Personal Contributions #2 – Connor Roswech

One of the ways in which I felt I made a direct impact this summer was helping our coaches schedule recruiting visits. There is a lot of work that goes into making official visits happen, as the recruit and his family will stay in Richmond for a weekend, with all of their expenses covered by the school. I was responsible for planning meals, creating the itinerary, arranging rental cars, and setting up the family’s hotel room. I have helped with multiple official visits in the past three years but have never been as involved as I was this summer. I spent many hours not only putting the itinerary itself together, but also creating the graphics that went along with the schedule. I printed both into nice booklets that I distributed to the recruit and his family, making sure that they knew the schedule for the weekend. We had two big official visits in mid-June, and I felt that both tested my technical skills on the computer, and many of my personal and social skills as I was required to be friendly and make small talk with families and recruits that may not have been very personable or talkative. Regardless of their level of interaction, it was my job to create a warm and friendly atmosphere, and under no circumstances could I let the awkwardness of the situation deter me from making conversation. There were surely uncomfortable moments, as none of us had ever met each other before, but the coaches assured me that this is all normal and part of the job. Many seventeen-year-old high school boys are very awkward as it is, and can be even more shy when with their parents, so that was certainly an obstacle to navigate. My perspective on our official visits has definitely changed as well, after my level of involvement has increased. One observation that I made this summer was how much the coaches try to stress the authentic, genuine, family atmosphere of our program. As a small private school in the Atlantic 10 conference, University of Richmond cannot compete with bigger schools in terms of facilities, team gear, strength of schedule, student-athlete treatment, and of course, NCAA Tournament appearances. However, the nucleus of the coaching staff is extremely stable, as Coach Mooney has led the program for fifteen years now. Mooney’s staff extends an enormous amount of effort into keeping players at UR for all four years of their college career, and the authenticity of the coaches and their intentions is something that really stood out to me on these visits. An authentic and genuine nature is not common amongst Division 1 coaches, and is not common among people in general, so many recruit’s parents are blown away by our staff and how professional and friendly they are. These are qualities I hope to emulate as well as I enter the field of coaching after graduation.