested in a particular school, you have to do as much research as you can so you know that this is the right place for you in every way.
It's interesting because when I meet or have met with prospective students who are being recruited, I've often asked the coaches to encourage them to come to my office so I can get to know them a little bit, answer questions and ask questions. And one of the things that I always tell the student and the family is, you need to own this process, and don't let the process happen to you.
So you need to be curious, you need to ask questions, and you need to hold people accountable for what it is they have done or said. So, what are you interested in studying? What do you think you're interested in studying? Are you interested in having a smaller environment where people are more connected and there's more sense of community, or do you want a bigger, sprawling, urban campus?
Are you interested that in a school that has graduate programs, or are you interested in more of the liberal arts? Professional versus liberal arts? All of that should be part of what kids are considering, and the connection to the coaching staff is a crucial one. So if you are able to get to know some of the athletes on the current team, one of the things you should be trying to get at is, "Hey, what kind of relationship do you have with the coach? Do you go in and talk with the coaching staff? Have you talked to them about what you're interested in studying? Has this experience met your expectations from when you were recruited and now that you're a junior? Is it going the way you expected it to go in terms of what they said was going to happen and what's actually happened?" All that sort of thing.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
So you got to take ownership of the process and not let the process take ownership of you.
Lee Coffin:
No, that's great advice, and when you talk about two-way street, it occurs to me that... So a student is assessing the coach and saying, "Is this a mentor? Is this the person I want to... I want to play on this team?" But you're also looking at the character of the applicants, and I'm reminded of one of the coaches I worked with when I was at Tufts who brought somebody in for a visit, and afterward said to me, "I'm dropping him as a recruit." And I said, "Oh, why? I thought he was a really talented athlete." And the coach said, "He had a really toxic personality, and it wasn't somebody I want to bring into my locker room."
And I thought, "That is so interesting." I don't think the student that the affect he brought with him to that visit was a turnoff to both the teammates... I mean, the people that would've been his potential teammates went to the coach and said, "No, please don't recruit him," and then the coach saw it too and the whole thing shifted.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, I think it's really important that it's a two-way process, and it's not just the student trying to decide if they want to go there, but it's also the staff and the school trying to decide if they want you to be part of that community. So one of the things you hear coaches talk about when they go on the road to evaluate a student athlete in their environment, whether it's at high school or in their club sport team, is they watch the interaction between the athlete and their teammates, and they watch the interaction between the athlete and their coach, and the interaction between the athlete and their parents. And the student athlete doesn't even know that the coach is watching that.
So sometimes coaches appear at events and they don't tell the athlete that they're coming, because they want to be able to watch them in their natural habitat and see if they are who they say they are. Because if you see an athlete who doesn't seem to respond to their coaches, seems to be selfish on the field or on the court with their teammates, is it all about them? Do they get on the officials? Are they disrespectful? Do they help kids up after something happens on the field or the court? Are they respectful to their coach after the game? Is there a hug and a kiss or something with their parents, or are they complaining? What's their body language like when they get substituted out of the game? You watch all that because it's telling you a lot about who you are recruiting.
Lee Coffin:
Well, and the chemistry of the team you're pretty together. As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about the moment a couple weeks ago where Antonio Brown had a tantrum on the sideline at the Tampa Bay game and ripped his jersey off and left, and I thought, "Wow," like if you're on the team, or you're one of the coaches, or whatever his motivation was, that was an episode that didn't feel like it was going to be a happy clubhouse afterwards.
Peter Roby:
Right, and there's been times where you talk to coaches about individual situations on their team, and they say, "There were some red flags and we just looked the other way because we thought they were so good that we could work with them."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
Or whatever. So those are rare, but it happens.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
So it's also the responsibility of the coaching staff to make good choices, as well as the student athletes to make good choices.
Lee Coffin:
It's very consistent with the overall admission process. I mean, you're evaluating athleticism as a type of merit in this example, but you're also looking at the whole person.
Peter Roby:
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Lee Coffin:
And, yeah, I think a lot of people don't really appreciate that, that it's not that you score a lot of goals. It's, are you collaborative? Are you a teammate? Are you a leader? Are you coachable?
