The Best Compliment You Can Get
It’s June, which means it’s time to get back on the road and criss-cross the country looking for the next great Raptor.
This weekend marks what I consider to be the start of the summer recruiting season. For each of my now three years at Bard, Yale Elite Camp signifies the end of May and the beginning of the summer grind.
The first weekend is always bittersweet. It means that my birthday is over, Memorial Day Weekend has come and gone and the 2015 season is in the past. But more so, it means a chance to get back on the road and into gyms all over the country searching for the next great Bard Raptor.
That’s incredibly exciting, especially considering how thrilled we have been with each of our past two recruiting classes during my time at Bard. I know where those successes come from and it’s a direct result of the amount of work that Coach Turner, Coach Phillips, (Coach Greenstein the year before) and myself put in during the summer recruiting months.
Because of this equation, there’s no better compliment to hear than the one I heard today. “Wow, Coach. We see you Bard guys EVERYWHERE!”
Our goals are numerous, including winning games, shaping young men’s lives for four years and representing our institution, but at the forefront of what we do, being the hardest working coaches and staff around is something we strive for.
So when two different coaches today told me that they see me and our staff at every single event, it meant a lot. It’s nice to be recognized for how hard we work and for the results that we have been achieving lately. Everybody says that they work hard and they love the grind of recruiting, but I truly believe that in my two-plus seasons of working for Coach Turner now, it has been instilled in me that we HAVE to outwork other people in order to succeed and that’s something I plan on taking with me no matter where I end up, be it No Name University or the University of Kentucky.
My first season when I spent 3 and 1/2 hours driving each way to and from the St. Andrew’s School in Rhode Island for countless games, it was so rewarding to hear legendary coach Mike Hart recognize how hard our coaching staff and I were working. Now that multiple people have made that point, I realized it’s not a fluke, it’s a habit that we have built and a reputation we have earned. And I believe that habit is what is going to turn us into a championship team.
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