The GU football program does a great job of hosting and bringing recruits along on visits to check out the campus and get a college experience. Even during these rough times, the GU coaches still find a way to get the attention of recruits and are doing their best to give them a view of the campus. It’s important that recruits get the best possible experience and that they understand what’s being asked of them at the collegiate level.
There must be lots of questions as to how the football program manages to have weekly recruit visits from recruits all across the country. How are the coaches managing to do this? They are using ZOOM! The coaching staff creates a Zoom chat to get all of the recruits together in one single chat room and give them a tour of campus and show them what the program is all about. They also are told what is expected for the incoming freshman when it comes to learning plays, understanding their role in the position that they are being recruited for, and what the theme of the program is as a whole.
Coaches are showing the hard work that they put in even if there is no face-to-face interaction and it goes to show how much love and passion they have for the program and these players. Even through these tough times, all of us need to look towards God and have faith in him and allow him to guide us all on our paths to success. Coach Schomaker, for example, has himself and his coaching staff pray for his players daily which is very important and goes to show recruits how love and faith is integrated into the program. It is important that these coaches show interest in their future players because that is going to give recruits a first-hand glimpse of how invested these coaches are in them.
When Coach Brandon Grant was asked how this idea came about for the coaches to host virtual visits for recruits and the benefits of this, his response was, “As a coaching staff we had our staff meetings virtually on Zoom due to this pandemic and quarantine. We then decided to try out to have recruits join our Zoom chats specifically made for them so that way Coach Flannery and myself could go around and show them the campus and the facilities that we have here at Greenville. I do believe that this way through Zoom gives them the opportunity of a real-life experience and I really like and enjoy the idea that they are able to ask questions on the chat about either campus life, what the meal plan is like, or how it feels to be a part of the community. The only downfall I would say that is you can’t have too many people on one call and that is because it takes a lot to try to hold a big meeting; that is why with our virtual meetings we tend to have 6 to 7 recruits max.”
Having recruit visits virtually was a huge step in the right direction for the football coaches at Greenville, which led to their ultimate goal of recruiting as many players as possible for their program. Catch the new Panthers on the field this fall.