Peter Roby:
Yeah, are you a good person that people are going to want to be a roommate with, or sit next to in the dining hall, or be in class together, or hang out in the dorms together, or whatever the case may be, it's like, we're going to spend a lot of time together as a community. And you hope that the community is respectful and appreciative, empathetic and generous.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I mean, it's also... It's easy to win. Having a championship season is exciting, and easy to be happy and all those things when things are going really well. But I've been on enough campuses where a team really hits a dry patch and they-
Peter Roby:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
When I was at Tufts, the football program went many seasons without a win, and the character of those players was really important because they were rebuilding. It was hard.
Peter Roby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
And the day they finally won was one of the best moments of my on-campus experience. I'll never forget that. But leading up to that, it was a lot of tears, and part of the experience of being a college athlete.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, no doubt, and one of the things that our college coach used to say to us at Dartmouth is that adversity doesn't build character. It reveals it.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, that's right. So, Peter, in the primer part of this conversation, let me ask you a few terms that get bandied about a lot in this space, just to help people understand. So let's start with just a really fundamental one. The NCAA is organized by divisions. What's the difference between I, II and III?
Peter Roby:
Right, so the difference between I, II and III, at least fundamentally, Divisions I and II offer athletic scholarships. Division III does not, at any level of Division III, whereas at Division II, the colleges are allowed to offer athletic scholarships, and it differs by college. And the number of scholarships is different between Division II and Division I depending on the sport.
So that's one way that differentiates the divisions. Obviously it differentiates by division-based schedule, and who you play, and then what post-season opportunities you would have to pursue as far as an NCAA tournament. So each of the divisions administer their own championships, and their qualifications or their criteria for qualifying for those NCAA championships differ by division, and the size of the tournament participation differs by division. So those are some of the ways that they differ.
Lee Coffin:
So if you're a really high-flying high school athlete, why would you lean towards Division III? How do you know, "I'm III, I'm I"? What's the internal conversation that happens?
Peter Roby:
Well, I think some of it is, again, comes back to your high school coach or your club coach, who probably have been very familiar with the level of talent that can thrive in any one of those divisions based on history. But it's also about you making an assessment of what you see when you watch teams play at those divisions, right?
Then another way of being able to do that is asking yourself, how much are you willing to invest in the pursuit of your college career? Because the amount of time spent on your athletics might be different at a Division III school than it is at Division I school, or the priority that that's put on it, or the balance between academics and athletics may be different depending on the division.
So all of that may be part of it. How much traveling you do at one division versus another division will also be a part of it. But I think water will find its level, and in this case, if you're good enough to play Division I, part of the way you'll know is because you're getting recruited by Division I schools as opposed to Division II and III schools.
Lee Coffin:
So that was my next phrase, getting recruited. So, my nephew was a lacrosse player of some talent, was on a club team, when he was a senior in high school, junior in high school, he started getting emails and some phone calls, and my sister would say, "Jake is getting recruited." And I said, "I don't know that he's getting recruited. There's been an inquiry," but it was confusing. I mean, it seemed like there was some interest, and ultimately there was, for one of the colleges, but how does someone... What does that mean, "I'm getting recruited"? How do you know someone is wooing you?
Peter Roby:
Well, if they're spending time calling you, or asking you for information, or actually inviting you to their campus, or talking about wanting to come and watch you play, that's getting recruited.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, so it's not that subtle?
Peter Roby:
Receiving a letter of interest is the first step in trying to figure out whether they want to recruit you or not. So they're interested in getting information about your level of interest, about your academic record, and that starts the process. You usually will fill out a questionnaire that the coaching staff has, trying to accumulate a bunch of information that tells them, are you someone that they should spend time recruiting? Because you seem to meet the criteria academically, at least in the range. You have an interest, you're at a level athletically that makes them feel like you're someone that could potentially help their roster, and if they see a reciprocal interest on your part, then there's probably going to be more follow-up.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, and then eventually you get invited for an official visit.
Peter Roby:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Lee Coffin:
What's that?
Peter Roby:
So the official visit, what that means is that the school is actually paying for you to come to their campus.
Lee Coffin:
Is That D-I, II and III, or just I?
Peter Roby:
Yes. Yep.
Lee Coffin:
All three? Okay.
Peter Roby:
…all three, and they're going to either pay for the visit or put you up on campus once you come. So in Division III, they may not pay for your visit, but once you get there, they'll make accommodation and with meals and maybe have you stay in a dorm with one of their athletes, and then they'll give you the tour and have you meet people academically. They'll meet some faculty members and others.
