recruiting

Maybe this topic has already been explored (people were discussing it a bit on another thread), but I'm just curious as to how the recruiting process works, for anyone that's familiar with it.

Does Coach have a bunch of contacts all over Canada or something that recommend players to him? How much do the assistant coaches travel to meet with prospective student-athletes? Does Schafer ever go out there himself? Where does the money for recruiting trips (for students and coaches) come from? How much interaction do the coaches and players get so they can really know the player's character, intelligence, style of play, etc. other than whats in the stat sheet for their previous teams? Why do we stay away from certain areas, ie. no contacts there, poor results in the past, etc.? And conversely, why is the recruiting heavily centered in other areas (namely parts of Canada)?

Taking the last question first, we go where the talent is. US talent is especially problematic because it tends to be centered in the M states, all of which are represented by local teams (Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, and Massachusetts).

For years virtually the entire Cornell roster came from the "golden triangle" of the Toronto/Ottawa areas of Ontario. Cornell started pulling in more western recruits (especially Alberta and BC) in the late 80's, probably not coincidentally because former Red coach Lou Reycroft was working as a scout out there.

Whenever you string together a couple of good years recruiting out of an area, you start to develop a base from which to recruit further. Plus, there are probably coaches at individual places who have ties to Cornell or have an especially good relationship with former and/or current Cornell coaches. There are also ex-players and parents to fill in the network.

As far as the M.O. goes, I'll leave that to somebody who knows. I get the impression that the assistant coaches make all the set-up trips and Mike goes for the closing.

Also, with lots of eastern US colleges recruiting heavily in the East and western colleges generally sticking with home-grown talent, the western Canadian talent had been largely untapped.