At our level, Division I, we pay for the visit. We can pay for up to two other people in your travel party to come, typically your guardians or your family members. 48 hours is the allotted amount of time that you can stay on a campus. So it's typically... You could be there two nights, if you will. Arrive on a Friday morning, maybe attend class, go eat with some of the athletes, stay over in the dorm, or now with COVID, stay in a local hotel. The school will pay for that. You'll go, maybe get up on Saturday, watch practice, go to some other events, watch other people play, or that team play. Go to dinner with other people on a Saturday night, have some fun socially. Sunday morning, you have a breakfast. You stay over Saturday night, so Sunday morning, you have a breakfast and you're gone by midday on Sunday.
Lee Coffin:
That's substantial.
Peter Roby:
Yeah. Oh, yeah, no, it's a commitment on the part of the college, but it's also a commitment on the part of the family.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, no, that's a really... I mean, for most applicants, when we're open, they show up for a tour and an info session, maybe they grab a cookie in the dining hall, and then they're off. So that two-day journey through a campus is really... That's a lot. So the other word that dances around here is, you'll hear someone say, "I have support," and parents will say, "We have support from a coach," or the student will say it. What does that mean?
Peter Roby:
So what that means is that we have a relationship with the admissions office. We are recruiting a certain number of athletes that the admissions office is comfortable with. And by sport, there are a certain number of athletes that can be recruited in any one class. So there's exchange of information that goes back and forth between the coaching staff and the admissions office about a particular student's background, their level of interest, how good they are, what role they might play on that particular team, but also academically.
What school do they come from? How rigorous is their curriculum academically? Have they distinguished themselves? How curious are they academically? All of that goes into a conversation with the admissions office so that when admissions is reviewing that particular person's profile, they will ask, is this somebody that you would support because you want them to come and be a part of your program?
So we don't have an unlimited number of those, and so when somebody says you have support from a particular coaching staff, that means we are vouching for this person. We would love to have them on our roster, and so if you, admissions, deem them admissible in every other way, we would love to have them.
Lee Coffin:
So if you're an athlete or a parent, you want to be listening for that pledge of support?
Peter Roby:
Right. Right. So, "Hey, coach, if I apply to school, will you support my admissions file? Will you tell the admissions office that I'm someone that you'd like to have on your team?"
Lee Coffin:
So that's the question someone should ask a coach?
Peter Roby:
Yeah, "Am I one of the people that you would support with admissions?"
Lee Coffin:
And what if someone dances around that answer?
Peter Roby:
Then you should be trying to get that answer from some other school.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, so there's a-
Peter Roby:
But it goes back to the conversation about owning the process.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
So don't be afraid to ask the tough questions. "We've heard from other schools that I am someone that they are supporting with admissions, but we haven't heard that yet from you, coach, so we're just curious as to whether I am one of those select few that you're supporting with the admissions office," and they can either answer the question or dance around it. If they dance around it, they're telling you something.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, it's a skillset. You're developing the art of listening, and you're developing the art of being a self-advocate. And I think you're also learning how to avoid the trap of hearing what you want to hear, which may not be what the coach is saying.
Peter Roby:
And don't let people hold you for ransom by saying, "Unless you tell me that you're really coming, I can't support you."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
Because that's not really fair to you. You should have the opportunity to assess, "How many schools are actually really, sincerely interested in me and want to support my candidacy."
Lee Coffin:
So, Peter, is a walk-on still a thing? And by walk-on, I mean someone who is not a recruited athlete, they got accepted to the college outside of the athletic recruitment process, and then once enrolled, they show up in the athletic center and say, "Hey, I play basketball," and you say, "Terrific, let's go dribble," that happens?
Peter Roby:
Yes, walk-ons are still a part of the Dartmouth experience, for sure. And when you think about it, we're non-scholarship.
Lee Coffin:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peter Roby:
So rosters fluctuate because students don't feel like they're stuck because they have a scholarship dangling over their head and if they were to stop participating in the sport, that the scholarship would go away. Well, that doesn't happen at Dartmouth or in the Ivy League. So we don't have to worry about that. So rosters can fluctuate from one year to the next, but that's okay. Most of the kids that get recruited here stay here and go four years and stay on the roster.
But there's always going to be an opportunity for someone who has the right stuff, that's willing to put the work in, that can catch the eye of a coach. There're not that many, but in the sport of rowing, for example, it happens a lot. And there are other sports where that could happen every now and then as well. So, yeah, walk-ons are still a part of this experience.
Lee Coffin:
So, Peter, two other questions, one important in terms of equity and one philosophic. So the equity one, you'll read in the news sometimes issues around Title IX, and the idea of gender balance on that college campus. When we see one of those stories in the news, what does it mean? What is the gender dynamic within athletics?
Peter Roby:
Yeah, so one of the prongs of being in compliance with Title IX is the participation numbers and the percentage of male athletes participating on teams versus female athletes, and how that compares to the enrollment percentages, male and female, of the school. And they're supposed to be very close in terms of the percentage of the athletics participation to the enrollment numbers. Title IX is a federal expectation, and it's a part of the tax code that was created in 1972 that says a person cannot be discriminated against on the basis of gender at institutions or organizations that receive federal funding.
Lee Coffin:
Got it.
Peter Roby:
So because colleges receive federal funding for scholarships or loans, or research, then they fall under the auspices of that particular tax requirement, and they can't discriminate.
Lee Coffin:
That's helpful. So my last question is a philosophic one. So we talked, and I know that you emerged out of New Britain, Connecticut, came to Dartmouth as a-
Peter Roby:
Hard-hitting New Britain.
Lee Coffin:
Hard-hitting New Britain, and you came to Dartmouth and you played basketball. You were a varsity basketball player at Dartmouth.
Peter Roby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
And then your career has been spent as a coach and an athletic administrator. So this is philosophic and it's personal. Some people ask me why athletics should count in college admissions. Why does athleticism matter? Why is it a type of merit that college admissions ought to recognize?
Peter Roby:
Yeah, great question. I guess I'd put it to you this way. The statistics suggest that of the almost 40 million kids between the ages of five and 18 that play youth sports, only 2% of them will ever play Division I athletics.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Peter Roby:
Only 2%. Only 5% of all the kids that play youth sports will play anything in college, 5%. So you're talking about the top of the pyramid. So why would a school not be interested in having someone come and matriculate at their institution, and impact it in a particular way, who has that kind of distinction?
This is about distinction, and all the ways that they contribute to the community. So just like we look at SAT scores, or AP scores, or entrepreneurship, extracurricular activities, we look for people that have distinguished themselves in whatever it is that they've spent most of their time on.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Peter Roby:
Because it says something to us about them, that they're willing to put the work in, that they're resilient, that they're tough-minded, that they have this really interesting perspective that would be interesting for others to get to know, that they will bring that to the conversations in class, in the study groups, or whatever. So, why is it different when it's athletics? It shouldn't be.
Lee Coffin:
Right.
Peter Roby:
There's only 2% of the people in the country who do this, that could actually ever do it at this level, Division I. So when you consider the requirements academically to gain admission to Dartmouth College and lay on top of that what it's required to be recruited as a Division I athlete, that only 2% of the country will ever be able to say they did, that makes them extraordinary.
Lee Coffin:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peter Roby:
And that's why athletics should count.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it's a talent, for all the reasons you just outlined, and I've said, recently someone asked me about athletics in our student body, and I said, "So, true or false, Dartmouth is a member of the Ivy League?" And the person said, "True, of course." And I said, "Okay, then, as an existential truth, we are a member of the NCAA Division I, as a member of that athletic league, and some members of our student body will be recruited athletes who participate on our varsity teams, period." And it was a faculty member, and said, "Never thought about it that way." I said, "No, no, it's part of our identity. It's what we do."
Peter Roby:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
But thank you for that really elegant... I mean, I teed you up a softball because I knew... Or I guess since you're a basketball player, I gave you a layup, because I knew you were going to have a really wonderful answer to that question, and I'm glad to end on that.
Peter Roby:
Yeah, thank you.
Lee Coffin:
So, Peter, thanks for joining us on The Admission Beat. This is been such an interesting and insightful conversation that I think is interesting for people who have children who want to be college athletes, but also for people like Charlotte, who is listening and smiling as we record this. So, thanks, Peter, so much.
Peter Roby:
It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me-
Lee Coffin:
You're welcome.
Peter Roby:
... and really honored to be on today.
Lee Coffin:
Of course. So that's another edition of The Admissions Beat. If you like, what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find your podcasts. Until next week, this is Lee Coffin and Charlotte Albright. See you later.